Free How I Left the National Grid by Guy Mankowski Page A

each song. The minute an instrument was left alone it would scream out, like it was being neglected. We’d try and stem the blood with towels roadies left on the amps. Still crisp from the night before.
    Theo looked down, trying to find his way into the song.
    It’s a song you have to throw yourself into. Jack’s drums struggle to stay on top of this serrated guitar line Simon makes, by pulling the jack out of his guitar. Using the static tip of it to hammer discordant noise.
    The riff went with this beat you use your body for. Theo’s bassline sitting high on the song. Driving it to the chorus.
    Except now he couldn’t do that. The throb we had come to expect throughout the song wasn’t there. He’d replaced it with a hard, three-note riff he was hammering out. Off-time. Throwing us all.
    Deliberately.
    In this song I had to shout lyrics in time to him. By nodding us in, and changing his part he knew I’d be lost.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted.
    Jack, looking between us. Trying to hold it down.
    The audience wondering what the hell we were doing to the song.
    Simon knew it was about to fall apart. It’s the worst thing in the world, disintegrating in public like that. There was a TV crew too, cameras focusing every time I stood still.
    Simon stood at the tip of the stage, black t-shirt clinging to his body. Hands reaching out, almost touching him. By that point of the tour he was unravelling. He’d watched
Taxi Driver
one too many times the night before and shaved his hair into a Travis Bickle Mohican. He pulled out the jack for one scintillating riff, until the audience roared their recognition and then, shooting a look at Theo, he pulled close to me and stamped on his pedal.
    Started mimicking Theo’s original part.
    Pushing Theo out of the song.
    I had seconds to find my way in. Closing my eyes, trying to get on top of that rhythm. Any minute now, I had to dictate it.
    ‘They say it’s progress,’
I started, feeling my voice fill the room,
‘I call it rejection. They say it’s happiness. I call it dejection.’
    This beloved hymn. The crowd chanting the song up at us.
    ‘They say we can never go back, that the door is closed.’
    I opened my eyes. Theo crouched over his bass. Simon was so closeto me I could now smell the blood under his nose.
    ‘But I don’t think they can close it now.’
    The song sped up, pushing to the chorus. Way ahead of time, Theo churning through the chorus riff.
    I lost the moment to come in. Balled my fists, screamed at the ceiling.
    Simon wheeled round to Theo. Nodding at him, coaxing him back into the song. Licking the blood that collected at the corner of his mouth. Specks of it, I saw, were on Theo’s cheek.
    Theo stood at the foot of the stage. Burning the bass riff for the outro.
    In his own world.
    Simon pushed a pedal and went closer to him, stood at his side. Until the fretboards of their guitars seemed like they could touch at any moment. Like a pilot guiding another down to the runway.
    We were improvising, in front of thousands of people.
    Off the map.
    Jack sped up, trying to smother the confusion with skill.
    The crowd baying. Us, moments from collapsing in full view.
    ‘Find the chorus,’ Simon was shouting, to us all. ‘Twice round and then into the chorus. Got it?’
    ‘You are fucking dead,’ I shouted at Theo.
    ‘Got it,’ he shouted back, Jack nodding.
    I grabbed the mike, shouting the words to the chorus. The crowd surged forward in one tidal wave, joining in. Simon and Theo threw their heads back.
    ‘Stick with the song, for Christ’s sake,’ Simon shouted.
    I was welded to the microphone. It was my turn to take charge. My fingers crackling down the stand, my lips braced to be stung by static off the mike.
    It was a living nightmare.
    It made me feel alive.
    I closed my eyes, guided us to the outro. Not daring to look at Theo, praying for his sake he would keep playing along. Feeling the slow blazeof the guitar line, waiting for the