Heavy Tulsa III

We met up outside the backstage area around 8 a.m. He looked awful, but that had been his plan.

He didn’t say much—just sat there sipping from a sports drink. Between the Oklahoma sun, the alcohol, and the coke, he was probably running on fumes.

“Thanks, Wes. I needed this,” he said.

I figured he meant the drink. And maybe the silence.

“I haven’t been able to let go in a long time,” he said quietly. “Might not get the chance again.”

His voice was calm. Too calm.

By then I was already ignoring texts from Jim and Kenny. They’d find us eventually. I just hoped Scott would eat something and maybe get some sleep before they did.

I’d been awake since yesterday—just barely running on caffeine. The highs and lows of the weekend were catching up to me. Even with all my prep, the festival had torn me down. I was hoping to crash after breakfast, then start my caffeine bender a couple hours before our set.

Somewhere between ten and eleven, I came to. I was still in my chair. Courtney was running her fingers through my hair.

Scott was gone. Kenny had taken his spot beside me.

“Don’t panic,” Kenny said softly. “We found both of you passed out earlier. Jim’s with Scott—helping him eat and rehydrate. Caleb’s with them.”

“That’s good. He looked like shit earlier,” I muttered. “Fifty-six hour benders’ll do that.”

Kenny shook his head. “I can’t believe he was still coherent. I went twenty-seven and thought I was gonna die.”

For once, Kenny sounded genuinely reflective. That surprised me.

Courtney went quiet for a beat.

“Yeah,” she said. “My brother might have a problem.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help it.

“What’s so funny, Wes?” Her voice sharpened.

“I see where you get it from.”

I kept my tone light, but the words hit harder than I meant.

The silence that followed had teeth. A quiet, stinging kind of pain.

She stood and walked off without another word. Kenny followed.

Guess I had the rest of the day to myself.

Time to prepare.

***

As the clock struck 11, we were finished with soundcheck and hanging out backstage for the stage we were actually playing. The main stage was enormous—a converted WWII aircraft hanger with a standing room capacity of over 120,000. This stage, the smallest of the three, was about six-hundred yards from the mainstage with a logical capacity of 15,000. However, after the mainstage headliners wrapped at 11:15, most people migrated here, pushing the overflow to uncountable numbers.

The backstage area was busy. Most of the bands who didn’t leave after they played were hanging out, partially to see us and partially to just finish their benders strong. Caleb was sitting on a table, noodling on his Les Paul with one of the other bands.

Courtney was with Kenny, chatting. This would be the first time all weekend Courtney was truly on her own. I didn’t know how that would go.

The sounds of the main stage died down and people started migrating. 11:27. It was time to run the intro track.

Sweet Emotion rang out through the festival grounds, summoning a crowd who wasn’t ready to go home to their boring lives. I stopped thinking logically.

“Kenny!” I yelled across the stage. “Climb the speakers on your side… Do you have a blade?”

He nodded. Knowing what I wanted to do.

We both got a good cut across our right forearms before scaling the fifteen foot speakers on the front of the stage. As the intro track faded out, we stood with our right arms raised straight, blood dripping down onto our boots. The lighting team understood the assignment with us cast in white spot lights while Scott and Jim were draped in red.

A quick strobe light flashed for three seconds and we hit the opening riffs to Icarus. After the first chorus, we signalled to the stage hands to catch us as we dropped down to the stage. We weren’t replicating the Lowell jump.

We were swinging hard through the first two songs of our set. My blood was everywhere—I cut deeper than I realized. It wasn’t going to become a matter of life and death, but I had to stay back from the crowd to avoid becoming a hazmat issue.

“Tulsa, y’all are beautiful. I recognize a lot of your faces up front—thanks for partying with me this weekend. This is called Indigo Dream.”

Past the midway point in the set, I finally had a chance to look out to the crowd during the transition to Darker Days. There were probably thirty or forty-thousand people just vibing to our set.

It felt like the earth itself tilted under the weight of all those bodies pressing forward.

I noticed that both side stages were being shown on the Mainstage screens, which helped since no one past one hundred yards out could see us.

I was glad that Kenny held the song together live, because even I was getting lost in Scott’s performance. He was pushing his voice in ways I’d never heard before. Every sustained note had so much depth and pain behind it.

I had to match him in the solo—could I?

I started thinking about Courtney and Skye… trying to find something in my soul to play for. I closed my eyes and thought about how Skye would have felt if I let Courtney have her way on Saturday. I hated myself for something I never did.

That was the feeling I needed. The rich Les Paul sustains ringing into the Oklahoma night.

As the song ended, Caleb turned the corner.

“When did you learn to play like that?” He said.

“If you know this next one, sing it with me… this is Electric Eye,” Scott’s voice echoed into the night, the crowd erupting for a drunk sing along.

Kenny, Caleb, and I made it to the front of the stage, feet on monitors, guitars pointed out: The way Judas Priest intended it. All of our exhaustion and fatigue was gone. The energy was overwhelming.

“Give it up for Caleb Rondeau!”

We dove into the rest of our set list, riding the momentum.

By the time we made it to Little Lies, I was spent. I’d given everything I had.

I saw Stan smiling from the side of the stage—he was testing me. He wanted to see if I could push past my limit.

I grabbed my Firebird as Scott announced this would be the last song of the night. I stepped up on Jim’s bass drum.

“Jim—I’m going to free lance the intro and outro. Follow my cues.”

“Bet.”

I turned and strutted to the front of the stage thinking I was Keith Richards. I stepped past the monitors, leaning my face and my headstock over the crowd as I tore into the opening guitar solo. One handed legato work led to big vibrato passes before an e flat fermata brought in the rest of the band.

We were giving the last energy we had. Kenny and I were dangerously slamming into everything in our path. The spectacle pulled the last coherence from the crowd.

Scott and I ended up back-to-back for the ending coda. I was pulling everything I had, sweat and blood soaking through my clothes and hair. He was shaking. The moment we stopped, we’d both collapse.

“We are Embers of Twilight, Heavy Tulsa—you guys are the best, we love you!” Scott yelled before handing the mic over to Stan.

We walked off the stage into the arms of other bands. This wasn’t like back home. These affirmations weren’t empty.

We’d survived.