Performance

It was New Year’s Eve and I was exhausted.

Rehearsing Invisible with Ozean Horizon wasn’t that difficult. I typically operated out of Boston and New York during my daily role as Twilight Reverie’s director of artist development, so carving out time to drive to Providence to work with them wasn’t much of a hassle.

The biggest weights on me during the build up were twofold: First, avoiding the media after the announcement that I was returning to the stage. Second, dealing with my blossoming feelings for Kiia.

The media would have been easier if I wasn’t regularly jumping on podcasts and radio shows to talk about another one of the bands I oversee, Savage Hope, having a new album out and an arena tour kicking off. I tried to keep those interviews on course, but there was always a question or two about my relationship with OH and why I waited until the last day of 2022 to make my return to the stage.

I dodged the questions, and usually if I called into an interview, I would just hang up at the line of questioning.

The situation with Kiia would be a lot easier if it were any other two people on the planet. As a frontwoman in a male-dominated industry, her fifteen year career with OH was truly a flagbearing moment for women in music. Add on that she was never in a highly publicized relationship and had a don’t need love attitude, things were complicated before adding me into the equation. As early as 2013, any woman I dated was treated poorly in the media for clout chasing, and I became a walking red flag between being intentionally cheating when I was younger alongside the fallout of the homewrecker situation with Tara and Ava. If all of that wasn’t enough, I just signed her to her major label debut. Casting couch rumors would be everywhere.

Leading up to the show, we didn’t see as much of each other as I would have liked, but I chose my job over my heart.

These two problems were a good distraction from how anxious I was to be back on stage after what happened last time.

***

“Mr. Rondeau, fifteen minutes until Ozean Horizon takes the stage,” came in through my in-ears backstage.

The green room, like everything else in Times Square in December, was not immune to the elements. The slight chill of the low-40s helped me concentrate on what was in front of me, rather than the obfuscation in my mind.

Kiia emerged behind me after pacing around the room for the thousandth time that night.

“Okay, so we’re opening with Skeletons for our fans, then Curbside Dreaming, and finally, you’ll step out to join us for Invisible,” Kiia said, reassuring herself while repeating the plan for the hundredth time.

“Nervous?” I asked, projecting.

“A little bit. All of the production cameras are new for me,” she said, wrapping her hands around my hips to slide her hands into my jacket pocket. “Sorry, my hands are a little cold.”

What? My brain short circuited.

We stood like that until she was paged to the stage in her in-ears.

“I’ll see you in less than ten minutes,” she said, stepping onto the catwalk to the stage.

My eyes were glued to the monitor in the room as the anticipation reached its peak. The green room didn’t get the audio feed on the TV, but you could hear the faint echoes of the performance from the stage that was only two hundred yards away. I was trying to fixate on anything I could to distract myself from myself.

I was entranced by her the moment the cameras grabbed her. Her hair was down, flowing with her long leather coat and all black ensemble, juxtaposed against the lighter shade of her gray guitar. This wasn’t the Kiia that I saw at a festival in Tulsa a decade ago, that shy and plucky girl didn’t exist anymore. Maybe I’d learn how she became this woman one day.

The minutes passed quickly and my heart rate was spiking. Despite my best efforts to remain distracted, the intrusive thoughts kept winning.

You don’t deserve this. It’s your fault Richie’s gone.

Six years after BTR came to its end, and I still hadn’t moved on.

Before I could spiral any further, my in-ear buzzed, summoning me to the stage. I thought about not going, bowing to the phantom of Richie’s resentment, and my fear once again. But I heard her voice through the doorway, and knew I’d regret not going more.

I had tunnel vision during my walk along the catwalk. A stage hand met me three-quarters of the way to hand me my guitar and walk me to my entrance. I was going to emerge on stage from a riser as a layer of fog engulfed the stage; this felt like it was either Tony or Mr. Borgen’s idea.

As I emerged on stage, my in-ears changed over to the stage mix. I was greeted by Kiia thanking the crowd, and her introduction to the song Invisible.

Through the fog, my tunnel vision was worse than ever. I was trying not to black out from the anxiety of performing again. In my panic, I missed the opening drum cue, but I fixated on the familiar black outline at the front of the stage.

The world didn’t become clear to me, I didn’t escape my mind fog, but I was able to focus on her. As long as I was focusing on her with all of my senses, I could do this.

I found my place in the song and emerged on the right side of center stage, the stage hands had adjusted from one center vocal to two in the sea of fog before I appeared on stage. I was committing a tragic sin as a musician and following Kiia’s voice for cues and transitions instead of the drums.

At the chorus, I found my voice in hers, and the harmonies soared through the New York sky. This was starting to feel the way it did when I was young, when I enjoyed it.

I was playing freely, feeding off and following Kiia wherever she was going to take me in this performance. During the bridge, she stepped beside me so that she stayed in my line of sight while I sang alone for the first time. I could tell I was on pitch, and the crowd reaction was stronger than I deserved.

As we transitioned to the solo, I lost my self control, and began veering off what I had put on the record. I heard her performance so many times, I let myself be taken away by it. We were facing each other at the front of the stage as I was adlibbing my part to harmonize and play off her vibrato and note choices. This was the kind of magic you could never capture in a recording studio.

When the song ended, the crowd was overwhelming. I knew that they had played a great set, filled with a ton of emotion, but I didn’t think I added that much value to the closing number. As we walked off stage, the rest of the band went ahead, leaving Kiia and I alone.