20 years-old's summer vacation

I don't know where Olivia learned how to edit, but the video where we cover Shinsei Kamattechan looks so cool, like it's edited by professional.

The videos that we sent to Olivia were, pretty amateurish, well because we're amateurs. From not so great lighting, to weird angles and position, and just plain skill issue where we make mistakes.

She's carrying the whole band when it comes to video making, she's a wizard.

I forgot if I've 'told our fans that we're playing at the town square later, lately I just spend my days watching youtube videos like vsauce, I understand zero of the videos but it's somehow entertaining to just watch and listen him explain things like if chairs exist or not or what is randomness, but most of the time I left the video on the background just for background noise while I'm scrolling socials or sleeping. I'm pretty sure there are people that tune into my stream or listen to my music and just leave it in the background. I'm not complaining, because I'm guilty of it myself, but I wish at least for my music, they actually listen to it at least once.

I think I'll tell them later as a surprise, post something when we get there or something like that.

I wonder if other performers get bothered if there are crowd that are coming just for us or maybe someone else, because they probably want people to notice them right? if I just take all the crowd for ourselves, would they get upset and leave? It's not like the internet where your audience is as big as the internet, in a public space the audience is as big as there is people around.

I don't want to take the audience away from them, but I don't know what can I do about it. Maybe if there is like a stage so we can take turn using it so we're not competing to get people to watch us and instead we can share audience?

But if they are doing this to get money, they won't get any when performing on stage? Because the performer will probably up there on the stage, and the people below would be not giving any money because it's just weird, and if they don't know that it's a street performer the thought of giving money wouldn't even cross their mind.

I don't know why am I even thinking about this, there is nothing I can do about it, but I do feel bad for a little bit, we come from nowhere while they who probably been doing that for quite a while, now have no one that watch them.

I swear to god if i can't stop thinking about this I'll just end myself.

I'll rehearse my part for a little bit, and maybe sleep if there is enough time.

Oh crap, I overslept and it's already almost seven, I better pack everything quickly and run to the station before I'm late!

I changed to my school uniform as quickly as possible, then I just need to put my guitar into its case, then my little amp, my laptop, I would like to bring a mic, but I don't have stand for it, so I can't even use it while I'm playing guitar, and where do I plug it to anyway?

Hopefully my voice are not drowned by them though, especially the drums, because they're loud as hell, which makes me sort of understand why Olivia's parents get angry every time she plays it while her parents are at home.

I'll bring it anyway just in case that some random person brought a mic stand for some reason, who knows?

I run straight to the train station, hop into the train, and then drop off the train and run straight to the town square.

Where are they? I reach for my phone in my pocket, and it's gone, did I just forget to bring it? I'm such an idiot, god dammit, you stupid swine.

And now I just realized, I feel so exhausted from running, I don't know how I can even run half of that, the power of panic is powerful, it can make me forget that I'm such an unathletic slob.

I'll look around for a little bit, this place is not that big, I think, maybe.

I look around and got nothing, though not for long, they're waiting back there, minus Olivia who is maybe late again, that girl is something.

I walk there like a zombie, "Sorry, I'm late."

"Are you running from your home? I'll buy drinks for you, just wait here." Hanako, before she walks away before I can say it's fine.

Shiina and Hanako already got their stuff sorted, and now Shiina is noodling with her bass to pass time, she probably doesn't notice that I'm here because she's too focused on playing her bass.

I'll set up my stuff too while waiting Hanako to come back.

I've read online that I can use my laptop to add effects even on live setting, but I also heard that it will have some delay, might as well try it, if it's bad then it's part of the charm that you won't get outside of a live setting. So I just plug my usb interface thing to my laptop, and then plug my guitar into it, and then just regular old aux cable from my laptop to the amp.

It looks jank, it is jank, but whatever.

I think I've seen a video online where it's better to basically max out the input volume and then adjust at the output, so let me try that as well.

We're going to play for an hour or so, and we even made a setlist, we're a professional band now, even though the only money we made is from the youtube views, which for now, is not a lot.

"Shiina, I forgot the setlist, can you show me? I forgot to bring my phone too."

She is surprised and almost dropped her bass, it's like she just woke up. "Ah! yes!" then she quickly open her phone and then shows it to me.

"Wait, let me write it on my laptop."

It's 15 songs, and more than half of it are covers, and mostly just songs that I like, like Shinsei Kamattechan or Ajikan, and the songs are pretty simple because less than 2 weeks for learning that much song is quite a lot actually, at least for me.

And then for posting on the socials, I forgot to bring my phone, oh I can post it on my laptop, just need some internet, "Shiina. can you turn on your tethering for a bit? I want to post something." She turns on the tethering, but the password, "the password?"

"It's natsuzoracider all lowercase without space."

It works! and then for a photo, this might be a stupid idea. I unplug everything from my laptop, open the camera app, and then lift my laptop up in the air with my right hand, make sure that the instruments are in the shot, and then use my left hand to press capture.

Thank god laptops are light nowadays, can't imagine lifting that thing one handed with those thick bricks.

It looks bad, as laptop camera always been. Then I just need to upload it to my socials and then for the caption it's just "we're doing a free concert at the city's town square in around 45 minutes! come and see us!" that works.

I put my laptop on top of my guitar case in front of me so it doesn't sit on the ground, and my amp just right beside it.

Hanako will perform at the right side and Shiina will do it at the left side, while Olivia is behind us.

Now speaking of Olivia, where the hell she is?

"Ruru! I got your tea." Hanako finally comes back, and she knows me because she brings me a tea.

I grab the tea she gave me, "Did Olivia say anything about being late?"

"She did say she's late, but not by how much."

"How did she function everyday?"

Then someone riding a bike, with a huge thing behind it come, it's Olivia.

"What the-" me, surprised by her way of thinking, "can't you just use taxi instead carrying all those things with your bike?"

She just bring her drums with her bike, somehow, without any of it falling. She carries all of her cymbals and hi hat in the cymbal bags that she put all over her, and then she put her kick, snare, and tom, including stands and pedals, at the back,

She yells back at me, "I don't want to pay for a taxi, they're stupidly expensive for no reason! Anyway, help me put these down, Ruru you hold the bike, and Hanako please help too.

So as she instructed, I just hold the bike so it doesn't knock over while Olivia is untying the drums and then try to pick it one by one from the top, which she has to tiptoe to reach the snare up top.

She then knock the drums and everything is falling apart, not literally, but kinda, her drums now are on the ground.

"None of this would happen if you stop being cheap, you know?" Hanako said with a mocking tone in it.

Olivia who is still picking up her stuff from the ground, is upset after hearing that, "I don't have money, okay?! I'm not rich like you, I can't just take money out of my ass and get a taxi!"

I'm holding her shoulder trying to calm her down, "O-olivia, let's calm down for a sec." I realized there is still one bottle of tea left, I grabbed it quickly and offer it to Olivia, "here's a tea, I'll set your drums and you just relax there and guide me, okay?"

She stands up and says "Thank you." but side-eyed Hanako, oh god this is the worst, I hope they're not actually mad at each other and get along soon.

While setting up the drums I was thinking, Olivia was probably just too tired to think straight at that moment, especially after riding a bike that far away with these much things to carry, and then someone told you to not being cheap and mocks you like that.

Olivia's parents are pretty strict about money, they don't give her much pocket money so she always spend as little as possible, and when her parents are not around she usually have to spend her own money to buy food, so she might actually have very little money right now.

"Ruru, did you not bring a mic?" Olivia asks me.

"I brought one, but I don't have a stand for it."

"Ah, I see, well that sucks. I'll try to play a bit quieter then."

"Hey! have you started yet?" someone's calling, I turn my head, it's Yuuko. "We're still preparing, you're early."

"Who is she?" Olivia asked.

"Oh, she's the girl I told you last week."

"I'm Yuuko, nice to meet you."

"I-i'm Olivia, nice to meet you t-too."

I have an idea that might be very stupid, "Yuuko, would you like to do the honor of playing guitar for us tonight?" I don't know why I said it like that, it sounded horrible, I even flinched for a little bit after I realized how cringe it is.

"But I don't even know what the songs are."

Well what was I expecting, but I still have something else, "Can you read tabs while playing?"

"I don't know."

"Well, let's try then, I'll look up all the tabs for songs that we will play tonight on my laptop, and you read it from my laptop while we're performing."

I'm sure she's thinking that I might be insane or somewhere along the lines, which I don't disagree with, "I'll do it!"

Oh, well if she is making mistakes it's just part of the charm of live performance isn't it? I'm coping so hard right now.

I plug my mic to the amp, and now I can just sing without worrying that my sound might get drowned.

Now I just need to look for all the tabs for the cover songs and for our own songs, I just say that it's either this chord progression or the other one and pretty much it, and I also suggested her to listen to the song while playing.

After I got all the tabs, and everything is ready, we're ready to start the performance.

So I said we're starting in about 45 minutes, we still have 15 minutes.

"Shiina, are you okay with me streaming using your data? I'll pay too if you want."

"I'm good! I have unlimited data."

Well that's a relief, so I turn open the software I use for streaming and start live on youtube, though the angle might be ultra weird since my laptop is under us, they might only see panty shot from there, which some people might like it.

"You guys ready?"

They all give a thumbs up.

I don't know what to say, or yell, or whatever to attract people's attention, I don't know why, usually it's fine, but I'm kinda nervous right now. I can just shout "we're Natsuzora Cider" or whatever, but how did I follow up to that? and I can't see anyone that is stopping by, so it's a bit awkward if we play without anyone watching, it's weird.

It's not like I never did this, I have, twice even, but I don't know why this time I don't know what to do.

"Ruru, just do it like you usually do." said Olivia.

I took a deep breath, and then shout "We are Natsuzora Cider! please come and see us!"

Then Olivia starts counting, we will play "Ruru's Suicide Show on a Livestream", this is not about me, it's not even my song, it's a tribute to someone who jumped from a building in a livestream.

Playing this song reminds me of the painful days of high school, when sometimes suicidal thoughts crosses my mind when I get bullied again for I don't know how many times. The bridge is so painful to sing, not because it's hard, because it's depressing but still kind of upbeat at the same time.

A few people is stopping to see us, and we're just one song in, I think everything will be fine.

After that we're playing another cover song, my strategy is we will catch their attention with "popular" songs and then we play our own songs when we got a crowd, but calling it a strategy sounds like I just want to get people watch me and not just having fun playing, but I want both.

8 songs in, we already have quite a bit of people around us, and I can see someone carrying a sign with my name on it, it's embarrassing seeing that in a public space, I need to tell them to tone down that because I can't handle it.

I probably should change the lyrics of this song, I wrote it when I was alone and now everything changed in a month, a lot of this have happened since then. "This is our song, 20 year-old's summer vacation!"

This year I've become 20
The world is moving without me
Even though I say summer is here
I don't go anywhere

I'm living in the past
Terrible summer is running away
The uniform that you gave me
I will wear it right now

How is it in college?
Not fun, I ran away
Summer vacation has come
An eternal vacation, with no plans

I keep pedalling my bike away and I passed my 20th birthday
I pretend to not notice and start running
The uniform that you gave me
I will wear it right now

I yelled "I turned 20"
At my bedroom
I don't want the neighbor to hear
I wonder how you're doing

I keep pedalling my bike and keep living
That annoying summer has ran away
Where are you and what are you doing?
It doesn't matter but I care
I run as everything changes
The uniform that you gave me
I will wear it right now

Everyone is clapping their hands, they like it! "Thank you everybody!"

I have to change the lyrics on the fly because it is barely relevant anymore right now, incredible how much stuff happened in a month.

We followed that song with all of Shinsei Kamattechan's summer vacation songs, to keep the theme of summer vacation going, and then mellowed instantly with "Last Summer Voice", "Father" .

We ended the show around 9. it's a big success, everyone likes it, and we attracted a lot of attention, and it's super fun.

After everything is over, seems like Hanako and Olivia have made up together, Hanako brought Olivia's drums to her home with a taxi, while Olivia cycles back to her home.

And I go home with a huge smile and sore throat.