Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Felicia In The Mix ❯ Part 2: Pages 3-7 ( Chapter 2 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: jakewashere 
The Thursday night show, where our reporter gets a unique view of his subject's musical abilities -- or maybe I should say her musical POWERS... (A touch of songfic here.)
Anime/Manga: Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Fantasy / Comedy | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 11.05.2010 | Updated On: 11.05.2010 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.8K | Visits: 386 | Status: Work In Progress
The Thursday night show, where our reporter gets a unique view of his subject's musical abilities -- or maybe I should say her musical POWERS... (A touch of songfic here.)
Anime/Manga: Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Fantasy / Comedy | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 11.05.2010 | Updated On: 11.05.2010 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.8K | Visits: 386 | Status: Work In Progress
[Pages 3-7]
----
You know how you'll hear some incredible new singer or band, and you'll talk to your friends and acquaintances about it? And it's usually the insufferable hipster, the one who makes a point of knowing a little about everything (and of being cynical about it, too), the guy about whom you sometimes wonder why you're still friends, who always delivers the sentence of ultimate condemnation: "Nah, I hear they suck live."
And it's almost like a curse: every one of your favorite bands, when you go to hear them live -- it turns out a lot of them do suck. Not that they're uniformly AWFUL, it's just that their live sound doesn't compare to their last album. Maybe they're having an off night, maybe they really need to fire their damned sound guy, maybe they need a studio environment in order to sound the way they want to sound... but anyhow, they don't quite live up to expectations.
A Felicia show is not like that.
One is relieved and overjoyed to find the occasional exception to the rules, a musical act that sounds even better live; these are the shows that one brags about having seen for years afterward. And seeing Felicia is worth bragging about... The facts are really quite basic: if you haven't heard her live, you haven't heard her.
----
It's ten minutes to showtime at The Joint, and the place is packed. Strictly SRO. Peeping out from the stage-right wings, where I'm standing among about a dozen busy roadies, I realize that the Fire Marshal would crap solid-gold bricks if he saw this room -- there's far more than four thousand people here. They've taken every seat in the balcony. The VIP boxes along both sides are full of older, richer people who have paid formidable amounts for those seats; not one of them is paying the least attention to the luxury-suite amenities. They've already gotten the drinks they ordered and are now gazing intently toward the stage, bare except for the drum kit, the keyboards, the amps and the monitors (and the occasional roadie re-checking the connections). The general-admission "seating" is crammed full of people like sardines in a tin; the upper decks behind the floor and full of people who want a good vantage point and don't mind standing. Some of them are looking, curious, into the mixing- board pit in the middle of the general admission area, from which the sound and lighting men (most of them; Jon-or-John will remain on standby in the wings) will direct the show; I see the chief live producer, Vincent Truro, making a few last-minute checks. The open floor is a sea of milling humanity.
The crowd is divided just about evenly into males and females -- the former are here because she's hot, the latter because she's awesome. Most of them, at a glance, I'd peg between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five; there are a few over-thirties in the audience, although most of them are up in the balcony. I can also see that one of the prime tables in the stage-left VIP box -- the table nearest the stage itself -- is occupied by an obviously married couple, in tie-dyed T-shirts and matching sets of Ray-Bans, who couldn't possibly be a day under fifty. Behind me, I can hear Jon barking a last few orders, and the members of the band tuning their instruments. I whip out my camera and sneak a few shots of the crowd, then go back behind the curtains and position myself on a nearby folding chair.
Five minutes. The air, to use a cliche, is electric. There's been no opening act to warm up the house; it's a solo bill tonight. I suspect, though, that they'll be able to win this crowd over quite easily... if they haven't, in fact, been won over already just by coming here.
Two minutes. The roadies are giving the stage one final checkup, plugging in the guitars and placing them on their stands, when the house lights begin to dim -- the universal big-venue Hold On To Your Butts signal. Whoops and cheers erupt from the audience. The last thing visible to their eyes, before everything fades, is the last roadie (Jon himself) entering with a mic stand and a somewhat oversized wireless microphone, and setting it down front-and- center-stage.
The backdrop is dimly illuminated, a field of dark blue on which threads of paler blue light coalesce and glimmer psychedelically. The crowd is not quite to the point of rushing the stage, but the poor front row behind the rail are starting to really look like sardines in a tin; faintly visible before the rail are the yellow shirts of the security personnel, imploring those behind to make space. There's just barely enough room between the stage and the crowd for the security men to walk, or to pull someone to safety in the event of a near-suffocation up front.
The buzz from the floor becomes cheers, whistles and frantic applause as the black silhouettes of the musicians saunter on stage. The drummer is first -- Jared Palevsky, a beefy young man with a frazzled goatee and a pork-pie hat apparently glued to his head (he'll be doing a lot of headbanging behind his kit, but at no point in the evening does it come off). Then the bassist, Dominick Minnuzzi, and his rhythm-guitarist wife Akiko. Lead guitar is Tyler Elvin, who sweeps his red hair out of his face excitedly as he passes me, white Gibson SG in hand. Finally comes Evan Chuang, keyboardist, pianist, saxophonist and all-around cool guy, carrying his horn with him... and percussionist Kevin Trilby Sharp, his shaven head a sharp contrast to his dark Ernest Hemingway beard even in this low light.
The cheering from the house covers up most of the tuning-up noises, but there's little tuning up to do anyhow; Jon's soundchecks have been impeccably diligent. (Speaking of which, Jon's disappeared, but Vincent is hunched over his mixing board in the middle of the crowd, grinning like a madman.) Then Palevsky runs a quick roll down his toms, and the noise dies down to a dull roar. There's still clapping and whistling as he counts off a steady four with his drumsticks; he begins playing a sixteenth-note pattern on his hi-hats, and Dominick begins strumming a low B on his bass. They're opening, as always, with "Out Of Your Shell".
The audience goes wild again as another figure enters, a shape hidden by an amorphous hooded coat. The new shape proceeds directly to center stage and stands, motionless, before the microphone. Jared and Dom continue the riff as long as it takes for the audience noise to begin dying down -- and suddenly Jared plays a climactic two-bar snare run...
Bass and drums cut out, replaced by Evan's piano. With perfect timing (honed at show after show) a single, narrow white spotlight falls on the head and shoulders of the figure at center stage, and from under the hood a voice emerges. It's a voice we in the room have all heard before, but there's something shocking about hearing it live and in person. A sweet, tinkling, chiming bell of a voice. In a split second, the applause and cheering and whistling come to a dead stop. I've never seen that happen at a live show before... But now, everybody wants to hear. Is compelled to hear.
It starts off soft at first, but as it negotiates the first verse of "Out Of Your Shell" the voice grows ever louder and stronger, as if gaining confidence. Then comes the first chorus, and the bass and drums re-enter behind the piano and the voice.
'Cuz every one's got a story to tell... Suddenly, the hood's thrown back. A flash of blue hair, fuzzy white ears, and a fifteen-kilowatt smile. So don't be afraid to come out of your shell! she finishes triumphantly.
And POW, the rest of the stage lights come up, and THOOM, the whole band breaks in, and RRRIP, Felicia flings the coat aside and grabs the mic, and all of a sudden she's not just a shape and a voice any more, it's The World's One And Only Catgirl Pop Star, her white tail and long blue hair flying behind her as she pirouettes on the stage. Cue screaming from the gallery, along with cheering, whooping, whistles and frenzied applause. Two thousand fans rush the stage, but not quite hard enough to mash the first row up against the rail.
"Out Of Your Shell" is a perfect slice of psychedelic dancerock, and it isn't long before the audience are clapping to the beat and singing along, although not loudly enough to drown her out. It's no wonder Felicia is in such good physical shape; she's a singing, dancing dynamo. Twisting and leaping like a gymnast, reaching her free hand out to the audience -- and not hitting a single flat note the whole time.
Homegirl knows how to work a room, I'll give her that.
The audience is ecstatic as the song finishes. Felicia is more than ecstatic: she's electrified. I thought she was lively enough in the dressing room, but there's even more energy in her now... you can almost see her emitting sparks like a Tesla coil. I've never seen anyone look more alive than Felicia looks in front of a packed hall of adoring fans.
There's a couple minutes of banter from Felicia as the crowd cools down. She talks, with great animation and total sincerity, about her love for her hometown; somebody in the audience shouts "We love you too, kitten!", and the cry is taken up throughout the house: "We love you, Felicia!" "We love you, Felicia!" She squeals with laughter at that, and the crowd laughs with her. Her mirth is infectious.
The next two songs are covers I don't recognize, but Felicia puts as much heart into them as if they'd always been hers. The band are more than game, and the audience eat it up, hanging on every note. The first is an old, Eighties-sounding track. The second cover is a soulful one, a la Sixties R&B -- the kind of music Sister Cecilia used to love, if her foster daughter's claims are accurate. And I'm stunned by the changes her voice goes through. Hers is a crystalline chime of a voice, with no real soul-sistah bluesy brass in it; how such a sweet voice can remain sweet while it gains enough driving force to BLOW YOUR HAIR TO THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM I can't imagine. It's a complete paradox, but it's happening right in front of me, and it is glorious. As she struts back and forth along the edge of the stage, belting out the tune, I can almost see the thrill running through the audience. Kitty got soul.
Then it's back to her original material, with another early bubblegum-style hit, "(It Ain't Easy But) It's Simple"; the kids in the crowd scream for it when they recognize the opening guitar riff, and everybody's dancing in less than two minutes. She follows it up with three tracks off her latest album, By Starlight We Walk. Three completely different kinds of pop music, and she shifts through them like a chameleon of song and dance: aggressively acrobatic on "Whatever You Want" -- even jumping up on the percussionist's riser to play dueling congas with Trilby; sexy and seductive to go with the funkified style of "Purr" (Evan playing sax, Dom & Tyler singing backing vocals); flawless J-pop choreography for the hyperactive "Tonight's Her Night". It's hard to believe that all three songs are performed by the same girl.
Following this is a trio of covers from a band Felicia credits as a tremendous influence. "We haven't played this stuff live before, and I don't sing them anywhere near as well as they sing them," she tells the audience while Akiko trades her Strat for a wired acoustic, "so please, guys, do yourselves a favor and look 'em up." I haven't heard of The Apples In Stereo before tonight, but I'll take her recommendation. I set down my camera to make a quick note.
The songs she sings are right up her alley: blissful, psychedelic pop-rock. She floats her voice gently, gracefully, over the music. Onlooking, we're all captivated. There's something about the way she sings these songs that leaves me, at least, with a sizable lump in my throat.
Previously, talking backstage, we got into asking each other what we thought was the "purpose" of music. Does it need to have a purpose? I said. Can't it just be art for art's sake?
"Nah, I don't think so," she told me. "Really great art -- good music, good books, good paintings, good movies -- they always do something to you, whether or not that's what they meant to do. They make you feel good. Actually, it's even better than that; they, like, lift you up. They give you a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away." She smiled wider. "And a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what that Big Something is: my Mom had her ideas; I got mine; dude, even you've probably got your own. But when I'm up on stage and singing my heart out, I know I'm part of it. Or maybe it's, like, the other way around -- that there's a part of it inside me... And either way, I'm like: oh, wow, I can FEEL it, and I wanna make everybody ELSE feel it too."
----
And perhaps I am starting to feel it, from where I'm standing. There's some kind of mystical connection developing in the music, an intangible thing shared between the musicians on stage and the mass of people watching them. It's not an easy trick to pull off; I've seen a hundred acts who have tried to do the same, and only a handful who succeeded. Felicia has always claimed that she's no great shakes as a 'paranatural', that she doesn't have any special powers outside of the occasional shapeshift, but I'll be damned if this isn't some kind of spell she's casting on all of us.
The connection only deepens further when, out of nowhere, the last Apples cover (a track called, of all things, "Strawberryfire") segues seamlessly into another cover tune -- "Dear Prudence", the Beatles song that helped put her second album in the gold. Felicia puts the microphone back onto its stand, opens her arms as if in welcome, and sings:
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play...
Her tail whips lazily back and forth behind her, her hips sway a little to the rhythm, her eyes are closed. Vincent's lighting tech is a virtuoso; the lights shining down on Felicia illuminate her with a golden glow, her white fur turning warm summer colors. We're hypnotized by her body, spellbound by her voice; we're being played like a pipe organ, and we know it -- and we're loving every second of it. By the end of the song, the entire floor is swaying back and forth together, and the audience have become her backing vocalists. About two hundred lighters have come out of various pockets and are being held in the air, making the room look like a pond full of floating candles.
I think I'm beginning to understand a little of what's going on here. The folks who talk about her music being 'slick' or 'customized for public consumption' are talking gibberish. All they see are the words "pop" or "label deal" or "superstar", and they leap to conclusions about what it is they think she's doing; they think that all pop music is soulless and all pop musicians are sellouts. They couldn't be further from the truth. Felicia's never been tempted by the trappings of fame, because they've got nothing to do with why she wanted to be famous. She didn't want specifically to be a celebrity, or to make millions of dollars a year, although those are nice side benefits. She's in it for the music, and for the fans... but not in the way most musicians are "in it for the fans". No, you see, Felicia has a gift that she wants to share with the world, one packed house at a time.
She can get people high on music. She can lift you up with her voice. When you hear her singing live, you get the uncanny feeling that she's singing for you -- that she knows you're listening and wants to make you happy, in some small way. And after she's gone, you are certain that you've witnessed something special, something that will occupy a warm spot in your heart for ages to come. You've caught a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away.
And if that's not how you feel -- if you can listen and not hear her heart beating in her music -- then she's not for you. Shame, really.
----
Tonight, she plays a two-and-a-half-hour set. No opening act, no breaks of more than a few minutes. Her gang on stage run through practically every song from every one of her albums, and fill the spaces between with the music of other bands and singers that inspired her. I can only imagine how grueling it is for the band; they're clearly a bit tired by the end of it, although still having fun and still playing everything right. (Drummer Palevsky is the only one who genuinely looks haggard, but his hat has still not fallen off.) But Felicia? It's as though she hasn't even broken a sweat. She's still going: dancing like a maniac, singing like an angel, laughing like a little girl, tossing the mic playfully from hand to hand, and trying her hardest to pull the audience up and out of themselves.
And if she has to get them to laugh in order to shake them up, she will; she asks for a show of hands to see how many audience members have played a certain video game that premiered less than six months ago. About nine hundred people raise their hands. "How many of you beat it?" she says. Only a hundred hands come down -- including hers. "Dude, seriously? You friggin' liars!" she laughs. "Okay, then! This is a song we've been working on since we first played the game. Now I haven't settled on the lyrics yet, so it's probably not gonna be showing up on any albums for a while... so I guess this is, like, an exclusive sneak peek. Ready?" She points to Jared, who counts them off into the new track: a stomping, shredding, gleefully absurd piece of hard-rock bliss called "Gordon Freeman Saved My Life", with twin lead vocals by Felicia and Dominick.
Minds are blown. Felicia can sing, Felicia can dance, Felicia's got soul, and nobody in this room will now deny that Felicia can RAWK. Not to mention she can headbang, which looks truly impressive with that massive, fluffy blue mane.
About ten minutes later, she does something that she's warned me she was going to do at least once tonight. Right in the middle of her song "Truthseeker" she leaves the microphone stand, walks up to the very edge of the stage, smiling archly at the front row... then leaps off the stage, right over the heads of the security guys. A sea of hands rises up to catch her; she lands on her back atop the first few rows of the crowd. Her arms are flung wide and welcoming, and I see the kids practically blushing as their hands brush against her soft forepaws. Felicia, laughing, rides the audience in a long, counterclockwise ellipse that reaches all the way to the back of the floor -- the first time I've ever seen a full-length crowdsurf. The band patiently continue vamping over the song's chord progression, and Evan takes advantage of the delay to improvise a keyboard solo. I lean out of the wings to snap a few shots. By the time she gets back to the front-row rail, some three-fifths of the audience have carried her for at least a second or two. The security guys aid her with the dismount, and she lands in their trench beyond the rail. She's only down there for the blink of an eye; she hurls herself back up on stage, returns to the microphone, and triumphantly finishes the song without the least hint of being out of breath.
How do you do it? I remember asking her.
"What do you mean?"
Well, I said, how do you get the courage to throw yourself at your audience like that? Don't you ever get your hair yanked, your tail pulled, your ears pulled? Hands going places they shouldn't go? I mean, no offense, but these kids have essentially got a hot, half-naked catgirl jumping on top of them...
"Getting stuff yanked on? Mm, yeah, it happens once in a while, but it's mostly people who don't think any of this is real." She pensively looked at her hand/paw, flexing her fingers. Her ears flapped slightly. "Best argument against that is to get up close and let 'em see the proof for themselves. But I've never had anyone, like, actually perv-out on me, if that's what you mean. Probably just luck, but I find my shows don't really attract that kind of person."
No, it's more than just luck, I think from my vantage point just offstage. She's a magnet, attracting positive energies and repelling the negative ones. I know how effing New-Age that sounds, but in the altered state of consciousness into which she's pulled me, it makes perfect sense. It explains, better than anything else I can think of at that moment, her astonishingly unbroken and unblemished record of success. The people who hate her the most won't even go near her; the people most likely to take advantage of her (of her spirit, of her body, of her talent, of her trust) are repulsed by the thought of actually approaching her. There's something about her unrelenting positivity that defeats them, disgusts them so utterly that even the idea of breaking that positivity seems pointless to them. The people who would be happiest to see Felicia in tears have decided it isn't worth the sweat of their brows to make it happen; their very contempt has rendered them powerless over her.
And meanwhile, these other people have come to see her, have packed The Joint to capacity, because there's something about her that calls to them -- or something inside themselves that is instinctively drawn to her. Watching the show, I know exactly what it is, but I temporarily lack the vocabulary to identify it. All I manage to scribble in my notebook is a single phrase: "Heart calls to heart." I know, even as I write it, that it's not sufficiently explanatory, and that when the time comes to write my article I'll have forgotten what I meant; nevertheless, there are about a dozen possible shades of meaning within it -- most of which do apply.
And suddenly, in the space between songs, her voice rings out: "Hey, Jared! You sing one!"
"You know I can't sing," Jared Palevsky shouts from behind his kit.
"Myahh, c'mon, just one? Dude, don't be embarrassed..." The audience laughs and applauds. This, word for word, is the snippet of studio chatter that opened the second-last track on her second album; Felicia is quoting herself exactly, right down to her tone of voice.
"Which one?"
"That Money Mark cover thing. You sing it better than me, man! I could play drums for you, if that's what you want -- Hey, guys," she says, breaking from the expected script to address the fans below. "Sing this one along with us!" (Felicia in fact did play a modified drum kit on the song in question.)
The kids applaud. Jared sighs in mock exasperation as Jon comes out with a mic stand and sets it up for him. He blows into the microphone a few times to test it, then does a slow count-off into the quiet, laid-back groove of "I Don't Play Piano." Evan backs him up with the familiar keyboard riff.
Felicia doesn't sing lead on this one -- what she does instead is set her mic down, then proceed to conduct the audience in their performance, while Jared too performs in an endearingly awkward tenor.
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh
I've read all the books on those matters
I tore out the pages I liked
I don't know how to run, I only know how to fight
Oh oh oh oh oh
The song soars into its chorus, the guitars rising up. Felicia has the crowd waving their arms back and forth, like a sea of reeds. Her lips are moving to the words of the song, but over Jared's amplified voice and the voices of the audience, no one can hear her without her microphone.
Teach me all these things, I need to know it
Turn all my pages, I need to show it
I need the laughter and I need the pain
Won't you tell me how I can do it all again...
At those lines, Felicia leaps off the stage again, her arms spread wide. Her admirers catch her and bear her up, and she begins to crowdsurf the room again. She floats off toward the back of the house, and there's enough light back there for us up front to see her face -- I can tell that she's still singing along. As she passes over them, the audience members begin to sing louder, backing Jared's own voice up.
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh oh oh
I spill my drink all over the table
But I trust all the moments I live
And then I receive back all the things that I give
Oh oh oh...
Now Jared stops singing completely. The band reduce their volume and let the kids on the floor carry the rest of the song (just as they're carrying Felicia) -- four thousand voices joined in one melody. The funny thing is, I think I can hear one very strong voice out there, rising above the rest of the crowd, and I'm pretty sure it's Felicia's.
Teach me all these things, I need to know it
Turn all my pages, I need to show it
I need the laughter and I need the pain
Won't you tell me how I can do it all again
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh oh oh
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight...
The song ends with Felicia on her return trip, still a few feet from the front of the hall. Somehow, she summons up enough leverage to execute a jackknife leap from the shoulders of the crowd back into the security trench, and in a split second she's back on stage. "Wow, guys," she gushes. "We had it just now, man. You really got it..." It's not certain what she means, but her eyes are glimmering -- with tears of joy or tears of parting?
Perhaps both; she makes the sad announcement that the next will be the last song of the night. Sounds of disappointment and cries of "Oh, not now!" and "Don't go!" emanate from various corners of the room. "Myahh, I'm sorry, but there's only so much we can play in one night... So," she grins, "we saved the best for last!" And they roll into the opening of "Catching Stars", the closing title track from her third album.
It's a Brian Wilsonesque, seven-minute pop aria that reminds me of nothing so much as "Champagne Supernova." Hearing it live for the first time, the word that comes to mind is 'epic'. The band play it note-perfect, and Felicia sings her heart out. The music seems to lift her up even more than the rest of us, as if she's levitating above our heads. The audience, the band, and the singer are united in the song.
The cheers and applause when the song reaches its end are almost deafening. "Thank you!" Felicia cries out. She beckons for the band to come up to the front of the stage with her; they all lock arms and bow, like actors taking a curtain call. Felicia waves one last time and skips off stage, followed by the other musicians. Coming into the wings, she spots me and steps over. "So what'd you think?" she shouts over the crowd noise.
Awesome! I shout back. (She cocks an ear at me to hear better.) I said, awesome! You knocked 'em dead!
The applause isn't dying down; if anything, it only grows louder. The cry goes up from the balcony: "Encore!" and the kids on the floor take it up, shouting "Encore!"
So are you giving them an encore? I shout.
"Of course we are! But we like making 'em wait for it -- I think they feel more like they've earned it that way, you know what I mean?"
Everybody hovers in the wings for another minute or so, listening to the voices from the house. Now they're chanting it. "ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!" Felicia huddles in a brief conference with the others, after which they head back toward the stage. "We're doing 'Energy'," Felicia says to me as she passes.
The chanting dissolves into cheering as the lights come back up and the band takes the stage again. "Okay," Felicia laughs, "you talked us into it... Hit it!" And Akiko strums the opening chords of "Energy". You'd think the crowd would be to tired to go wild yet again, but somehow they do. Felicia skips across the stage as she sings:
And the world is made of energy
And the world is electricity
And the world is made of energy
And there's a light inside of you and there's a light inside of me
And the world is made of energy
And the world is synchronicity
And the world is made of energy
And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me
It's gonna be
All right
It's gonna be all right, uh huh yeah
We're gonna see
The sunlight
We're gonna see the sunlight, oh ho yeah
The musicians join in on backing vocals. The lyrics are upbeat and a little silly -- as with most of the songs we've heard tonight, frankly. One can understand why Felicia's more savage critics call her songwriting banal and unserious. But when this catgirl sings them, the words ring true; they seem to sum her up perfectly. And besides, what's the point of it all if you can't be a little unserious once in a while?
And the world (And the world) is made of energy
And the world (And the world) is possibility
And the world (And the world) is made of energy
And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me...
After that one, they give the kids in the audience a moment to catch their breath (although the kids are too busy screaming for more to catch their breath, really) -- then abruptly break into one last, unexpected tune, Devo's "Girl U Want". Dom and Akiko are both dancing, skanking with their guitars still in hand; there's just barely enough room on the floor to actually dance, but I can see some of the audience members trying to do the skank as well. The rest are just pogoing, clapping, and watching their heroine sing and dance, her tail whipping playfully behind her.
"Thank you!" Felicia cries out at the end of it all, as the house lights go up. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!" She takes one final bow with the band. "Love ya, Vegas! Good night!" she says, blows a kiss, and bounces off stage.
----
I'll be damned, I say to them backstage. I haven't been to a show that good in a long time. I take a sip of the Pepsi that Akiko's offered me. What a way to end a night, I continue.
"Hey, the night's not over," Felicia says, throwing her arm around Jon's shoulders. "Opening night after-party, anyone? We've got VIP spots reserved at the club." (She's referring to the Hard Rock Hotel's own nightclub, Body English.)
Jared pleads out: "Nah, I need the rest. I'm going up to my room and packing my arms in ice." Everyone else, though, appears to be open to it -- including Jon, whose manner has softened significantly. Felicia turns to me. "So how 'bout you, Rich? Coming along?"
If I can. I don't know if they'll let me in with you just with a 'Backstage: Press' pass, though, I say (fingering the ID card on the lanyard about my neck).
"Myaah, it's no big deal, we can just tell 'em you're with the band."
"I'll tell you what we can do," Jon says. He takes a card from his pocket. "I've only a few of these with me; I don't hand them out very often..." He produces a large Sharpie, scribbles a signature on the back of the card, and hands it to me with his rascally grin. The top half is decorated with the tour logo, and the bottom half reads: VIP All Access Thursday Friday Saturday. "You won't have to hang about waiting for us all weekend."
Well, thank you, Jon, that's a helluva favor. What's this for? Hope you're not trying to bribe me into writing a positive story.
He chuckles darkly. "I've been standing next to you all night; somehow I doubt you need to be bribed. But we think you can be trusted."
"Damn right," says the catgirl hanging off his shoulder. "C'mon, dude. We'll buy you a drink or three."
Well, I wouldn't say no to that.
----
Jon and Vincent retain a few vestiges of their usual stuffy, professional manner until they see me finally stowing my notebook and minicorder in my pockets; after that, they become more casual. Though that may not be quite the right word in Jon's case; he's of that particular British model that is never entirely casual, even around good friends -- but it appears to me that this is about as unreserved as he can possibly get. He and Felicia are chatting contentedly as our procession (one casino host leading five musicians, two sound guys, one journalist, and one catgirl) makes its way around the edges of the casino floor; four hotel security men are clearing a path for us. This last is an unfortunate necessity. A lot of celebrities can go relatively incognito in Vegas: you catch them out of the corner of your eye for a moment, then you look away, and when you wonder "Hey, wasn't that...?" and look back, they're gone. Not so with Felicia; she's a little too easy to recognize for her own good. If she catches your eye, you look and keep on looking. There's no "Hey, I wonder if that was..." It's more like "Hey -- oh wow, holy crap, it is her!"
The casino isn't entirely buzzing with activity at 11:25 p.m. on a Thursday, but there are still plenty of people hanging around, the majority of them casual gamblers in their thirties and forties. Not too many in the 21-to-25 age group (half of the absolute hard core of Felicia's fandom, the other half consisting of those too young to get into this nightclub legally), but every time we pass a highly populated area, like one of the bars, there are plenty of people saying "Hey, isn't that...?", followed by squeals of excitement; there's always at least one well-dressed young thing who drops what she's doing and rushes up to the security men, asking if she can get an autograph. Jon tends to keep his XXL Sharpie marker at the ready for times like these, prepared to hand it off to his boss/girlfriend at a moment's notice.
Eventually we reach the club. The usual Thursday-night house-music party is taking a month off, so it's not as full as it might otherwise have been; it's a New Wave night, though, so a lot of people (the club's regulars, I presume) have stuck around. There's still a line out front of the place. We, of course, skip it -- our host directs us straight to the door. We hear gasps and cheers as we stroll down the other side of the velvet rope, and a lot of people shouting Felicia's name. She waves and blows kisses. The doorman, displaying a killer instinct, almost stops me from going in with the rest -- how I could visibly stand out from them, I can't guess -- but a little bluffing and superstar charm removes any remaining impediments.
Mercifully, half the people on the dance floor are too busy digging the music to notice us, so we're not mobbed as soon as we enter. The casino host speaks to one of the personnel inside, and we're led through an obstacle course of people to the VIP box. It's plush as hell but not thickly populated; the big spenders usually don't show up before midnight, and the bigger spenders won't even be in town until Friday. Nevertheless, there's a few handfuls of richniks up there, observing the dance floor through the mirror-glass wall that runs along one end. Several of them are in the music business; at least one or two of them are personally acquainted with Felicia, and the rest are pleased to make her acquaintance. There's one guy, though -- a producer, I'm told -- who rolls his eyes and glances away with disgust when he sees us walking in. Fifteen minutes later he's nowhere to be seen. I don't know what his malfunction is, but I suspect he's got issues with either paranaturals or bubblegum rockers.
The nine of us huddle comfortably in an expansive booth; there's room enough for all of us to kick our legs up on the low table, or perch cross- legged on the seat as Felicia does. The host asks us if we want any champagne for the table, a question met with head-shaking. These folks don't drink champagne. The host says he can arrange our order, and asks what precisely we want; most of the band members ask for various beers, except Akiko, who queries as to whether there's any cider. The club does indeed have Strongbow on tap -- my own favorite tipple, as well, so the order goes up to two Strongbows. The VIP area does require that your table buy at least two whole bottles of something, so Vincent and Jon ask for scotch and soda, and leave the scotch. Last comes Felicia, who asks for a night's worth of White Russians. "Russians with Baileys?" the host asks. I am not the least surprised by the reply: "No, thanks, I'd prefer milk." (The platter of drinks, when it finally comes, has a full bottle of Grey Goose, a full bottle of Kahlua, a pail of ice, and a very large carafe of milk. The glee in Felicia's eyes is unmistakable.)
The night passes for us in a pleasant, euphoric haze of drinking, joking, and occasionally singing along to the music in the background. Several people come over to shake Felicia's hand and pay their respects; a few of them were actually at the show earlier. A well-known guitarist and his brother make an appearance at our table, and I wasn't expecting to be introduced to them thusly: "And this is my good friend, Richie; he's a writer for InTheMix."
After they're gone, I lean in and ask her: What was that about? You could've just said "This guy's doing an article on me for InTheMix." I'm flattered and all, but -- what'd you mean by "good friend"?
Felicia fixes me with a smile so winsome that it would end the country's depression epidemic if you could bottle it. "Who says we ain't friends?"
Me, for one. I just met you today, didn't I?
She laughs. "Myahh, Rich -- that's more than enough time to make a friend." She reaches out and puts her paw down on top of my hand. "I'd be honored to be friends with such a smart guy." I protest that I'm not all that smart, especially not now that I've got three pints of cider seeping into my system; she just shakes her head. "All right, if it makes you happy we'll do it all official-like. Richard, will you be friends with me?"
Absolutely, I say. She raises her paw. "Shake on it?"
We shake on it, my hand amusingly dwarfed by hers. "And now that we're friends," she goes on, "I can trust you with a secret: The video truck's coming on Saturday." She giggles at my mystified face. "You know, a video truck? We're taping the show, Rich!" she says, bouncing giddily in her seat. "I've always wanted to put out a live album, and the label finally decided to spring for it. The Saturday show's gonna be it -- and we're gonna turn it into a DVD, too! Tonight was a kind of dress-rehearsal thing, if you know what I mean; we're gonna be doing pretty much the same setlist. And since you -- hey, wait, is that...?" Her attention suddenly strays for a moment; her ears are cocked, listening -- until she bursts out in a hysterical guffaw, pointing above us to the nearest speaker. The DJ is spinning Devo's "Girl U Want." "Damn it!" she laughs. "That jerk, he stole my closer!"
I kind of lost you for a second. What was that last part?
She takes a sip of her White Russian. "I was gonna say, since you've got a pass for all three nights, I'd love to see you there for the big one. Heck, you can come out on stage and play Trilby's tambourine if you wanna..."
No, that's okay, I'm a horrendous musician. But I'll be there for the show, I promise.
"Sure thing. Oughtta write it up for your article, y'know?"
My next pint of cider arrives just then. My subsequent memories of the evening will be hazy.
********
Author's Note:
Several of the songs performed and covered by the band, or otherwise referenced in this story, are real (although most are either anachronistic or falsely credited to the fictional band, or both) and can be found easily on Youtube or elsewhere. The **starred items are the really important ones – the more stars, the more important.
**"Strawberryfire": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmF0gaTT2M
***"Energy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6gSSsCdFeA (Lyrics by R. Schneider (c) Simian Records/YepRoc)
[[ Also recommended: "Same Old Drag" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ekaScs-4k
"The Rainbow": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvw4ZItKTU ]]
**"Dear Prudence": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2lMstw6qs (Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney (c) EMI)
"Gordon Freeman Saved My Life": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUyjvXpMV0
*"I Don't Play Piano": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ZAiQD4boE (Lyrics by M. Ramos Nishita, (c) Mo Wax / A&M Records Ltd. London)
[[ Also recommended: *"Tomorrow Will Be Like Today" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7HD0Kdf-E
"Hand In Your Head": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqxYjkwfzY ]]
"Champagne Supernova": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3C7DECI0jU
"Girl U Want": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4-2onb62y8
----
You know how you'll hear some incredible new singer or band, and you'll talk to your friends and acquaintances about it? And it's usually the insufferable hipster, the one who makes a point of knowing a little about everything (and of being cynical about it, too), the guy about whom you sometimes wonder why you're still friends, who always delivers the sentence of ultimate condemnation: "Nah, I hear they suck live."
And it's almost like a curse: every one of your favorite bands, when you go to hear them live -- it turns out a lot of them do suck. Not that they're uniformly AWFUL, it's just that their live sound doesn't compare to their last album. Maybe they're having an off night, maybe they really need to fire their damned sound guy, maybe they need a studio environment in order to sound the way they want to sound... but anyhow, they don't quite live up to expectations.
A Felicia show is not like that.
One is relieved and overjoyed to find the occasional exception to the rules, a musical act that sounds even better live; these are the shows that one brags about having seen for years afterward. And seeing Felicia is worth bragging about... The facts are really quite basic: if you haven't heard her live, you haven't heard her.
----
It's ten minutes to showtime at The Joint, and the place is packed. Strictly SRO. Peeping out from the stage-right wings, where I'm standing among about a dozen busy roadies, I realize that the Fire Marshal would crap solid-gold bricks if he saw this room -- there's far more than four thousand people here. They've taken every seat in the balcony. The VIP boxes along both sides are full of older, richer people who have paid formidable amounts for those seats; not one of them is paying the least attention to the luxury-suite amenities. They've already gotten the drinks they ordered and are now gazing intently toward the stage, bare except for the drum kit, the keyboards, the amps and the monitors (and the occasional roadie re-checking the connections). The general-admission "seating" is crammed full of people like sardines in a tin; the upper decks behind the floor and full of people who want a good vantage point and don't mind standing. Some of them are looking, curious, into the mixing- board pit in the middle of the general admission area, from which the sound and lighting men (most of them; Jon-or-John will remain on standby in the wings) will direct the show; I see the chief live producer, Vincent Truro, making a few last-minute checks. The open floor is a sea of milling humanity.
The crowd is divided just about evenly into males and females -- the former are here because she's hot, the latter because she's awesome. Most of them, at a glance, I'd peg between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five; there are a few over-thirties in the audience, although most of them are up in the balcony. I can also see that one of the prime tables in the stage-left VIP box -- the table nearest the stage itself -- is occupied by an obviously married couple, in tie-dyed T-shirts and matching sets of Ray-Bans, who couldn't possibly be a day under fifty. Behind me, I can hear Jon barking a last few orders, and the members of the band tuning their instruments. I whip out my camera and sneak a few shots of the crowd, then go back behind the curtains and position myself on a nearby folding chair.
Five minutes. The air, to use a cliche, is electric. There's been no opening act to warm up the house; it's a solo bill tonight. I suspect, though, that they'll be able to win this crowd over quite easily... if they haven't, in fact, been won over already just by coming here.
Two minutes. The roadies are giving the stage one final checkup, plugging in the guitars and placing them on their stands, when the house lights begin to dim -- the universal big-venue Hold On To Your Butts signal. Whoops and cheers erupt from the audience. The last thing visible to their eyes, before everything fades, is the last roadie (Jon himself) entering with a mic stand and a somewhat oversized wireless microphone, and setting it down front-and- center-stage.
The backdrop is dimly illuminated, a field of dark blue on which threads of paler blue light coalesce and glimmer psychedelically. The crowd is not quite to the point of rushing the stage, but the poor front row behind the rail are starting to really look like sardines in a tin; faintly visible before the rail are the yellow shirts of the security personnel, imploring those behind to make space. There's just barely enough room between the stage and the crowd for the security men to walk, or to pull someone to safety in the event of a near-suffocation up front.
The buzz from the floor becomes cheers, whistles and frantic applause as the black silhouettes of the musicians saunter on stage. The drummer is first -- Jared Palevsky, a beefy young man with a frazzled goatee and a pork-pie hat apparently glued to his head (he'll be doing a lot of headbanging behind his kit, but at no point in the evening does it come off). Then the bassist, Dominick Minnuzzi, and his rhythm-guitarist wife Akiko. Lead guitar is Tyler Elvin, who sweeps his red hair out of his face excitedly as he passes me, white Gibson SG in hand. Finally comes Evan Chuang, keyboardist, pianist, saxophonist and all-around cool guy, carrying his horn with him... and percussionist Kevin Trilby Sharp, his shaven head a sharp contrast to his dark Ernest Hemingway beard even in this low light.
The cheering from the house covers up most of the tuning-up noises, but there's little tuning up to do anyhow; Jon's soundchecks have been impeccably diligent. (Speaking of which, Jon's disappeared, but Vincent is hunched over his mixing board in the middle of the crowd, grinning like a madman.) Then Palevsky runs a quick roll down his toms, and the noise dies down to a dull roar. There's still clapping and whistling as he counts off a steady four with his drumsticks; he begins playing a sixteenth-note pattern on his hi-hats, and Dominick begins strumming a low B on his bass. They're opening, as always, with "Out Of Your Shell".
The audience goes wild again as another figure enters, a shape hidden by an amorphous hooded coat. The new shape proceeds directly to center stage and stands, motionless, before the microphone. Jared and Dom continue the riff as long as it takes for the audience noise to begin dying down -- and suddenly Jared plays a climactic two-bar snare run...
Bass and drums cut out, replaced by Evan's piano. With perfect timing (honed at show after show) a single, narrow white spotlight falls on the head and shoulders of the figure at center stage, and from under the hood a voice emerges. It's a voice we in the room have all heard before, but there's something shocking about hearing it live and in person. A sweet, tinkling, chiming bell of a voice. In a split second, the applause and cheering and whistling come to a dead stop. I've never seen that happen at a live show before... But now, everybody wants to hear. Is compelled to hear.
It starts off soft at first, but as it negotiates the first verse of "Out Of Your Shell" the voice grows ever louder and stronger, as if gaining confidence. Then comes the first chorus, and the bass and drums re-enter behind the piano and the voice.
'Cuz every one's got a story to tell... Suddenly, the hood's thrown back. A flash of blue hair, fuzzy white ears, and a fifteen-kilowatt smile. So don't be afraid to come out of your shell! she finishes triumphantly.
And POW, the rest of the stage lights come up, and THOOM, the whole band breaks in, and RRRIP, Felicia flings the coat aside and grabs the mic, and all of a sudden she's not just a shape and a voice any more, it's The World's One And Only Catgirl Pop Star, her white tail and long blue hair flying behind her as she pirouettes on the stage. Cue screaming from the gallery, along with cheering, whooping, whistles and frenzied applause. Two thousand fans rush the stage, but not quite hard enough to mash the first row up against the rail.
"Out Of Your Shell" is a perfect slice of psychedelic dancerock, and it isn't long before the audience are clapping to the beat and singing along, although not loudly enough to drown her out. It's no wonder Felicia is in such good physical shape; she's a singing, dancing dynamo. Twisting and leaping like a gymnast, reaching her free hand out to the audience -- and not hitting a single flat note the whole time.
Homegirl knows how to work a room, I'll give her that.
The audience is ecstatic as the song finishes. Felicia is more than ecstatic: she's electrified. I thought she was lively enough in the dressing room, but there's even more energy in her now... you can almost see her emitting sparks like a Tesla coil. I've never seen anyone look more alive than Felicia looks in front of a packed hall of adoring fans.
There's a couple minutes of banter from Felicia as the crowd cools down. She talks, with great animation and total sincerity, about her love for her hometown; somebody in the audience shouts "We love you too, kitten!", and the cry is taken up throughout the house: "We love you, Felicia!" "We love you, Felicia!" She squeals with laughter at that, and the crowd laughs with her. Her mirth is infectious.
The next two songs are covers I don't recognize, but Felicia puts as much heart into them as if they'd always been hers. The band are more than game, and the audience eat it up, hanging on every note. The first is an old, Eighties-sounding track. The second cover is a soulful one, a la Sixties R&B -- the kind of music Sister Cecilia used to love, if her foster daughter's claims are accurate. And I'm stunned by the changes her voice goes through. Hers is a crystalline chime of a voice, with no real soul-sistah bluesy brass in it; how such a sweet voice can remain sweet while it gains enough driving force to BLOW YOUR HAIR TO THE BACK OF THE AUDITORIUM I can't imagine. It's a complete paradox, but it's happening right in front of me, and it is glorious. As she struts back and forth along the edge of the stage, belting out the tune, I can almost see the thrill running through the audience. Kitty got soul.
Then it's back to her original material, with another early bubblegum-style hit, "(It Ain't Easy But) It's Simple"; the kids in the crowd scream for it when they recognize the opening guitar riff, and everybody's dancing in less than two minutes. She follows it up with three tracks off her latest album, By Starlight We Walk. Three completely different kinds of pop music, and she shifts through them like a chameleon of song and dance: aggressively acrobatic on "Whatever You Want" -- even jumping up on the percussionist's riser to play dueling congas with Trilby; sexy and seductive to go with the funkified style of "Purr" (Evan playing sax, Dom & Tyler singing backing vocals); flawless J-pop choreography for the hyperactive "Tonight's Her Night". It's hard to believe that all three songs are performed by the same girl.
Following this is a trio of covers from a band Felicia credits as a tremendous influence. "We haven't played this stuff live before, and I don't sing them anywhere near as well as they sing them," she tells the audience while Akiko trades her Strat for a wired acoustic, "so please, guys, do yourselves a favor and look 'em up." I haven't heard of The Apples In Stereo before tonight, but I'll take her recommendation. I set down my camera to make a quick note.
The songs she sings are right up her alley: blissful, psychedelic pop-rock. She floats her voice gently, gracefully, over the music. Onlooking, we're all captivated. There's something about the way she sings these songs that leaves me, at least, with a sizable lump in my throat.
Previously, talking backstage, we got into asking each other what we thought was the "purpose" of music. Does it need to have a purpose? I said. Can't it just be art for art's sake?
"Nah, I don't think so," she told me. "Really great art -- good music, good books, good paintings, good movies -- they always do something to you, whether or not that's what they meant to do. They make you feel good. Actually, it's even better than that; they, like, lift you up. They give you a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away." She smiled wider. "And a lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what that Big Something is: my Mom had her ideas; I got mine; dude, even you've probably got your own. But when I'm up on stage and singing my heart out, I know I'm part of it. Or maybe it's, like, the other way around -- that there's a part of it inside me... And either way, I'm like: oh, wow, I can FEEL it, and I wanna make everybody ELSE feel it too."
----
And perhaps I am starting to feel it, from where I'm standing. There's some kind of mystical connection developing in the music, an intangible thing shared between the musicians on stage and the mass of people watching them. It's not an easy trick to pull off; I've seen a hundred acts who have tried to do the same, and only a handful who succeeded. Felicia has always claimed that she's no great shakes as a 'paranatural', that she doesn't have any special powers outside of the occasional shapeshift, but I'll be damned if this isn't some kind of spell she's casting on all of us.
The connection only deepens further when, out of nowhere, the last Apples cover (a track called, of all things, "Strawberryfire") segues seamlessly into another cover tune -- "Dear Prudence", the Beatles song that helped put her second album in the gold. Felicia puts the microphone back onto its stand, opens her arms as if in welcome, and sings:
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
The sun is up, the sky is blue
It's beautiful and so are you
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play...
Her tail whips lazily back and forth behind her, her hips sway a little to the rhythm, her eyes are closed. Vincent's lighting tech is a virtuoso; the lights shining down on Felicia illuminate her with a golden glow, her white fur turning warm summer colors. We're hypnotized by her body, spellbound by her voice; we're being played like a pipe organ, and we know it -- and we're loving every second of it. By the end of the song, the entire floor is swaying back and forth together, and the audience have become her backing vocalists. About two hundred lighters have come out of various pockets and are being held in the air, making the room look like a pond full of floating candles.
I think I'm beginning to understand a little of what's going on here. The folks who talk about her music being 'slick' or 'customized for public consumption' are talking gibberish. All they see are the words "pop" or "label deal" or "superstar", and they leap to conclusions about what it is they think she's doing; they think that all pop music is soulless and all pop musicians are sellouts. They couldn't be further from the truth. Felicia's never been tempted by the trappings of fame, because they've got nothing to do with why she wanted to be famous. She didn't want specifically to be a celebrity, or to make millions of dollars a year, although those are nice side benefits. She's in it for the music, and for the fans... but not in the way most musicians are "in it for the fans". No, you see, Felicia has a gift that she wants to share with the world, one packed house at a time.
She can get people high on music. She can lift you up with her voice. When you hear her singing live, you get the uncanny feeling that she's singing for you -- that she knows you're listening and wants to make you happy, in some small way. And after she's gone, you are certain that you've witnessed something special, something that will occupy a warm spot in your heart for ages to come. You've caught a glimpse of something very big, and wonderful, and beautiful, and very far away.
And if that's not how you feel -- if you can listen and not hear her heart beating in her music -- then she's not for you. Shame, really.
----
Tonight, she plays a two-and-a-half-hour set. No opening act, no breaks of more than a few minutes. Her gang on stage run through practically every song from every one of her albums, and fill the spaces between with the music of other bands and singers that inspired her. I can only imagine how grueling it is for the band; they're clearly a bit tired by the end of it, although still having fun and still playing everything right. (Drummer Palevsky is the only one who genuinely looks haggard, but his hat has still not fallen off.) But Felicia? It's as though she hasn't even broken a sweat. She's still going: dancing like a maniac, singing like an angel, laughing like a little girl, tossing the mic playfully from hand to hand, and trying her hardest to pull the audience up and out of themselves.
And if she has to get them to laugh in order to shake them up, she will; she asks for a show of hands to see how many audience members have played a certain video game that premiered less than six months ago. About nine hundred people raise their hands. "How many of you beat it?" she says. Only a hundred hands come down -- including hers. "Dude, seriously? You friggin' liars!" she laughs. "Okay, then! This is a song we've been working on since we first played the game. Now I haven't settled on the lyrics yet, so it's probably not gonna be showing up on any albums for a while... so I guess this is, like, an exclusive sneak peek. Ready?" She points to Jared, who counts them off into the new track: a stomping, shredding, gleefully absurd piece of hard-rock bliss called "Gordon Freeman Saved My Life", with twin lead vocals by Felicia and Dominick.
Minds are blown. Felicia can sing, Felicia can dance, Felicia's got soul, and nobody in this room will now deny that Felicia can RAWK. Not to mention she can headbang, which looks truly impressive with that massive, fluffy blue mane.
About ten minutes later, she does something that she's warned me she was going to do at least once tonight. Right in the middle of her song "Truthseeker" she leaves the microphone stand, walks up to the very edge of the stage, smiling archly at the front row... then leaps off the stage, right over the heads of the security guys. A sea of hands rises up to catch her; she lands on her back atop the first few rows of the crowd. Her arms are flung wide and welcoming, and I see the kids practically blushing as their hands brush against her soft forepaws. Felicia, laughing, rides the audience in a long, counterclockwise ellipse that reaches all the way to the back of the floor -- the first time I've ever seen a full-length crowdsurf. The band patiently continue vamping over the song's chord progression, and Evan takes advantage of the delay to improvise a keyboard solo. I lean out of the wings to snap a few shots. By the time she gets back to the front-row rail, some three-fifths of the audience have carried her for at least a second or two. The security guys aid her with the dismount, and she lands in their trench beyond the rail. She's only down there for the blink of an eye; she hurls herself back up on stage, returns to the microphone, and triumphantly finishes the song without the least hint of being out of breath.
How do you do it? I remember asking her.
"What do you mean?"
Well, I said, how do you get the courage to throw yourself at your audience like that? Don't you ever get your hair yanked, your tail pulled, your ears pulled? Hands going places they shouldn't go? I mean, no offense, but these kids have essentially got a hot, half-naked catgirl jumping on top of them...
"Getting stuff yanked on? Mm, yeah, it happens once in a while, but it's mostly people who don't think any of this is real." She pensively looked at her hand/paw, flexing her fingers. Her ears flapped slightly. "Best argument against that is to get up close and let 'em see the proof for themselves. But I've never had anyone, like, actually perv-out on me, if that's what you mean. Probably just luck, but I find my shows don't really attract that kind of person."
No, it's more than just luck, I think from my vantage point just offstage. She's a magnet, attracting positive energies and repelling the negative ones. I know how effing New-Age that sounds, but in the altered state of consciousness into which she's pulled me, it makes perfect sense. It explains, better than anything else I can think of at that moment, her astonishingly unbroken and unblemished record of success. The people who hate her the most won't even go near her; the people most likely to take advantage of her (of her spirit, of her body, of her talent, of her trust) are repulsed by the thought of actually approaching her. There's something about her unrelenting positivity that defeats them, disgusts them so utterly that even the idea of breaking that positivity seems pointless to them. The people who would be happiest to see Felicia in tears have decided it isn't worth the sweat of their brows to make it happen; their very contempt has rendered them powerless over her.
And meanwhile, these other people have come to see her, have packed The Joint to capacity, because there's something about her that calls to them -- or something inside themselves that is instinctively drawn to her. Watching the show, I know exactly what it is, but I temporarily lack the vocabulary to identify it. All I manage to scribble in my notebook is a single phrase: "Heart calls to heart." I know, even as I write it, that it's not sufficiently explanatory, and that when the time comes to write my article I'll have forgotten what I meant; nevertheless, there are about a dozen possible shades of meaning within it -- most of which do apply.
And suddenly, in the space between songs, her voice rings out: "Hey, Jared! You sing one!"
"You know I can't sing," Jared Palevsky shouts from behind his kit.
"Myahh, c'mon, just one? Dude, don't be embarrassed..." The audience laughs and applauds. This, word for word, is the snippet of studio chatter that opened the second-last track on her second album; Felicia is quoting herself exactly, right down to her tone of voice.
"Which one?"
"That Money Mark cover thing. You sing it better than me, man! I could play drums for you, if that's what you want -- Hey, guys," she says, breaking from the expected script to address the fans below. "Sing this one along with us!" (Felicia in fact did play a modified drum kit on the song in question.)
The kids applaud. Jared sighs in mock exasperation as Jon comes out with a mic stand and sets it up for him. He blows into the microphone a few times to test it, then does a slow count-off into the quiet, laid-back groove of "I Don't Play Piano." Evan backs him up with the familiar keyboard riff.
Felicia doesn't sing lead on this one -- what she does instead is set her mic down, then proceed to conduct the audience in their performance, while Jared too performs in an endearingly awkward tenor.
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh
I've read all the books on those matters
I tore out the pages I liked
I don't know how to run, I only know how to fight
Oh oh oh oh oh
The song soars into its chorus, the guitars rising up. Felicia has the crowd waving their arms back and forth, like a sea of reeds. Her lips are moving to the words of the song, but over Jared's amplified voice and the voices of the audience, no one can hear her without her microphone.
Teach me all these things, I need to know it
Turn all my pages, I need to show it
I need the laughter and I need the pain
Won't you tell me how I can do it all again...
At those lines, Felicia leaps off the stage again, her arms spread wide. Her admirers catch her and bear her up, and she begins to crowdsurf the room again. She floats off toward the back of the house, and there's enough light back there for us up front to see her face -- I can tell that she's still singing along. As she passes over them, the audience members begin to sing louder, backing Jared's own voice up.
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh oh oh
I spill my drink all over the table
But I trust all the moments I live
And then I receive back all the things that I give
Oh oh oh...
Now Jared stops singing completely. The band reduce their volume and let the kids on the floor carry the rest of the song (just as they're carrying Felicia) -- four thousand voices joined in one melody. The funny thing is, I think I can hear one very strong voice out there, rising above the rest of the crowd, and I'm pretty sure it's Felicia's.
Teach me all these things, I need to know it
Turn all my pages, I need to show it
I need the laughter and I need the pain
Won't you tell me how I can do it all again
I don't know how to play piano
I don't know how to sing
I do know how to collect my dreams
Oh oh oh oh oh
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight
I only know how to fight...
The song ends with Felicia on her return trip, still a few feet from the front of the hall. Somehow, she summons up enough leverage to execute a jackknife leap from the shoulders of the crowd back into the security trench, and in a split second she's back on stage. "Wow, guys," she gushes. "We had it just now, man. You really got it..." It's not certain what she means, but her eyes are glimmering -- with tears of joy or tears of parting?
Perhaps both; she makes the sad announcement that the next will be the last song of the night. Sounds of disappointment and cries of "Oh, not now!" and "Don't go!" emanate from various corners of the room. "Myahh, I'm sorry, but there's only so much we can play in one night... So," she grins, "we saved the best for last!" And they roll into the opening of "Catching Stars", the closing title track from her third album.
It's a Brian Wilsonesque, seven-minute pop aria that reminds me of nothing so much as "Champagne Supernova." Hearing it live for the first time, the word that comes to mind is 'epic'. The band play it note-perfect, and Felicia sings her heart out. The music seems to lift her up even more than the rest of us, as if she's levitating above our heads. The audience, the band, and the singer are united in the song.
The cheers and applause when the song reaches its end are almost deafening. "Thank you!" Felicia cries out. She beckons for the band to come up to the front of the stage with her; they all lock arms and bow, like actors taking a curtain call. Felicia waves one last time and skips off stage, followed by the other musicians. Coming into the wings, she spots me and steps over. "So what'd you think?" she shouts over the crowd noise.
Awesome! I shout back. (She cocks an ear at me to hear better.) I said, awesome! You knocked 'em dead!
The applause isn't dying down; if anything, it only grows louder. The cry goes up from the balcony: "Encore!" and the kids on the floor take it up, shouting "Encore!"
So are you giving them an encore? I shout.
"Of course we are! But we like making 'em wait for it -- I think they feel more like they've earned it that way, you know what I mean?"
Everybody hovers in the wings for another minute or so, listening to the voices from the house. Now they're chanting it. "ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE!" Felicia huddles in a brief conference with the others, after which they head back toward the stage. "We're doing 'Energy'," Felicia says to me as she passes.
The chanting dissolves into cheering as the lights come back up and the band takes the stage again. "Okay," Felicia laughs, "you talked us into it... Hit it!" And Akiko strums the opening chords of "Energy". You'd think the crowd would be to tired to go wild yet again, but somehow they do. Felicia skips across the stage as she sings:
And the world is made of energy
And the world is electricity
And the world is made of energy
And there's a light inside of you and there's a light inside of me
And the world is made of energy
And the world is synchronicity
And the world is made of energy
And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me
It's gonna be
All right
It's gonna be all right, uh huh yeah
We're gonna see
The sunlight
We're gonna see the sunlight, oh ho yeah
The musicians join in on backing vocals. The lyrics are upbeat and a little silly -- as with most of the songs we've heard tonight, frankly. One can understand why Felicia's more savage critics call her songwriting banal and unserious. But when this catgirl sings them, the words ring true; they seem to sum her up perfectly. And besides, what's the point of it all if you can't be a little unserious once in a while?
And the world (And the world) is made of energy
And the world (And the world) is possibility
And the world (And the world) is made of energy
And there's a lot inside of you and there's a lot inside of me...
After that one, they give the kids in the audience a moment to catch their breath (although the kids are too busy screaming for more to catch their breath, really) -- then abruptly break into one last, unexpected tune, Devo's "Girl U Want". Dom and Akiko are both dancing, skanking with their guitars still in hand; there's just barely enough room on the floor to actually dance, but I can see some of the audience members trying to do the skank as well. The rest are just pogoing, clapping, and watching their heroine sing and dance, her tail whipping playfully behind her.
"Thank you!" Felicia cries out at the end of it all, as the house lights go up. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!" She takes one final bow with the band. "Love ya, Vegas! Good night!" she says, blows a kiss, and bounces off stage.
----
I'll be damned, I say to them backstage. I haven't been to a show that good in a long time. I take a sip of the Pepsi that Akiko's offered me. What a way to end a night, I continue.
"Hey, the night's not over," Felicia says, throwing her arm around Jon's shoulders. "Opening night after-party, anyone? We've got VIP spots reserved at the club." (She's referring to the Hard Rock Hotel's own nightclub, Body English.)
Jared pleads out: "Nah, I need the rest. I'm going up to my room and packing my arms in ice." Everyone else, though, appears to be open to it -- including Jon, whose manner has softened significantly. Felicia turns to me. "So how 'bout you, Rich? Coming along?"
If I can. I don't know if they'll let me in with you just with a 'Backstage: Press' pass, though, I say (fingering the ID card on the lanyard about my neck).
"Myaah, it's no big deal, we can just tell 'em you're with the band."
"I'll tell you what we can do," Jon says. He takes a card from his pocket. "I've only a few of these with me; I don't hand them out very often..." He produces a large Sharpie, scribbles a signature on the back of the card, and hands it to me with his rascally grin. The top half is decorated with the tour logo, and the bottom half reads: VIP All Access Thursday Friday Saturday. "You won't have to hang about waiting for us all weekend."
Well, thank you, Jon, that's a helluva favor. What's this for? Hope you're not trying to bribe me into writing a positive story.
He chuckles darkly. "I've been standing next to you all night; somehow I doubt you need to be bribed. But we think you can be trusted."
"Damn right," says the catgirl hanging off his shoulder. "C'mon, dude. We'll buy you a drink or three."
Well, I wouldn't say no to that.
----
Jon and Vincent retain a few vestiges of their usual stuffy, professional manner until they see me finally stowing my notebook and minicorder in my pockets; after that, they become more casual. Though that may not be quite the right word in Jon's case; he's of that particular British model that is never entirely casual, even around good friends -- but it appears to me that this is about as unreserved as he can possibly get. He and Felicia are chatting contentedly as our procession (one casino host leading five musicians, two sound guys, one journalist, and one catgirl) makes its way around the edges of the casino floor; four hotel security men are clearing a path for us. This last is an unfortunate necessity. A lot of celebrities can go relatively incognito in Vegas: you catch them out of the corner of your eye for a moment, then you look away, and when you wonder "Hey, wasn't that...?" and look back, they're gone. Not so with Felicia; she's a little too easy to recognize for her own good. If she catches your eye, you look and keep on looking. There's no "Hey, I wonder if that was..." It's more like "Hey -- oh wow, holy crap, it is her!"
The casino isn't entirely buzzing with activity at 11:25 p.m. on a Thursday, but there are still plenty of people hanging around, the majority of them casual gamblers in their thirties and forties. Not too many in the 21-to-25 age group (half of the absolute hard core of Felicia's fandom, the other half consisting of those too young to get into this nightclub legally), but every time we pass a highly populated area, like one of the bars, there are plenty of people saying "Hey, isn't that...?", followed by squeals of excitement; there's always at least one well-dressed young thing who drops what she's doing and rushes up to the security men, asking if she can get an autograph. Jon tends to keep his XXL Sharpie marker at the ready for times like these, prepared to hand it off to his boss/girlfriend at a moment's notice.
Eventually we reach the club. The usual Thursday-night house-music party is taking a month off, so it's not as full as it might otherwise have been; it's a New Wave night, though, so a lot of people (the club's regulars, I presume) have stuck around. There's still a line out front of the place. We, of course, skip it -- our host directs us straight to the door. We hear gasps and cheers as we stroll down the other side of the velvet rope, and a lot of people shouting Felicia's name. She waves and blows kisses. The doorman, displaying a killer instinct, almost stops me from going in with the rest -- how I could visibly stand out from them, I can't guess -- but a little bluffing and superstar charm removes any remaining impediments.
Mercifully, half the people on the dance floor are too busy digging the music to notice us, so we're not mobbed as soon as we enter. The casino host speaks to one of the personnel inside, and we're led through an obstacle course of people to the VIP box. It's plush as hell but not thickly populated; the big spenders usually don't show up before midnight, and the bigger spenders won't even be in town until Friday. Nevertheless, there's a few handfuls of richniks up there, observing the dance floor through the mirror-glass wall that runs along one end. Several of them are in the music business; at least one or two of them are personally acquainted with Felicia, and the rest are pleased to make her acquaintance. There's one guy, though -- a producer, I'm told -- who rolls his eyes and glances away with disgust when he sees us walking in. Fifteen minutes later he's nowhere to be seen. I don't know what his malfunction is, but I suspect he's got issues with either paranaturals or bubblegum rockers.
The nine of us huddle comfortably in an expansive booth; there's room enough for all of us to kick our legs up on the low table, or perch cross- legged on the seat as Felicia does. The host asks us if we want any champagne for the table, a question met with head-shaking. These folks don't drink champagne. The host says he can arrange our order, and asks what precisely we want; most of the band members ask for various beers, except Akiko, who queries as to whether there's any cider. The club does indeed have Strongbow on tap -- my own favorite tipple, as well, so the order goes up to two Strongbows. The VIP area does require that your table buy at least two whole bottles of something, so Vincent and Jon ask for scotch and soda, and leave the scotch. Last comes Felicia, who asks for a night's worth of White Russians. "Russians with Baileys?" the host asks. I am not the least surprised by the reply: "No, thanks, I'd prefer milk." (The platter of drinks, when it finally comes, has a full bottle of Grey Goose, a full bottle of Kahlua, a pail of ice, and a very large carafe of milk. The glee in Felicia's eyes is unmistakable.)
The night passes for us in a pleasant, euphoric haze of drinking, joking, and occasionally singing along to the music in the background. Several people come over to shake Felicia's hand and pay their respects; a few of them were actually at the show earlier. A well-known guitarist and his brother make an appearance at our table, and I wasn't expecting to be introduced to them thusly: "And this is my good friend, Richie; he's a writer for InTheMix."
After they're gone, I lean in and ask her: What was that about? You could've just said "This guy's doing an article on me for InTheMix." I'm flattered and all, but -- what'd you mean by "good friend"?
Felicia fixes me with a smile so winsome that it would end the country's depression epidemic if you could bottle it. "Who says we ain't friends?"
Me, for one. I just met you today, didn't I?
She laughs. "Myahh, Rich -- that's more than enough time to make a friend." She reaches out and puts her paw down on top of my hand. "I'd be honored to be friends with such a smart guy." I protest that I'm not all that smart, especially not now that I've got three pints of cider seeping into my system; she just shakes her head. "All right, if it makes you happy we'll do it all official-like. Richard, will you be friends with me?"
Absolutely, I say. She raises her paw. "Shake on it?"
We shake on it, my hand amusingly dwarfed by hers. "And now that we're friends," she goes on, "I can trust you with a secret: The video truck's coming on Saturday." She giggles at my mystified face. "You know, a video truck? We're taping the show, Rich!" she says, bouncing giddily in her seat. "I've always wanted to put out a live album, and the label finally decided to spring for it. The Saturday show's gonna be it -- and we're gonna turn it into a DVD, too! Tonight was a kind of dress-rehearsal thing, if you know what I mean; we're gonna be doing pretty much the same setlist. And since you -- hey, wait, is that...?" Her attention suddenly strays for a moment; her ears are cocked, listening -- until she bursts out in a hysterical guffaw, pointing above us to the nearest speaker. The DJ is spinning Devo's "Girl U Want." "Damn it!" she laughs. "That jerk, he stole my closer!"
I kind of lost you for a second. What was that last part?
She takes a sip of her White Russian. "I was gonna say, since you've got a pass for all three nights, I'd love to see you there for the big one. Heck, you can come out on stage and play Trilby's tambourine if you wanna..."
No, that's okay, I'm a horrendous musician. But I'll be there for the show, I promise.
"Sure thing. Oughtta write it up for your article, y'know?"
My next pint of cider arrives just then. My subsequent memories of the evening will be hazy.
********
Author's Note:
Several of the songs performed and covered by the band, or otherwise referenced in this story, are real (although most are either anachronistic or falsely credited to the fictional band, or both) and can be found easily on Youtube or elsewhere. The **starred items are the really important ones – the more stars, the more important.
**"Strawberryfire": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAmF0gaTT2M
***"Energy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6gSSsCdFeA (Lyrics by R. Schneider (c) Simian Records/YepRoc)
[[ Also recommended: "Same Old Drag" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ekaScs-4k
"The Rainbow": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvw4ZItKTU ]]
**"Dear Prudence": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-2lMstw6qs (Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney (c) EMI)
"Gordon Freeman Saved My Life": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMUyjvXpMV0
*"I Don't Play Piano": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ZAiQD4boE (Lyrics by M. Ramos Nishita, (c) Mo Wax / A&M Records Ltd. London)
[[ Also recommended: *"Tomorrow Will Be Like Today" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7HD0Kdf-E
"Hand In Your Head": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqxYjkwfzY ]]
"Champagne Supernova": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3C7DECI0jU
"Girl U Want": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4-2onb62y8