Chapter 97: Objective Assessment

For as lively as the Empire Polo Club looked in the early hours of the morning, it was sure to pale drastically in comparison to the surge in festivalgoers and festivities come afternoon to evening.

That said, there was a general touch of coolness to the air that contrasted against its usual sunny and pleasant days.

Not the kind that came with rain, but a premonition for perhaps one of the rarer instances of a very breezy night.

Niall and Midnight Avenue had just arrived at the Mojave Tent, all four guided over by their assigned liaison whom they’d contacted the day before and had informed of their arrival.

Naturally, they were met with a buzz of activities, with crew members moving between equipment cases and the backstage areas, leisurely running through sound checks and several other things as the technicians on ground adjusted microphones, monitors and lighting.

Tucked among the sprawling grounds of the venue, the tent’s architecture itself offered a more intimate atmosphere than Coachella’s enormous main stages, its wide canopy stretching over and sheltering a raised stage surrounded by towering speakers, lighting rigs and cables neatly bundled across the stage.

It was also where some of the festival’s mid-tier, emerging and increasingly buzzed-about artists were set to perform before their audiences whom had eagerly come to watch them in action, live.

Given the quartet were set to perform later in the evening, they figured it would still be in their best interests that they arrived earlier than most to get their rehearsals out of the way before other artists came around.

At the same time, it would also give them some downtime to relax before they would need to take the stage again. Essentially, they didn’t want to get into the quagmire of the late morning to early afternoon rush hour.

"Morning! It’s a pleasure to have you all here," Molly, as her name tag read, walked over to the quartet whom weren’t particularly sure of where to go just yet upon approaching the tent.

She happened to be one of the artist coordinators, her light-brown hair tied in a ponytail and her smile just as pretty as her face was. She had that girl-next-door kind of vibe going for her.

"The pleasure’s ours." Niall received the handshake with a light smile, as did Sam, Archie and Lucas a couple seconds after.

"Please, this way." Molly then gestured for the quartet to follow after her, and they promptly did.

Soon enough, she’d guided them backstage to meet with the tent’s main stage manager, Franco.

He was a rather charming looking guy with a bit of a laid-back vibe, his dark-brown hair tied into a man bun and a clipboard in his hands.

"Ah. It’s good to finally meet you all. We’re so glad you could make it." the man began exchanging pleasantries with all four, one that they reciprocated in kind.

After they’d done that, Franco quickly got down to business;

"So, given the number of artists we’re set to have perform today, we can only afford forty-five minutes of rehearsal time per act."

"But, the actual performance itself will net you exactly an hour, so it’d be in your best interests to rehearse the songs that you might perhaps find the most uh... technical, to do."

’... or in other words, hardest for a live performance.’ Niall inwardly deconstructed the actual meaning behind his words.

Not that it stopped him from replying on behalf of all of them as the trio nodded in understanding;

"Gotcha."

"Good," Franco nodded to which he then said;

"You can begin rehearsal in the next ten minutes. One of the bigger artist’s currently rounding up theirs."

Once again, the quartet nodded in understanding, to which Franco turned to Molly and said with a slight gesture of his palm;

"Molly, dear. If you could do the honors."

"No problem." the lady replied with a curt bob, her attention immediately shifting to Niall and the rest.

"This way, please." she said to them and yet again, all four followed, trailing behind her as she led them onto the stage.

Considering their liaison had led them through a door in the tent’s adjacent side that led almost directly backstage, the quartet hadn’t managed to pay attention to the supposed artist performing on stage.

Interestingly though, even if they had somehow managed to, they still wouldn’t have seen said artist on stage as he’d stepped out for a toilet break a couple minutes ago.

Now though, a collective look of genuine irritation surfaced on Sam, Archie and Lucas’ faces as they arrived on the stage.

At the same time, Tyler walked back on-stage, one of his assistants speaking to him as she gave him his earpiece and mic;

"Seven minutes left on the clock for your rehearsals, Tyler."

Typically, the controversial artist would have dismissively waved her off in acknowledgement. However, he didn’t even respond to her, much less receive the equipment.

Instead, his gaze was locked onto the trio, all of whom blatantly made their disdain for him known.

Naturally, he reciprocated the gesture, his own gaze even more twisted in contempt.

Unsurprisingly, that same expression of his soon shifted to Niall.

In contrast to the trio, he on other hand had a reserved expression on his features, a relaxed smile on his lips.

For reasons unknown to Tyler, Niall’s general easiness et dismissal of him and all that he was worth, only seemed to fuel his disdain.

As a result, he turned to his assistant and retrieved the earpiece and mic from her, the slightest sneer forming on his lips as he affirmed;

"Seven minutes, right?"

Clearly surprised because that wasn’t how her boss usually operated, she concernedly replied;

"Yeah..."

"Alright." Tyler nodded and then moved back to continue his rehearsal as he gestured to the backline crew and monitoring engineer.

And just like that, he began his rehearsal, his voice cascading through the speakers of the venue.

Niall had to admit, Tyler did in fact have great vocals... one that was perfectly suited for the pop-songs he was performing which had very trendy, in-vogue beats and easy, surface level lyrics.

Still, it wasn’t crème-of-the-crop-great. Just great and nothing more.

Niall would know. His vocals had progressed so much, he could intuitively pick such distinct differences.

Then there was the gold-plated microphone revolving above the popstar’s head as Niall casually appraised him with his Gift of Discernment.That added more credibility to his evaluation.

That said, as Niall kept assessing the controversial artist from an objective standpoint, Sam, Archie and Lucas’ frown were getting progressively deeper.

Tyler had long exceeded the seven-minute mark of his performance and only seemed to continue on.

At first, the stage managers, backline crew and artist coordinators alongside Tyler’s PA herself, opted to patiently wait for him to be over, one of the stage managers even reminding him through his earpiece.

However, upon realizing he had no intentions of stopping even past the ten-minute mark, they were forced to cut off his performance by literally cutting off his song.

Only then did Tyler put on a surprised look as he asked;

"Oh, is my time over?"

"I thought I still had a couple minutes left. My bad." he glanced over to Niall and the trio, a thin, almost imperceptible underhanded smile on his features.

To that, Sam, Archie and Lucas let out a contemptuous scoff, disappointed expressions on their features as they shook their heads. What sort of petty, middle-school bullshit was this?

Tyler should’ve long ended his performance, way before the five-minute mark in fact.

Afterall, the stage managers, backline crew, and monitoring engineer needed to account for the turnaround time to transition for the sound check between each artist’s set.

This was all to say that the quartet’s time for rehearsal had now been effectively cut by five to ten minutes depending on how quickly the crew could get their backing tunes ready.

Despite all these, Niall remained unperturbed.

Honestly, even if they didn’t rehearse before their performance, he had complete faith in Midnight Avenue to deliver a great performance still.

They’d already done so much rehearsals of their own beforehand--especially with the new song--them even doing this was simply to put up appearances, especially since it wasn’t obligatory for them to show up for rehearsals.

Then there was the fact that Niall could always fall back on his Gift of Bestowal. That alone was enough to invalidate any concerns he might’ve had.

In any case, as Tyler left the stage, he couldn’t help but glance over to Niall once more, seemingly hoping he’d have elicited some sort of reaction from him.

Unfortunately for him, Niall couldn’t be bothered in the slightest. Whatever beef was between the trio and Tyler was theirs to deal with and had nothing to do with him.

All he was here to do, was give his best possible performance.

Afterall, it was the very first time he’d be performing on stage in front of not just a live performance on any stage, but on one of the biggest stages, in one of the biggest music festivals in the world.

But for Tyler who remained unaware of what was going in Niall’s mind, a confused frown naturally formed on his face again.

Clearly, he was miffed by how he remained unable to incommode Niall.

Nonetheless, Tyler stood off just to the side backstage, holding up a hand to stop his PA from reminding him.

Though he had a scheduled appointment to meet with the stylists and make-up artist in preparation for his performance later in the day, he still wanted to scope out his fellow artists.

Afterall, he needed to know if their performance was going to be just as good as his.

Yet, it hadn’t even taken a minute after before Niall spoke as he and Midnight Avenue walked up to the stage;

"Oh, don’t worry about the soundchecks and backing tracks. We’ll be just fine."

Tyler’s inky-black irises thinned, his pupils expanding. Even he was wary of performing without a backing track a lot of the time.

Was Niall trying to imply that his raw vocals were just as good as the studio version? Or was he just trying to make up for the time he’d taken from them?

As he kept watching for a few more minutes though... he soon came to settle on the latter.

Afterall, the rehearsal he was seeing wasn’t anything particularly special. Good, yes... but nothing particularly amazing.

That was his verdict.

To that, he finally nodded in satisfaction and proceeded to leave, much to the relief of his PA who just wanted to do her job.

Now, he believed that nothing would come close to the performance he was going to put out later in the day.

Unfortunately for him, he was going to find out pretty soon that it wasn’t the case at all.

Afterall, Niall, Sam, Archie and Lucas had just been warming up thus far with a leisure performance to get used to the instruments, stage and have a general scope of how their performance would actually sound in the venue come evening.

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/Caer07