Chapter 98: All The Stops

By now, the sun had hung high over the Empire Polo Club as festivalgoers streamed through the gates, drinks, snacks and cameras in hand.

For a while, they simply wandered between food stalls, booths, art installations and a couple smaller stages where the indie and underground musicians were set to perform.

Then, when the mid to late afternoon came, they began migrating over to the bigger stages to witness performances from the rising, mainstream and buzzing artists.

Naturally, that also meant the Mojave tent soon got filled up in anticipation, with roughly over 15,000+ people crowding the venue, and even close to a thousand overflowing out.

Usually, the tent typically drew about 12,000 to 13,000 festivalgoers and could comfortably fit them.

However, due to the line-up of artists, specifically Tyler Kingstone, this was bound to happen.

Thankfully, there were large screens outside that they could watch from even if most of them wouldn’t see Tyler directly.

And though there were more than a couple thousand that had also shown up to watch Niall and Midnight Avenue perform, with several others coming to see their other artists asides those two, the percentage that did come to witness Tyler Kingstone were much higher.

Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity for any artist who intended to reach a much wider audience with their music.

Afterall, Coachella was an invite-only affair and it was essentially a badge of honor to be invited to one of their stages, big or small.

Not only did it validate (at least for those who felt they needed it) an artist’s viability in the music industry, but it also served an opportunity for global exposure with their high-profile livestreams to massive audiences around the world and equally, a way to network and gain valuable contacts.

All of that though, usually had nothing to do with festivalgoers, most of whom just came to have a good time.

To that effect, there was a usually a precedence for artists to give their best performances as public sentiment alone could decide if they’d ever have the opportunity to return such stages.

It was also why, as the crowd buzzed outside, they were psyching themselves up in preparation to put up a show backstage.

And when the first of them to perform finally headed out, the crowd exploded in cheers!

*

(Hours earlier...)

Carmen was quite the people-pleaser.

Given the sort of life she’d lived as the middle-child in a rough household, there often came this sense of being generally ignored all her life.

It also didn’t help, that the only moments her family members actually tended to remember her, was mostly when she’d done something wrong, or when she’d done something that pleased them.

Unfortunately, this had hardwired her brain and entire persona into becoming an excellent compromiser for people... but never for her own self.

But maybe the worst part of this all... was that she wasn’t actively aware of it, hence leading to situations where she was usually resentful towards so many people in her life, but she honestly couldn’t pinpoint why.

At some point, she even began to consider herself the problem, a thought process that only drove her further down the rabbit hole of people pleasing.

Now she’d reached such a disturbing level of downplaying her own needs and wants, she essentially had a frankly obliterated sense of self-worth.

It was also why, despite all her internal protests that she couldn’t spend over $500+ for a three-day music festival she wasn’t even really a fan of, she ended up coming anyway.

Naturally, this was because of her ’clique’ of friends, all of whom weren’t exactly financially conscious of the lives they were living as fresh graduates whom had landed jobs that was just a little over middle-class salary.

Nonetheless, she was here, and she was putting up a very convincing façade as her girls dragged her from one venue to the next with their boyfriends.

Carmen herself, being the stereotypical pretty girl in the group that paled in comparison to her more conventionally attractive, hot friends--courtesy of a few ’upgrades’ here and there--often also ended up being the third wheel in so many of their outings.

More so when she’d struggled with a couple terrible and abusive relationships in the past due to her people-pleasing habits.

Yet, in an effort not to be the black sheep amongst them this time, she’d had herself paired-up by her friends with a guy she’d only met a couple days back as her date to the venue.

’If only he wasn’t so obviously trying to get into my pants...’ she massaged her face as she sat on the closed toilet, contemplating whether to just ditch the entire thing and head back home.

For the next five minutes, that was what she did... her social battery having long dipped to zero since her first few hours at the festival.

Suddenly, one of her friends whom had equally come to use the restroom knocked on her door and spoke;

"Carmen. We’re heading over to the Mojave Tent. We’ll be expecting you there."

Before she could even will herself to reconsider, she’d already answered;

"Okay! I’ll be there soon!"

No sooner had she said that, she immediately face-palmed, a deep-seated resentment forming in the depths of her gut as her friend responded from the other end in excitement;

"Alright. Don’t be late!"

Letting out a deep breath a moment after, Carmen put on her faux expression of excitement and proceeded to make her way out of said restroom.

No sooner had she stepped out, the rays of the late afternoon sun hit her face, her gaze already taking in the crowded venue from afar.

Letting out yet again another sigh, she proceeded to head into the fray, a similar faux smile plastered on her lips.

At the very least, she’d managed to evade her date successfully--one she assumed would’ve already gone over to the tent with the rest.

Soon enough, the lady made her way to the venue, gently pushing through the already buzzing crowd till she found a nice spot somewhere in the middle.

One that wasn’t too close, but also wasn’t too far from her friends whom were much closer to the tail end of the front.

It didn’t take long after that. The performances immediately kicked off with the first musician being a pop-artist that was slowly rising in the industry called Lena Vale.

The young woman, barely in her early twenties, immediately commanded the stage with a handful of upbeat tracks that had recently begun making rounds on streaming platforms.

Her sugary vocals and infectious choreography also helped, one that had the audience singing along soon enough and earning her a surprisingly loud reception by the time she wrapped up her thirty-minute set.

She was followed by Jace Wilder, an alternative singer-songwriter whose raspy vocals and guitar-heavy arrangements brought an entirely different energy to the tent.

His performance was considerably more subdued, but there was something almost enchanting about the way he carried himself, particularly when he performed the song that had recently landed him his first major streaming milestone.

Then came Alyssa Rivers, an R&B artist whose name had been circulating heavily amongst music blogs and social media over the past few months.

Dressed in a shimmering silver dress, she effortlessly transformed the Mojave Tent into something resembling an intimate concert hall, her silky vocals accompanied by a live band that had the crowd swaying from beginning to end.

Through it all, Carmen had managed to sing and dance along like everyone else, though she would rather the event rounded up quick so she could return to her hotel for some much-needed shut-eye.

As Alyssa thanked the cheering crowd after her set was over, she soon disappeared backstage.

No sooner had she, the stagehands hurriedly began preparing the equipment, and a noticeable shift swept through the crowd.

Conversations became louder, and phones were raised even higher.

Even those who had seemingly been indifferent--the ladies specifically--to the previous performances began pushing closer towards the stage.

Then the screens surrounding the stage flickered and a familiar name appeared across them.

TYLER KINGSTONE.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Deafening squeals and applauds erupted throughout the Mojave Tent, spilling out through its open entrances and drawing the attention of festivalgoers passing nearby.

Through it all, Carmen cheered same as almost every lady in sight.

Though she could care less how or why her friends had made it a habit to swoon whenever he was mentioned, she just knew that he was popular and people seemed to like his songs a lot.

In typical fashion, she simply joined the herd and did what was expected... even though her take on his songs were more ’meh’ than anything else.

Still, she had chosen to keep her thoughts to herself for the fear of being labelled ’uninteresting’ by her friends.

As Tyler suddenly jumped out from under the stage and onto it in an explosion of digital fireworks on the screen, the crowd went nuts once more as he immediately transitioned into his performance, the infectious and addictive pop-beat booming through the speakers.

Like clockwork, it genuinely seemed like everyone at the Mojave Tent was singing along to his song.

We could run, run, run till the night turns gold,

Lose ourselves in the moment, and be bold,

Hands up, hearts out, let the whole world know,

If we’re going down, baby, we’re going down in stereo.

Considering what they were used to, his fans were rather shocked when he suddenly transitioned into a dance routine amidst the song, one that did a good job of riling the crowd up even more.

Just like that, his performance continued on, the pop-artist pulling every stop from more dance routines, to moments where he’d call up a ’fan’ on stage for the more sensual songs.

Naturally, this 100% performance of his continued on, serving to keep the Mojave Tent hyped up from start to finish.

In typical Tyler fashion though, he somehow managed to extend his performance into the set of the artists set to perform after him by a whole five minutes... one he then proceeded to round up by giving the ladies a shirtless view of himself by tossing his cloth into the midst of the crowd.

It was almost as if an anthill was threatening to spawn out of nowhere as these same ladies did their very best to get the shirt, some even going as far as wanting to climb over their fellow human just to get to it.

In any case, the security promptly intervened lest things got out of hand and someone got seriously injured.

When everything had settled and all was said and done, nine extra minutes had already been taking off of Niall’s and Midnight Avenue’s set, leaving them with only forty-six minutes to perform.

But even then, they had walked up to the stage calmly and with an unshaken confidence as they began tuning their instruments.

Then, when they’d sorted out everything--all of which took them no less than a minute--Niall moved over to the standing mic and proceeded to begin their performance.

Advance Chapters are available on Patreon!

/Caer07