Opportunity Knocks (Julien)

[Cera Lamprey]

Cera swallowed down butterflies as the band set up their equipment. Most of the bar patrons paid them little enough mind; another night, another mediocre band trying to gain recognition. They would probably spend the whole night playing covers of popular songs, to the annoyance of every single member of the band. After all, they had written a few songs of their own, but people lost interest as soon as they stopped playing anything familiar. 

That was if they could even play at all. Cera wanted to find another guitarist, but Graham objected and...ugh. UGH. Not that she blamed him. She wasn't sure how to go about telling a friend he wasn't in the band anymore, either. 

But tonight would be different, she was sure. She had told everyone to be on their best behavior, because someone wanted to film them. He had seen one of their fliers and called to ask for permission, and who could say no to that kind of exposure? It was a rare opportunity, and she desperately wanted to make the most of it. 

"Where's Shane?" She sighed as she helped plug in amplifiers. Graham shrugged and she ground her teeth. 

If he was late again she might kick him out without Graham's permission. 

Deep breaths, deep breaths. It was fine. It was going to be fine. Even Shane wouldn't do anything to mess this up. 

Probably. 

Maybe. 

Yeah, he would, and here he was strolling up like he wasn't late, reeking of alcohol. 

"Shane!" Cera hissed, "Where have you been?!" 

He gestured to the bar and she glared.

"Get your guitar, we're almost ready to start." 

[Julien Duval]

Julien wasn't one to be found at a bar. Well, he wasn't even of age to drink, but he was here for the show. And not for fun, it was all business. He had to widen his horizons in film and this was his way of trying to do that. Besides, he needed a good video to edit for a media project. He'd seen the flyer for the band and texted Cera, whose contact info was listed. Of course he only texted. Julien was very much awkward on the phone. Of course now he was in a bar, camera bag slung over his shouler. He was beginning to realize that his shoulder was hurting from carrying it around so often. Dorky Julien with his mussed hair and glasses at a concert.

He found himself a table, hanging back and looking through the lens of his video camera, mindlessly recording. Anything was material after all and if he didn't want to use it, then he'd cut it, but if the camera wasn't on, you could miss something that could be crucial. He was concentrated on the pink haired girl. She was hard to miss. That had to be Cera. A guy walked up to her and Cera looked to be frustrated.

[Cera Lamprey]

At least Shane had the decency to go get his guitar from its case instead of arguing. Okay, he may have slurred a little when introducing their group (with the utterly embarrassing band name The X-Men, which they would probably get sued for if they weren't some tiny college band nobody had heard of.) 

The mic testing didn't result in too many squeals, which was also good. That meant it was time for cover songs. Ellie Goulding was currently pretty popular, so they were doing some of her numbers; Cera wasn't terribly thrilled with this, since there was a little more chanting and less singing involved but whatever. They would intersperse some of their own songs in the set; maybe they would even go over well for once.

[Julien Duval]

Julien cocked an eyebrow upon realizing they were called The X-Men. Wasn't that a comic book series? It wasn't very original. That and the guitarist appeared to be kind of drunk, slurring the band name as it was. So Julien wasn't even sure if that's what he'd heard.

He found himself trying to get creative with his filming as they played. It was important to showcase each member of the band equally, but he found that the girl he'd contacted in the first place seemed to have a great stage presence in comparison to the other band members, maybe it was her colorful hair. Julien wasn't sure. He honestly couldn't even tell they were playing all covers. He didn't know Ellie Goulding and her music very well. That was for sure.

[Cera Lamprey]

Just when Cera thought perhaps tonight wasn't going so badly after all when Shane leaned over the stage and threw up on the two girls who had been gamely dancing along. The girls screamed, and the manager ran over and began haranguing the musicians. 

Yup, there was no way to recover from this. 

Shane raised his voice, shouting back at the manager, and Cera grit her teeth. 

"Sorry! Looks like the show's been cut a little short!" She apologized to the audience, shooting her stupid drunk bandmate a glare.