Drive

She strode out onto the chilly platform, slowly, subtracting the usual confidence from her gait. The crowd, after a delayed moment, burst into screams of recognition, applause. She reached the front of the stage, bending leanly over and freeing the microphone from its stand, staying silent as Tony threw up a power chord that made the crowd scream again, then clearing her throat, commanding total silence.

"Grußhühnersuppe!" she shouted, unsurely.

The crowd gave a mixed reply of slight laughter and dying applause. What was that about chickens and soup?

She cleared her throat again, her form returning to its usual liquid demeanor, "I've been working on that for awhile now, what do you guys think?" she yelled with the sarcasm subtle but implied. Cheers, looks of relief.

"Let me try that again- Hey Berlin, how the fuck are ya?" she cried, that solid blues-y rasp inflecting the obviously un-European voice. The applause and screams reached a peak, and she shot a glance to Tony, who smirked and took up a familiar riff, the other three laying into tune as well.

She filled in with a deep, throaty scream, that one that Mom always said would blow out her vocals by the time she hit thirty. (Three more months and the bet against it would be won.)

"We are Jozie by the Light of Day, and this song is called Obsolete Redemption." she uttered, as if they didn't already know, "Now I want you to open that crowd the fuck up!" she added, striding to the other side of the stage and cutting into the song at the appropriate time with the first verse. The crowd, indeed, opened the fuck up. The circle pit was flawless, the rest of the crowd surging forward, moving as one and then breaking into a thrashing mob as the song progressed.

These European kids were great. A cloud of steam was halfway through rising from the group a few feet below her into the cold October air, and the choir of slightly accented voices new every word to the first three songs.

She took a break after Introvert, giving the crowd a chance to breathe.

"Let me just say," she purred casually, pausing to take a swig of water, "that I am personally in love with every one of you." Pacing back to the front, boots thudding down heavily beneath the shredded camouflage pants with shards of fishnets showing through. The crowd cheered, and she was surprised by the amount of males that were in it. A little different from back home, playing garage gigs in the early nineties with no one to listen but the local chicks.

"Today is the first time any of us have been to Germany." she continued, still migrating round the stage, putting the best of her velvet speaking voice to use. "Today is also my dear brother Tony here's birthday!" she cried with increasing volume, gesturing over to Tony, who stuck his tongue out at her and jammed another mean riff, letting it die to a strained screech.

He always had been the quiet one. But she knew he loved the attention the crowd poured his way. The playful smile while leaning into the audience was authentic.

"So, how old are you today, little brother?" she asked, moving to the right of the stage, near him.

"Four-hundred and ninety-six years old, miss." he replied, gaining a little laughter, though with no obvious intention of amending the reply. She ruffled his hair and pushed his shoulder, stepping away and leaning near Julia, who threw her a skeptical glance and proceeded to adjust her bass.

"Sorry I brought this liar to play for you, guys." she offered to the crowd, "Jules, how old is he today?"

"Well, he's lucky really, Lucky Number 26!" Jules said with emphasis, her tones uneven yet beautiful.

The audience broke into movement again, recognizing the cheap lead in to #26, the one and only song JBTLOD had ever gotten on the radio.

Wailing through accusatory and baleful lyrics, she couldn't help but be impressed. When the guys back home had proposed the idea of a European tour, she and her 'mates had been skeptical. Jozie had always bordered on indie by American standards, why would kids oversees know their stuff?

Oh how wrong the notion had been. Back home there were always certain places you loved to play, and others where you felt like an opening band on your own tour. Chicago was always great, those kids understood, even if they didn't always know it. Allentown made her sad, because they always got these batches of first-timers who didn't know what to do. The heart was there though, or something like it. Ohio may as well have been skipped.

But here? They'd opened the tour in London, in a freezing rain that reminded her of home, but these people had a lot more energy than the ones from Seattle. It took awhile to get used to the accents when fans asked her to sign shit, spare a second? Pose for a quick photo? But a more dedicated bunch would have been hard to come by. France was amusing to say the least, and Scots were some of the most violent moshers she'd seen in a long time.

The first disc they had ever created had been a six track EP, including a song about leaving home. None of the band had been over 18 at the time, and that 4 minute and 32 second song was their way of making peace with the fear that striking out alone had brought.

Now, eleven years and four albums later, she felt anything but alone. Being on that stage, with the four people she cared most about and the hundreds who wanted to listen instead of just hear, Kat was anything but alone, and anything but afraid.