1968 Conqueror of American Rock - Chapter 183



Only Krnovel

183. Again, Summer of ’69 (7)

Annie greets the audience with a loud roar when she first appears on stage and when she leaves. Freddie Mercury runs out with his signature powerful pose and waves his hands. Killing Machine, who opened today, introduced themselves with a sharp scream.

This is usually the first greeting from a rock band.

“It’s London smog.”

But Jacqui’s greeting was like this. It was dry and simple. He opened his eyes half-heartedly and blurted out this one word without thinking.

Gyaaaaaaah!

The girl fans went crazy.

Jacqui looked away, embarrassed. When he swept his messy hair back, the scream became louder.

“No, it’s ‘London smog.’ What’s going on here?”

Annie tilted her head, imitating Jacqui’s low-pitched voice.

“They have their own unique personalities. I was worried because Jacqui is a quiet person, but fortunately, that actually works.”

The guys have already performed at several large venues since they started their tour. I was looking forward to seeing what they would do on the outdoor festival stage.

Our members who were relaxing decided to gather around Annie and watch the London Smog performance.

“Uh······ The first song······ Um······.”

Jacqui wasn’t stuttering at all. He was just interrupted every now and then by the fans screaming at him.

“Jacup is sexy!”

“Will you go out with me?”

Annie kept mumbling like an auntie watching a drama, saying it was ridiculous.

“Boys in the Smog······.”

Gyaaaahhhhhh!

Jacqui barely managed to say the title before turning around. He looked at the members, nodded a few times, and strummed his guitar vigorously.

Choollarang, chokkachoolla, chokkachoolla!

A crunchy tone with clear high notes. I only taught him the principles, but Jacques created his own tone using two amplifiers.

One set was a clean tone, the other a crunchy gain, to create a refreshing sound. Then, a generous amount of soft reverb was added to create a dreamy, foggy atmosphere.

Thomas, unlike the guitar, cut the high notes beyond the common sense line to create a muffled bass sound. The soft, low and mid-range sounds that resonated like “dung-dung-dung” made my heart pound.

Joseph’s drumming was honest and plain, without any unnecessary techniques. Even with the same rhythm, there is a world of difference between playing the basic beat because you have no skill and playing without any techniques on purpose, even though you can do it. Joseph was definitely the latter.

* * *

Among the festival participants, London Smog was particularly popular with teenagers. Men and women in their late teens and early twenties gathered on stage and cheered.

“Mom, is it really Thomas performing over there?”

“Yeah, the tallest and most handsome guy over there is your older brother.”

Charlotte, who doesn’t go to school and doesn’t have any friends, came here with her family to see her brother’s performance. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d been to a place with so many people. Her mother Shannon had done a great job of braiding her blonde hair, giving her a hippie vibe.

Shannon was a free-spirited hippie in her youth. She had no intention of getting married, because she felt that ordinary British men would never understand her life.

But there was one man who understood everything and loved her. She met him and had a son, Thomas, who resembled his father, and a daughter, Charlotte, who resembled herself.

She was a beautiful daughter who would not be hurt even if she was put in my eyes, but from the time she was born, one of her two eyes looking at her was looking somewhere else.

It’s okay, our pretty daughter, it’s okay, I said, and tried to raise her bright and healthy. However, school, the first society that children encounter······was not okay.

She boldly dropped her daughter out of school and went to the countryside to educate her herself. However, Charlotte’s emotional wounds did not heal easily.

Her proud son Thomas, who helped his sister’s eyesight return to normal, is now a rock star, performing to the cheers of a huge crowd. Shannon’s tears flowed down her face. They were tears of joy.

“Shannon, here······.”

She took the handkerchief her husband handed her and wiped her tears.

“Mom, Dad, let’s start my favorite song!”

It had been ten years since I had seen my daughter smile so brightly. I had to smile, but tears kept falling.

The song started.

– The streets of this city that flow like waves.

(The streets of this city flow like waves.)

-Seeped between smoke and fog.

(Seeped through the smoke and fog.)

– Boys standing on the side of the road.

(Boys standing on the roadside.)

– One by one, they hang around and disappear.

(They disappear one by one.)

Through her husband, she heard the stories of her son and his friends. She ran away from home to pursue success in a band, went undercover on pirate radio, signed with a company in the US, and Charlotte had to have surgery.

It was great, wonderful, and joyful.

But as I listened to the song and thought about what the three young boys must have gone through, tears continued to flow uncontrollably.

– The glaring light and shadow.

(Dazzlingly spreading light and shadow.)

– The hopes of my childhood are left on the trail.

(The hopes of childhood remain as traces.)

– But there is no freedom for boys here.

(But there is no freedom for boys here.)

– Smog-covered boys’ wishes.

(Their wishes covered in smog.)

The girls who had been cheering also became emotional as soon as the song started.

“Jacup, Thomas, Joseph. I hope those three never break up.”

“Of course! If even one member changes, I won’t see you again!”

“That’s right, London smog has to be caused by those three!”

“My older brother ran away from home too, but he came back after hearing this song on the radio. He’s writing a novel again because he won’t give up on his dream.”

– The blue color disappears in the sky.)

(The blue in the sky is disappearing.)

– The fog turns gray.

(The fog turns gray.)

– The boys chase their forgotten dreams.

(Boys chase forgotten dreams.)

– It disappears between fog and smoke.

(Disappears into the fog and smoke.)

A hazy mist came out of the smog machine, enveloping the stage.

“Did you guys see this music video? Did you know that these aren’t just lyrics to a song, but something that actually happened to them?”

“I heard the story on pirate radio and saw a magazine interview. I think it might have been made up to look cool······.”

“No, Inma! That’s all true. I went to the same school as those guys.”

“Don’t lie, you punk!”

“I’m telling you, it’s true! The little kid over there playing drums. He’s Joseph, and he was a famous outcast. Jacques was a refugee from Eastern Europe, and he used to beat up the kids who bullied Joseph. He had a bad temper, so no one bothered him. They became friends and went to school together. But then Thomas, who was good at studying and normal, suddenly became friends with him, and the three of them became outcasts at school. If I had known this would happen, I would have been friends with him back then······.”

“Oh, I guess it’s true since you know the details?”

“That’s right, Inma! I’ll show you my graduation photos later.”

The boys debated whether the London smog story was true or not.

– The boys disappear in the smog.

(The boys disappear into the smog.)

-The wishes are carried by the wind.

(Hopes are carried by the wind.)

– Their shadow always hangs over the streets of this city.

(Only their shadows are always scattered on the streets of this city.)

As the wind blew and cleared the smog from the stage, Jacques was revealed singing the last verse of the song with a hazy look in his eyes. Thomas and Joseph joined in the chorus.

London smog!

London smog!

When the song ended, the audience who had been quietly enjoying the song cheered again.

* * *

Part 1: Waiting tent for the cast.

Michael Lang was watching the London smog stage with the killing machine.

‘It’s so bland… Why is this song so popular in England?’

“It’s hard to believe that the sound is so full that it’s hard to believe that the team is made up of three people.”

Michael really liked the way Jerry was seriously analyzing the other contestants even after the performance was over.

“But isn’t the genre a bit ambiguous? It’s neither rock nor pop, it feels like something in between.”

“That’s the same for us too. It’s neither rock nor rap, it’s something in between······.”

There was nothing to say. If Killing Machine was a radically new genre, London Smog was the exact opposite.

“But your stage was much more exciting and fit the festival atmosphere. Besides, this is their home ground, England. The audience is only about ten thousand people. The scale is completely different from that of the United States.”

“Michael, none of them died. You don’t have to tell me that.”

Michael grew fond of the mentally strong boy named Jerry. Look forward to it. You guys are going to make hundreds of thousands of people jump.

“It’s refreshing. The London Smog band seems to have the exact opposite style of music to us, but we have some strange similarities.”

“What are you talking about? It just sounds boring to me.”

“They and we are both youths who have been marginalized by society. Our situations are similar, but our solutions are different. They chose internal struggles, and we chose external struggles. Well, that may be the difference between kids in London and kids in Harlem, New York. I think that the environment affects people’s personalities, and the genre of music they want to do can change depending on their circumstances.”

Jerry’s insight, which he practiced by rapping opinions from newspapers, was deeper than that of most adults.

“Jerry, eat this. You haven’t eaten anything today.”

“I’m fine, I’ll eat later. You guys eat first.”

Jerry said he sings well on an empty stomach, so he didn’t eat anything except water since morning. Even after the performance was over, he analyzed all the teams with a sharp eye in the waiting tent.

‘London smog, you guys are really rooting for me. I’m like you guys. I don’t know what the back alleys of London are like. But I live in Harlem, New York with my mom. It’s a really bad place. I’m going to succeed and get my mom out of that hellhole. You guys are rooting for us too.’

Jerry didn’t feel hungry when he thought of his mother doing chores at the laundry shop today. He came this far with only one determination to succeed in music. By fate, he met the best planner, Michael Lang, and got together with like-minded members.

Everything was going perfectly for success.