Vacuum Cleaners and Awkward Questions

Alan and Abby worked together to schedule a mini-tour for Phantom Cat and Madhouse in September. We would spend the month playing in small clubs in six different cities - Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Chicago - and both bands would have the opportunity to meet fans and test out new songs live. It seemed like an ideal arrangement for all of us.

I was watching TV in my house the morning before we were supposed to leave for the venue. As I surfed the channels, I spotted Alan, so I stopped on that channel to see what was going on. It turned out to be an ad for something, and like most of Alan's ads, it mostly involved him standing around shirtless while the camera lingered on his abs. Despite the nice view, I couldn't figure out what exactly the ad was supposed to be for.

I turned off the TV and drove to the club, where I met my touring band mates, Lena and Jesse, and the members of Phantom Cat. "Hey Bianca," Alan said. "Did you see my ad?"

"I did, actually," I said.

Alan grinned. "Isn't it wonderful?" he said. "I thought I did a very nice job on it."

"What was it for?" Byron asked.

"Snapizer," Alan said. "I said that in the ad."

"That tells me absolutely nothing," Byron said. "What does Snapizer do?"

"They make vacuum cleaners," Alan explained.

"What does you being shirtless have to do with vacuum cleaners?" Byron asked.

"Nothing," Alan admitted. "It doesn't have to be relevant. It just has to sell vacuum cleaners."

"Whatever Alan," Byron said.

"How are we going to get a drummer?" Miles asked.

"I'll play with you guys," Jesse, my touring drummer, said. "I'm joining Phantom Cat in a few months, so I should probably learn how to play your songs anyways."

"Wait, what?" I said. "Jesse, you didn't tell me about this."

"I didn't think it was important," he said. "I might still be able to tour with you after I join Phantom Cat anyways. We'll work something out."

"Okay Jesse," I said. "For this tour, you're playing with both bands, right?"

"That's correct," Jesse said.

"Great," I said. We set up, warmed up, and then waited for the fans to arrive. Since it was such a small venue, most of the fans that were coming had either won some sort of contest or had paid crazy amounts of money just to be here. I did some last-minute tuning on my bass and then stepped onstage and heard the roar of the fans. Jesse and Lena followed me onstage, and when we were all ready, we started playing Time of Our Lives.

The fans went wild, and I knew that it wasn't just because Phantom Cat would come on soon. We had fans of our own now, even if most of them just wanted to hear me play Florence over and over again.

Our next song was Double Vision. I had played the song hundreds of times with Kyle and Robin, and hundreds more by myself, and it was always during this song that I began to miss my old band. Lena was good, but she never quite learned to play it the way Robin used to. The guitar part always managed to sound lifeless, but I tried to make up for it by playing my bass as well as I could.

The night went on, and I played through both old and new songs, purposely skipping the ones that reminded me of Robin too much. By the end of the set, a few of the fans in the front row were screaming for Florence, but I knew that I would never play that, no matter how much they begged. I instead ended the set with Chameleon. "Thank you, Los Angeles!" I screamed as the last chord of the song rang throughout the club. We then went offstage, and Phantom Cat (and Jesse) went on.

I slipped into the front row of the audience as Phantom Cat started their set with Just Another Song About California, a fan favorite off of As Pretty As An Airport. As usual, their next song was Black Swan, but as they continued the setlist, they threw in a few new tracks from their upcoming album, which they still hadn't named yet. The audience seemed to enjoy Welcome To My World, Seeing Stars, and Alcatraz, but Golden Gate still seemed to be the obvious favorite off of the new album.

Phantom Cat finished their set with In The Dark, and thankfully, Alan didn't do anything too crazy during the show. Even during the encore, he managed to stay away from his bandmates and their instruments. I was almost certain that this had something to do with the fact that the technicians had given him his own microphone, so he could do as much of the talking as he wanted.

After the show, all of us had a meet and greet with the fans. Alan, Miles, Byron, Lena, Jesse, and I entered another room in the venue, and the fans lined up to meet us.

The first two girls in line happened to be the same two girls who were behind me during Lollapalooza. They were wearing the exact same #phantompalooza2k16 shirts that they were wearing at the concert, despite the fact that the hashtag had trended for approximately fifteen minutes and then disappeared. "Oh my goodness!" one of the girls screamed. "I can't believe I'm meeting Phantom Cat!"

"You'd better believe it," Byron said.

"Who are you?" the second girl asked.

Byron simply rolled his eyes while one of the girls' mother took out her camera. All of us posed for the picture, and Alan even put his arm around one of the girls, despite the fact that he had to stand on his tiptoes to do it.

"I can't believe Alan put his arm around me!" the girl squealed as she left. "He's so hot!"

The next group of fans were Madhouse fans, as evidenced by a woman in her twenties who was wearing the T-shirt that we sold when we opened for Phantom Cat during their Fire and Rain tour. She appeared to be in the minority of old fans who stuck with us after Robin left. The vast majority either left with Robin or joined the fandom after he was gone. "That was an amazing concert," the woman said.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're all very talented musicians," she said. "I'm impressed every time I see you live."

The woman handed her phone to the high school aged girl who was next in line and asked her to take a picture. She and another man posed with us for the picture and then left.

The next group was three teenage girls and their parents. "I love both of your bands so much!" one girl said.

"Alan's even sexier in person," another mumbled.

"I have a question for you," a third girl said.

"I can answer it," I said.

"It's more for Phantom Cat," the girl said. "I was looking for the liner notes of As Pretty As An Airport, and I noticed that all of the songs were credited to Miles Hawthorne and Byron Shaw. That has to be a mistake, right? I thought Alan wrote all of the songs."

"It's not a mistake," Miles said. "Byron and I write all of the songs for Phantom Cat."

"Really?" the girl said. "I didn't know that."

"Of course not," Alan said, glaring at Miles. "It's a mistake."

"Stop lying to the fans, Alan," Miles said.

"I agree with Miles," Byron noted.

"We'll talk about this later," Alan said. "Just know that I do contribute to this band in a lot of ways."

"Okay," the girl said. One of the parents again took a picture, and the group left. This pattern continued on for the remainder of the night, with fans lining up to take pictures with us and then leaving. Finally, everyone left, and we went back to our hotel.

When I arrived at the hotel, I almost immediately went to bed, while Alan turned on the TV and surfed through the channels. As I drifted off to sleep, I thought about all of the lies Alan had told while images flashed through my head. I saw the faces of fans and the vacuum cleaner that Alan was advertising in that TV commercial. One face stayed in my head for a moment too long, as much as I tried to push it out of my head.

I didn't realize until that moment just how much I missed Robin.