Elonzo wasn't grumpy tonight - per say. Well, not any grumpier than he usually was, maybe a little bit less. After all, work had gone well and Allie had stopped by at the beginning of dinner with a ticket for a show right down the road. She didn't know anybody who was playing and Elonzo hadn't heard of them either, but she'd heard good things. Unfortunately, someone had called out at work, and so she'd gotten called on shift and couldn't go. Allie had been very insistent.
So after work, Elonzo had done a quick wash to get the better part of the smell of marinara off of him (he smelled perpetually of olive oil and rosemary, but there was really nothing you could do about sticky odors like that), had changed into a clean shirt, and had made his way to the address listed on the ticket.
It was a small underground location whose entrance was hidden between an all-night convenience shop that featured mostly alcoholic beverages and an old record shop which was currently closed. A door wizard wearing stylistically torn robes and a plaid shirt hovered at the entrance, selling and taking tickets. After handing over his ticket, Elonzo traveled down the stairway into darkness and a somewhat ominous deep throbbing beat that grew in volume as he approached the door. When Elonzo opened the door, he was assaulted with screaming vocals and three guitars that all appeared to be playing in the general direction of the same song. He couldn't make out any words, but the stage was pouring fog into the audience so thickly that at first he wasn't sure what was in the dark room. The fog was thick enough that he couldn't make out much on stage except that there were several larger men who appeared to be wearing all black so that they were better silhouetted on the fog and they had long, thick hair which they flung around quite a bit. Elonzo stepped aside to catch his bearing while the lead guitarist began jumping up and down on stage, apparently having given up not only on annunciation but also on words as he howled at the ceiling.
The walls had been painted black. So had the floor and ceiling. Every so often, an unframed painted canvas decorated the walls. The artwork was what in France he had heard referred to as Avant Garde. The painting closest to him had dancing skeletons on it and in the middle read, "Not all rocks have a story but this one does." An arrow pointed down and Elonzo found himself somewhat awkwardly checking the floor. Either the rock was not intended to be a physical rock or someone had made off with the rock in question. Elonzo smiled and shook his head. To his right, a man was doing brisk business selling the sorts of things people sold at club - band t-shirts, enchanted do-dads, and ear plugs. Several sofas lined that wall - they all looked like they had seen better days.
Bright colored lights danced across the thinning fog as the man on stage stopped screaming and he and the band bowed, thanking the audience enthusiastically for having withstood his music. Elonzo checked his watch; this band must have been the opening act because it wasn't late enough yet for the headliner to have shown up - whoever he was. As the boys disassembled their set and left the stage and the fog cleared, Elonzo was finally able to make out people. The building was nowhere near capacity - maybe it would fill up later? Elonzo didn't know if that last act was a standard for this place or not; that might make a difference. There was a small crowd of milling people closer to the stage, clumped up and shouting at each other while they waited for the next act.
After a little bit, a bald man with a guitar came on stage. He was wearing brilliant blue and orange dress robes over blue jeans and looked vaguely familiar to Elonzo. He couldn't place where he'd seen the man onstage before and he had absolutely no idea who he was, but from the sound of the cheering of the couple dozen people in the building when he took the stage Elonzo suspected that this was the main act. When he started playing and singing, Elonzo's eyebrows shot up. This guy was really good! Elonzo's feet started tapping along to a rocking song he'd never heard before about ... boggarts? He was pretty sure that this song was about boggarts and the Riddikulus Charm. Elonzo pulled out his ticket stub to see if it would give him a clue as to who this mystery musician was, but no dice. The ticket had the date and the name of the gig spot and that was it.
Elonzo was a perpetual wallflower at events like this, but he was too curious about this mystery man. He left the safety of his dark corner and headed towards one of the small clumps of dancing people in front of the stage (via a circuitous route) before finally tapping someone on the shoulder and asking (loudly because of volume issues), "Hey, do you know who this is? I can't place him."
