The Rise of the Scream Queens

The First Concert

Marceline was gently strumming on Keila's guitar in her own room at Keila's house. When Marceline had told Screaming Vultures that she had nowhere to crash so she slept at the record store Keila had insisted that Marceline move in with her as her roommate was about to move from Seattle to LA. The roommate's name was Bonniebel and she was a fucking nightmare, claimed to be a 'musician' but she was just another copy-and-paste bubblegum popstar. She sang well enough but Marceline knew that the only reason Bonnibel had gotten signed to a record label and had to move to LA was because of how fucking gorgeous she was! Seriously, Marceline hated her but whenever she was near she couldn't help but stare. The record label was probably going to smack kilos of autotune on her decent singing, get the same two songwriters who seem to write everything on the charts and market her as a new Ariana Grande. Marceline played a wrong chord in frustration and let the dissonance ring out so she went back to one of her comfort riffs to calm down. The riff she chose was the Flamenco section in Innuendo by Queen. Marceline was usually bored by Flamenco and wasn't a fan of the singing style, but if the Flamenco was instrumental and the guitar took the lead like in Entre Dos Aguas by Paco De Lucia she couldn't help but love it, and if it was mixed with rock like Innuendo or Sidewinder by Avenged Sevenfold even better. Her playing was interrupted by Bonnibel's sickeningly sweet voice.

"I thought you were a rocker." Marceline couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"One can listen to more than one genre, princess." Marceline answered without looking at her and went back to playing lightly.

"Don't call me that." Bonnibel demanded. Marceline's playing got a little quicker.

"Why not?" Marceline asked. "It's your stage name."

"Yeah," Bonnibel said. "And I hate it." Marceline played another wrong chord a stopped to look at Bonnibel.

"Why would you choose it?" Marceline asked sharply.

"I didn't," Bonnibel sighed. "My mother did."

"Tell your mother to fuck herself then." To prove her point Marceline played the Killing in the name by Rage Against the Machine riff. Bonnibel seemed to have understood the reference and laughed lightly before giving a sad smile.

"I wish I could."

"Hey, Bonnie!" Keila's voice interrupted them and she appeared on the doorway. "What time are you leaving tomorrow?"

"Early in the morning," Bonnibel answered. "Why?"

"Oh, nevermind then," Keila said. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to come to our show tonight but you probably need sleep."

"I can sleep in the car." Bonnibel said.

"Oh cool!" Keila exclaimed. "So you're coming tonight?"

"Sure," Bonnibel smiled. "Why not?"

"Cool," Keila said. "See you there."

...

The Screaming Vultures had already made a name for themselves in the Seattle Underground scene so Marceline expected there to be quite a few people at the Club where she was going to play her first concert, but not so many! It was almost Travis Scott levels of people jam-packed into a smaller space in there! They were probably excited to see how the new bassist and singer sounded.

"Hello everyone!" Keila spoke into Marceline's mic. "So as some of you may know Jacob and LSP are sadly no longer in the band. But we found a perfect replacement for them! Everyone welcome Marceline Abadeer into the band!" The crowd went wild and Marceline kicked in the distortion pedal to start a bass solo, the first part was highly influenced by classical music but the mixture of the distortion and the wah pedal she used to accentuate some notes made it pack a punch, she changed time signatures throughout this section and changed dynamics and speed as well to get the crowd riled up. This was all the 'premeditated' section as she called it and right before finishing it, she changed to slap for a specially fast passage. Bongo marked three times on the hi-hat before starting a beat for Marceline to solo over. From that point on the solo was completely improvised by Marceline and you could tell by the fact that the Classical element had completely disappeared from the solo, this section went on for a while as the crowd went insane near the end of it she started using harmonics and Keila and Guy came in on guitars, drilling an E power chord as they transitioned to the first song of the night. The crowd seemed to recognise the song as they started chanting when Keila started playing the main riff.