Three weeks later, Florian and Ralf were unpacking keyboards out of the van in Seattle, Washington, when Klaus and the doorman Henry from the nights venue The Comet came up suddenly and, breathing heavily, and in a comically fast delivery, Henry almost shouted:
“Robotrobic is gonna be two hours late! You guys are opening now! Sherry says you can play an extra 45 minutes and she’ll throw in an extra $50. You guys need to get set up and started in twenty, okay? Sorry for the rush but hey that’s showbiz, am I right?” And off strolled Henry.
Ralf looked perturbedly over at Florian.
“Well this is just bloody brilliant. Who is the closing act!? Why can’t they pick up the slack? Fucking Robotrobic. Those guys always show up late. Their lead singer guy Terry is always a mess.”
Florian shouldered two Moog roadcases and shrugged, wondering what extra songs he’d be able to pull off, and said,
“The closer is that new smash bomb group, The Silver Bugs or whatever. They’re flying in from their poorly attended show in Leeds and are most likely also running late. We should probably play the L.H. Opus, guys, if we want to make an extra 45 minutes up—”
“-wuh- L.H.? But we haven’t played that- shit, even rehearsed that song in- like, six months, Flor. I’ll have to run through it a couple times! Do we get a sound check? This is fucked!”
Florian drowned out Ralf’s voice by humming the intro notes of Rocket Calculator, trying to center himself and not absorb Ralf’s predictable preshow tension, made worse this time by this set sequence curveball. Klaus and their temporary sit in drummer Chuck Biscuits were more chill than Ralf typically, which Florian was thankful for. It was difficult to always be the only one with a cool head.
Just then, in walked Nik Turner and Dave Brock, who had just the day before, finally been allowed back into the U. S. after being banned for marijuana possession decades ago.
He looked at Nik and winked.
“We took a wrong step years ago,” said Nik.
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