"Sweetie Belle is playing tonight! At the Grand Matriarch Stadium, here in Manehatten with fifty thousand plus concert goers already on the go. She will make a killing with the crowd tonight! Wouldn't you say, Carol?"
"Yes, Jim, I think she will go and have yet another bash of fun for all those ponies out there, tonight! I think any upcoming artist should be tuning into her performances to see how music should be done, properly. E-T-A one hour and forty five minutes until her gig. She's doing a meet and greet in the next ten minutes, we hope those eager fans get a nice autograph and picture with the Ms. Sweetie!"
"Stay tuned until further notice for tonight's performance and after the fact. We want the best of sources to phone in and bring us the details of how tonight will go! Go check out her new album that was released just a few weeks ago; "Carousel Untamed" and the tour she has been on supporting called "The Untamed Tour" And make sure to buy her new single, "Memories". Thanks, again."
One hour and five minutes later...
Sweetie Belle sat behind the stage in a fold-out chair, drowned out by the flanks of ponies passing by without a moment to waste. And the roaring fans on the other, screaming, chanting, for Sweetie Belle. Not like her backing band ever really mattered to them, anyways. They only wanted the one and only, Sweetie Belle. It was as if time flew past her when she least expected it.
Some days it would seem like Summer when it was really Fall. Others would feel like Spring when it was Winter, days upon days of relentless touring, meeting and greeting. Something she was all in for, one hundred and five percent, as usual. The wide smile she possessed when meeting her followers. Her die-hard's. Her mainstream fans. And her new ones, too. There was always something that came after the last. Nothing was stopped, until one time she got sick from bad sushi at a restaurant. And the tour was postponed for one week. And she soldiered on for another seven months straight, with the casual day or two break, luckily enough she managed to find she had eight days off from leaving the last city, and while she was gracious for that little miracle. She was sure her crew was also. Building big stages from the ground up was never easy. Never mind sound-checks, handling the lights, the smoke effects, the choreographers, until the littlest of little...tedious sections appeared. Like handling and preparing the right foods for the band and herself. Though, they were never too picky, there was also the matter of dealing with over hundred-plus crew members that had needs also. Touring life was just as stressful as living a normal life sometimes. And in ways, they both had some very special merits. Being on the road and joking with the people that help make music with was just as great as snuggling up at home with reading a book, or venturing to see Rarity in Ponyville, or seeing her old friends again. Yeah, life on both sides of the coin did have it's moments while having some caustic setbacks.
Being out on the road meant that you are on the road, and nothing can't stop that. Especially when you have a record label as adamant as a fan when it comes to your music. You're voice. The very essence that creates who you are. The thing that makes who you are publicly, and privately. Sweetie Belle knew how important her voice was too others. She knew the risks if she damaged it in anyway possible. That was why drugs and alcohol never affected her or made her delirious like other sad musicians who would rather go through the process of short-term joy instead of long-term. She was squeaky clean, and alcohol never affected her performance because she never used it as a means of trying to be fun. If Sweetie Belle wanted extreme fun, a nice deck of cards with a few friends or traveling through Venice and seeing the ruins of Rome was exhilarating enough. She loved the danger of traveling and tackling extreme situations head-on when it came with climbing mountains, or hiking, or rock climbing. Anything to keep that intensity alive, something she knew that she would feel invested in for years too come. A challenge that would keep her blood pumping with intense heat, and feel like her once old self when she was ninety and felt like her time in Equestria was fulfilled.
But no matter how many times she rock climbed on the Grand Canyon or walked up the Great Wall Of China, she was feeling more and more obscured from her surroundings. A sense of dread now encapsulated her thoughts when stepping onstage to face screaming faces and banners of her name or face showing out to the whole world. A feeling of disgust just bothered, and bothered, and continued to bother her from the day the tour started. The feeling itself became whole weeks before the tour started, in the rehearsals. The band members felt it, the vibe became slowly mutated and deformed out of spite and a stemming hatred perpetrated the once-considerate Sweetie Belle into a pony who liked to wear her public image as a mask, rather than live it as something meaningful. It wouldn't be until the third concert that she blew up. Totally unleashed her anger, and anger unexpected from a mare who would at the most appropriate times to unhinge any anger, would simply shrug it off with a simple laugh. Or a reasonable response so no sides of the argument were hurt, she would go as far as to put herself on the spotlight so others would be set free of any scrutiny. Sweetie Belle made sure her close ones were taken care of because she controlled her fame respectfully. Not relaying insults for the media to take for granted when artists, music fans, critics and others alike bashed her for achieving everything so young into her age. What she considered an achievement, was considered a social confrontation by many others. But, if not for the fans, where would she be? Where would she really be? Most likely she would not have attained the amount of success she has been given so far.
Success was starting to run paper-thin for both excitement and happiness. Sweetie Belle wasn't nearly as happy for success as she first was, just a few short years earlier. Time flies by, ponies leave, ponies come, but the ball never stops changing, and the money never stops rising. And the fans never cease to flow, because they were always flowing, and the numbers were growing higher and higher every year. A few million might have come to her shows in over a course of two years, but millions were buying albums left and right. On a bad year, or even a quiet year when she wasn't releasing a record, four million albums would be brought into their new homes. Her band was getting certifications by half a dozen every few months. Her first record was certified Diamond within six years of being released, an achievement still considered by most music enthusiast to be better than stellar. It was flat out amazing. Even more that the record ended being given Diamond certifications in two more countries. She was on top of her peak, maybe even past the meaning of peak. She was certainly heading into goddess territory. Her other records were all certified Multi-Platinum worldwide, and with the record label ranking in the bits by the masses, she was certainly on a non-stop spree of cash. She was the cog that refused to be letdown, but boy was she wearing down herself. Each tour meant big bucks for the suits at the label, while she had to soldier it on and bring out that bright face she has become so known for. That nice, cute and astonishing smile. But with each tour, it also meant that she spent less and less time at home, with her friends, family, the ponies she had been so adorned with before fame and money came along. The money was nice. But peace and quiet was becoming more and more impressive each time she did actually come back home. But with three months of being home meant fourteen to eighteen months of solid touring....
Sweetie Belle closed her eyes, her thoughts contained and at contempt when she closed her eyes. The feeling of being truly honed inside her own world always made sense when she didn't use her vision to focus on reality. He legs crossed and her hooves folded nicely over her legs. Her mind was teasing new lyrics as she sang them with an existentialism feeling. Her body completely being the temple of what was truly inside her soul. Her mind, spirit, heart, and body all disconnected in theory, but kept together by the way she used them. It was what made her unique from all her peers. What she lacked in being outgoing, she more than made up with the complexities of her own visions, her own paths, her own dreams and fantasies, and with the right tools, the right moment, the right mind, the right heart, body and spirit. She made herself into a real global-icon, an entity that was known just by name. She slowed down her breathing and took deep, soft, hushed breaths as her lungs slowly exhaled while he mind was traversing and dissecting, identifying and reliving all her past experiences so far. Her mane perfectly brushed, her simple gray suit with a light brown trimming and velvet-purple tie wrapped around her collar of a white-dress shirt. She envisioned herself singing in the pitch black with no petty special effects, no dancers coming around her side every five seconds, the band playing silently in the back, lights completely eradicated. And the fans entirely silent. Not a single woo, or an expression of excitement etched out of their breaths. Just a simple vocal line of Sweetie Belle singing deeply, emotionally, physically the music absorbs, and her body becomes one with the intensity of her voice. Her body disappears into the blackness. The void. And for once, she sees herself as not the performer, but the voice that only wants to express emotional connection. A connection that grasps the meaning of an entire world and multiply the mysterious of it by a thousand. A wave of oceans that supplant and duplicate herself into a million times over. Something that expresses true, and utter eagerness for both creative and collective contempt with the world around her. She imagines the stars gaze up high and watch her as not the performer, but as the voice that only wants to be heard behind the shell of its body. She always saw herself as just a voice, but to truly be a voice and not the performer, but the voice that can just sing and express connectivity for all inspired her to get on stage each night, and preform for the best of the best, and expect it like its her last. As she always pictured each concert.
"I got a fight!
I got to rise
I got to believe
I got to see
I got to believe
I got to feel
I got to find
I got to fight, all that's corroded
I have to show what I am
I have to show what I am
I have to show what I am
I am all I can be
But I got to fight!
I got to rise
I got to see, my life
I got to rise
I got to fight
I got to believe
I got to fight
I got to try
I got to believe
You can take me down, you can shove me down, down in a hole, but I'll always come to find my way out
I got to fight
I got to rise
I got believe
I got to see
I got to believe
I am one, I am
I got to fight
I got to rise, I have to find...it
I got to fight, all that's corroded
I got to fight!
I got to rise, I'm controlling
I got to rise, I control now
I got to fight!
I...am...now"
After Sweetie Belle figured out what lyrics rattled inside her head, she stormed out of the fold out chair and gunned it at light speed to the rehearsal room. Where she intended her band mates to be currently at. She walked up to the door, nodded and grinned a little to the bodyguard who happily let her through, after walking in everyone stopped playing. Two of them were horsing around, while the others were just jamming and doodling with their instruments. She gave them a look, a stare of determination. It was a look that was initially met with mixed opinions, but afterwards she gave a very warm smile while her white cheeks flared with a fiery-red blush and walked up towards them and happily exclaimed, "Guys, I'm so sorry for what I said earlier. I promise I'll make it up to you after the shows over, but I have a new song all planned out and we are going to play it tonight."
At first, the members were somewhat shocked, but quickly the mood of the room changed rapidly and everyone rejoiced in her renewed energy that the fight from a couple weeks ago was like a vague imagination that never really happened. Sweetie Belle picked up the bass guitar and sat down comfortably on a sturdy wooden chair with an oak colored finish, and after placing the strap over her back she immediately plucked the first notes on the first fret, second string, strumming it six times before leaving it open, then she placed her hoof on the last string, ninth fret and continued giving it slow pickled strums. Before long, she had the bass intro done and soon enough she started showing everyone what they should be playing and what moment should they enter into the song. But she didn't force them into something if they didn't like it, she always valued opinions, especially from the ponies she spent most her life with on a daily basis.The band started getting cued into the spontaneity feel of what she was driving the band towards that they liked the results. And pretty quickly, despite the occurrences of what happened a while back, and Sweetie's mood swings, they were all playing like a band should. And the best of all, they were all enjoying themselves while doing it.
The concert....
They stepped out, and Sweetie Belle and the band walked out waving their hooves, showing their appreciation for the support they have given them over the years. Everything was going as planned, Sweetie Belle thought. She felt free and content with everything around her. The fans screaming, the love and support of her family back home, the mutual respect from her friends and peers from Ponyville, the love and respect from the fans, the mutual respect of the label, and the loving drive of her band, she even considered just adding them to her group and no longer tagging them as some other group that only serves as a live touring band. They all walked out there, and the dancers were sure too follow any moment. The lights were cast away, and the added keyboard effects to their music were to blow up in huge layered pieces of music that always combined with the bands and the voice of Sweetie Belle. Soon large banks of sounds and noises from the crowd were going to send both chills and thrills of excitement down Sweetie Belles back any moment.
But the band wasn't entirely sure, in fact, marginally hesitant, the music she showed them was something more far-fetch than what they normally play. It was different. It was a dirtier sense of what was considered normal mainstream music. Sweetie might be the pop star of the decade, and many more to come, but this concert is going to be like reliving your first show all over again. Full of exuberance and unknown expectations from what the crowd might think.
Sweetie Belle got up to her mic, which was in the middle of the stage at the edge of it. She closed her eyes and breathed in softly, first, though, the lights dimmed out. Just stopped dead in it's tracks, something she informed the light-stallion minutes before they departed for the show. She wanted to sing with just the voice, not the body serving as the performer, serving as the shell of a true entity hiding unlimited possibilities. Just the voice alone, to see the stars align and connect her voice and thought, and telepathically send out her voice, her connectivity for the whole world to see. To watch while she sings, while her body breathes intense emotions as she conveys and relays the intensity into an emotional heartfelt performance that not only breathes emotional depth, but literally lives as its own creation. She started, in her chilling ways, she opted to sing a light feathered tone, before rising and lowering her voice into different voices that truly showed her capability as what the voice, the throat can do if you just let go of yourself and be lost in your own world. A world created by no one but your own. A world made of you're possibilities, your attractions, even you're most delicate fantasies.The voice can show it all, if you just let it.
"Drink from the vine eyes, and I'll say you're in binds..."
"And I'll wash over the thirst of drums, and the hushes of clouds, and the howl of the wind..."
She opened her voice wide and softened the blow of what was too be a harsh vocal, into a calmly sought out voice that aims to capture the power of gain with only little bits.
"March of ponies walk around, and the sound circles it's bounds....."
The three-minute piece continued almost like an old-relic of an anthem. Bounded not by ancient history itself, but only remembered because a pony like Sweetie Belle probably hit a stage of realizing where her creativity was drawing towards that it takes something compassionate, risky, and quite unheard of in the modern-mainstream music to make her inner fantasies come true.
Her song ended, and she sat there, unacknowledged by the sheer quietness of the crowd, the dancers, the band themselves, besides one or two ponies whooping for her, everyone was thick in silence. And it didn't bother her a single bit. She felt utterly proud of what she accomplished. Maybe it was that missing piece she wanted all along? A chance to finally express her emotions as truly just a voice. Without the thought of having a body as the shell to control her and keep her in this world, she felt like she could explode if she wasn't self-conscious about playing the concert for her fans, for the label, for all the families out there, for her friends, for the dancers, for the band, and even for her own family. She had a job to do. And the world was watching....
"Well Carol, tonight on the show we are going to be discussing the events of what went on last night, don't you say?"
"Definitely, Jim. We shall."
"I must say, that was a show to be reckoned with, like usual, she was stunning, and well...poppy."
"But not last night."
"No. Not last night, and I guess that was what surprised me more than anything when fans left the concert after it finished and were feeling weird about the whole event. Especially the girls."
"Yes, well, if you were to ask me. I say Sweetie did a find job last night, but I have to admit, that first song, if it can even be called a song!"
"Yes, definitely!"
"Was quite different, and not your usual run of the mill type ordeal when facing pop queens. You heard about the 'new song' that came after it."
"Yeah, I heard it Carol, and well, to be honest, that was the second time I ever heard her. And that one song, well...if she can make more songs like that I will give her a try, because I am an old-fashioned guy, and I like my music 'rocking'. So to speak."
"Rock music is right! I heard people say it was even Punk rock! Some went as far too say it was post-punk! Quite totally different from bubblegum pop and it made you think what was the point of the dancers at first!"
"They just sat around and did almost nothing during those first eight minutes! That new song was climbing past five minutes! I'm surprised she even went that far!"
"Especially the kind of music she played there last night, we are already hearing reports that might be the style of her new album!"
"Say goodbye to popular relevance then! She might as well end up like all those washed up glam rockers from the past three decades!"
"Glad Equestria doesn't have them anymore, got to admit though, I liked the idea of men trying to be like women. Crazy times!"
"Well it was great to see her play last night, now she's doing another show tonight in Las Pegasus! I'm sure that will be fun."
Author's Note
Something I made that took three hours to complete.
Inspired by music, of course, Troceadro, Swans, pretty much.
Public Castration Is A Good Idea - Swans, its a very damn good record.
Troceadro, various music I just heard from them.
I may or may not push out another chapter. Consider it like a bonus? A proper Epilogue.
