“Kyle! How are you doing, it’s been absolutely ages!” The princess of love exclaimed. Enveloping the human in a tight hug before taking a seat at the table he had reserved.
“Oh not too bad Candy.” He replied before moving to embrace her husband. “Shining, how you been bud?” He asked, quickly returning to his own chair.
“Oh you know, same old same old. I try to help my wife run the Crystal Empire, she tells me no, that sort of thing.” The stallion said, smiling.
“Stop it, I absolutely do not!” Cadance retorted, lightly smacking the back of Shining’s head with her wing. A hearty chuckle escaping the three friends.
Princess Cadance and Shining Armor had come to Canterlot for a visit, and Kyle had arranged to meet with them for dinner. It had been over six months since they had last seen each other and everyone agreed some catching up was in order. The small restaurant was absolutely PACKED. A result of both a two-for-one dining special and a final tour performance from one of Canterlot’s most popular bands, “Mane Attraction”. Kyle always got a kick out of the horse themed puns, even after eight years in Equestria. Such cramped eating conditions were generally something he avoided, but today was a special occasion so Kyle dealt with it the best he could.
“It really has been too long guys, with me moving out of the palace two years ago I haven’t gotten to see you as much.” He said, reminiscing on his first few years living in this new world. Brought to the Princesses, Celestia and Luna, within a few days of his unexpected arrival. Kyle was confused, frightened, and overwhelmed. After it was determined he wasn’t a threat to anyone and just wanted to return home, the two rulers personally took up the responsibility of his well-being until a way home could be found. However, after five years of constant research, the possibility of Kyle being returned to Earth had gotten slimmer every day. Until, one day he decided to fully commit to a new life in Equestria. Working to integrate himself into their society, and learn their history. Today was his third anniversary of making that
commitment.
“Well it’s always a pleasure seeing you Kyle,” Cadance said. “Still living in that apartment on Shetland street?” She asked, recalling the unpleasant hassle it had been for him to find a place of his own.
“Yep, still there.” The human replied.
“So, how’s the job search going?” Shining inquired. Oh the job search, Kyle rolled his eyes. He had been looking locally for around half a year and to say that ponies were, *ahem* hesitant to step outside of their societal norms was a massive understatement.
“Not well at all, half the jobs here require magic to do properly and the other half are in fields I have no experience in, not to mention my appearance doesn’t help much.” Kyle was fresh out of university when his unplanned magical adventure started. Getting a degree in electrical engineering, nobody wanted to hire a person who’s only professional area was in something magic had replaced. Sure, electricity could be generated by magic but using pure magical energy was way more efficient.
“Well I am sorry to hear that, I’m sure somepony will offer you a job eventually.” Cadance reassured him.
“Hey! enough moping, this is supposed to be a celebration!” Shining exclaimed, “To a new life.” He said, raising his mug of cider in the air.
“To a new life.” Kyle and Cadance echoed, raising and touching their mugs to Shining’s before drinking.
The band had begun its performance as they were toasting. Soon pleasant music filled the small club, and the three friends ate in silence, appreciating the performance as well as each other’s company. Kyle inspected the band, a mare unicorn vocalist, pegasus stallion bass player, two gryphon drake guitarists, and an earth pony stallion drummer. Quickly moving his gaze to the two guitarists, Kyle eagerly examined their rigs from his seat. Being a guitar player himself back on earth it was nice to see fellow practitioners. In Equestria Kyle found that only certain species were able to play guitars, more specifically the ones with hands or those gifted in magic.
Thankfully, gryphons were roughly the same height as him when sitting on their hind legs, so the dimensions of their instruments were similar to what he was used to. In fact, that lead guitarist has a real nice...
“Kyle, hey Kyle, you’re staring.” Shining Armor said, lightly tapping his shoulder and smiling.
“Sorry, it’s the guitars.” Kyle replied sheepishly, “You have no idea how much of a relief it was when I found out you guys had those too.”
Suddenly a loud crackling of magical energy rang out, followed by the soft rockabilly music turning into a loud distorted mess. The band quickly stopped playing and all eyes turned to a small unicorn filly, horn still smoking from a recent power surge. The poor thing quickly started to cry, causing her parents to scoop her up and start apologizing.
“We are SO sorry, you’re her favorite band, and, well... this sometimes happens when she’s really excited. She usually has such good control over magic for her age.” With the circumstances clearly showing that it was an accident, the band made their way down to the embarrassed family, working to console the utterly hysterical foal.
“Hey, hey, it’s ok, it was an accident. We know you didn’t mean to, ssshhhh.” The band leader whispered, once the filly was calm enough to be put down the band took to the stage again to offer an apology. “We wish we could continue performing for you tonight, but sadly that’s impossible. The blast directly damaged our guitar amps, we will be offering full ticket refunds at the front of house booth and wish you all a pleasant rest of your evening.” With the announcement made, the musicians turned to begin packing up their gear.
“Well that sucks...” Kyle remarked, taking a sip of his drink. Even though their music wasn’t really a genre he enjoyed, they played well enough and seemed to be a nice group.
“I hope that poor filly is alright, her parents looked absolutely mortified.” Cadance agreed.
“Yeah, that’s a rough way to end a show.” Shining said before a mischievous smile crossed his face. “Hey Kyle, bet you fifty bits you won’t go up there and play for us.” Shining dared, confident in the human’s refusal. Ever since Kyle had mentioned the hobby three years prior, Shining had begun playfully teasing him about it every chance he got.
“Would you quit nagging me about this dude, trust me when I say that I’m not as good as you think I am.” Kyle chuckled.
“Well how can I judge if I’ve never heard it?” Shining responded, the wager silently hanging in the air between them. That is, until Cadance guilt tripped him.
“Oh come on Kyle, these ponies need some entertainment after all, and I for one would love to hear what you have to offer. Pretty please...” She said, putting on her best puppy dog eyes, resistance was futile.
“Alright fine,” Kyle said, “I’ll do it for you, but any damage to my public reputation is going on your head.” He rose from his seat.
Making his way over to the band Kyle caught one of the gryphons returning their guitar to its case. “Hey man, you put on a great show tonight.” He said, attempting to break the ice.
“Thank you, that really means a lot to us, and we’re really sorry the gig got cut so short.” The drake replied.
“Oh no worries, nice Rickenbucker by the way.” The human said, gesturing to the guitar. Recognizing the branding on the headstock. Pretty much all of the guitar makers Kyle had seen on earth had a counterpart in Equestria, with horsey spins where applicable.
“Yeah she’s a beauty, semi hollow with twin toaster pickups. Not too bad price wise though. You play?” The gryphon asked.
“Yep, used to quite a bit back in my world. It’s actually pretty scary how close some things are over here.” Kyle explained, “So what I came over here to ask was...” he leaned in, explaining the bet, and who it was against, hoping that little detail might sway them over.
“You’re sure, even with the amps being broken?” The gryphon asked, confused. When Kyle gave an affirmative nod he turned to where the vocalist was busy moving mic stands.
“Hey boss! The human wants to play my guitar on stage, I’m fine with it if you are.” The unicorn gave Kyle a puzzled look,
“Really? The amps are broken you know, it’ll sound horrible.” She said, reiterating what the drake had just told him.
“I already told him that, he says it’ll work for some kind of human music “rock” or whatever he called it. Apparently they deal with this sound all the time.” The gryphon quickly explained.
The unicorn shrugged her shoulders. “I guess it’s alright, is it just you or do you need the rest of us to accompany you?” She asked.
“Just a drummer will be fine, thank you.” Kyle said earning another confused look from the two musicians.
“Just a drummer, no bass or anything?” The mare asked, even the smallest bands in Equestria had at least three to four members.
“Nope only need a drummer.” Kyle said, glancing over to the still complete kit in the back corner of the stage.
“Hey Mythic Beat, you up for an encore?” The guitarist called to the grey earth pony stallion, who was currently assisting the bass player move his amp.
“What?” He said, turning to face them, his thick glasses glinting in the stage lights. “Why would we do an encore?” Kyle quickly brought him up to speed. “Oh yeah I can do that, I just need to follow you right?”
“Not exactly, follow me for the most part but improvise when you can, watch for my timing though.” Kyle explained as they moved one of the broken amps to the center of the stage. “Try to keep up.” He joked, earning a laugh from Mythic Beat.
“Not gonna be a problem.” The pony replied, settling back into his stool behind the kit. Meanwhile, the human had grabbed a guitar and dragged the main vocal mic over to where he had placed the amps. In the time it had taken Kyle to get permission, set up the equipment, and finish sound checks a steady stream of patrons had begun to exit the club. “Ex...Excuse me.” Kyle said through the microphone. His voice reverberating through the restaurant, causing heads to turn his way and the din of conversations to quiet.
“Uh hi, my name’s Kyle and as I’m sure you all know by now, I’m not from around here, or uh this planet really...” He chuckled, trying to calm his nerves. “So a couple friends asked me to show off some music from my world, so uh I’ll play what I know and hope you guys like it. I’m a little rusty though so we’ll just see what happens I guess.” As Kyle made his little speech ponies had begun to filter back into their seats, curious to see what the human had to offer. Glancing behind him, and receiving a reassuring smile from his pony drummer, “This one’s called Same Old Thing.” Kyle said, reaching over and flicking his amp’s power switch. Immediately loud whines of feedback sounded from the speakers, causing many in the audience to clamp their forelegs over their ears. At least, until he started to Play...
As soon as Kyle hit the first note, he knew something strange was happening. The princesses had informed him long ago about heartsongs, or events where the magic of Harmony resonates with a singer, allowing large scale song and dance numbers to occur at random. He had even seen a few happen in Canterlot, but this one was different. It was smaller, more contained, almost personal.
He felt Equestria’s magic connecting him with Mythic Beat, allowing the drummer to hit the correct notes and keep the proper timing. All without ever playing this song before in his life. The magic guided Kyle’s hands, moving them up and down the fretboard almost gracefully. His voice was taken and shaped into melodies that rang out perfectly alongside his playing. Sweat poured from the mop of brown hair atop Kyle’s head. Forcing him to shut his eyes and trust in the magic that captured him. Jolts of pain ran through his fingers, the result of finally playing again after years of inactivity.
The song ended as hard-hitting as it began, slamming his right hand against the strings and letting the sea of distortion subside, helping it along by rolling back the volume knob on the guitar. He was breathing heavily at this point, and stopped to catch his breath. Thankfully the guitarist he spoke to before brought water up for the two musicians.
Kyle looked out at the ponies who had stayed behind for his performance. You could have heard a pin drop, faces ranged from confusion to outright shock. “Oh shit” Kyle thought, “they hated it...” preparing to apologize and exit the stage he was caught off guard when a voice rang out, “Again! Again!!” It was the filly from before, the family apparently hadn’t left like he had thought.
Soon Cadance and Shining joined in, stomping their hooves in applause. More hooves joined the royal couple’s and soon the entire restaurant was rumbling. Whistles, whoops, and hollers filled the air, Kyle turned to look at his drummer. Mythic Beat was grinning from ear to ear, “We can’t keep these ponies waiting! I’ll follow your lead if you want to start another.”
With the drummer’s blessing Kyle returned to the microphone. “Alright, I think we can do a few more if you want.” The audience answered with even louder cheering. “I’m going to take that as a yes... Strange Times, here we go!” He said, emboldened by their support.
Kyle bounced on the balls of his feet as he played, moving around the stage to keep the energy high. Throwing his shoulders and bending at the waist for each heavy riff. Fully giving himself over to the music and magic. Blasting the audience with woolly, fuzz riddled guitar. “You ponies having fun!” He asked once the song was over, the audience responding enthusiastically. “Hey that’s Mythic Beat over there on the drums let’s give him a hoof.” Kyle said as his drummer waved a stick in the air. “And let’s hear it for Mane Attraction now, thank you guys for letting me do this.” He added, letting the audience give their round of applause. “Alright, so we’re gonna do two more for ya tonight and then I gotta go. You’ve been awesome and such a kind group of ponies, and I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let’s get back to it! We’re gonna play a few more songs for you tonight, then we have to call it quits.” Kyle said, as he increased the volume on his guitar, sending more feedback coursing through the small club.
Starting off by continuing the fast, and vibrant energy his previous two songs had created Kyle threw himself into the performance once more. Moving his shoulders to the beat and practically swallowing the beat up microphone in front of him. Later however, recognizing a break in energy was needed, he slowed down into a melodic groove. Bringing a touch of sadness to the club as he sang about a mother’s love for her child. The final performance was special, chaining two songs together Kyle brought the energy up again. Only to bring it down once more for a nice driving end to the eventful evening.
————————————————————
“That was absolutely incredible!!” Cadance exclaimed as they walked down the cobblestone street. After Kyle’s performance concluded the band leader from before had slipped him the address and telephone number of the hotel the musicians were staying at. Asking him to think about joining them for a few shows as an opener.
“Yeah, you were really good.” Shining added, still surprised that Kyle had actually taken the bet.
“Really, you guys liked it?” Kyle asked.
“Of course! I’d never heard anything else like it. In fact nopony has.” Cadance said reassuringly.
“So Mr. music, what do you think that filly’s magic blast did to the equipment?” Shining Armor asked, hoping Kyle would give some insight.
“Well my best guess would be that the sheer amount of raw magic fed into the amplifier caused the focusing crystals to corrupt and weaken.” Kyle answered, “Equestrian amplifiers use a set of magically charged crystals to shape the signal coming from the instrument, they have what I would call a stupidly high headroom. Which means they won’t distort at high volumes...” Kyle continued, before noticing the blank look on Shining’s face. “I’m guessing you want it in English don’t you?” The stallion nodded his head. “Too much magic make crystals cuckoo and sound goes ppppbbbbbttttt in good way.” He said, adding a raspberry for comedic effect.
Cadance laughed, “Thank you Kyle that was very educational.” To which the human gave a mock salute.
“Always at your service princess!” He said.
The rest of the way to Kyle’s apartment was filled with pleasant conversation. “I had a wonderful time tonight and am glad I got to share something from my home with you guys.” Kyle said as the three friends made their goodbyes.
“Well, maybe you can come play for us in the crystal empire sometime.” Cadance replied as she and her husband continued down the street.
“We’ll just have to see.” Kyle called out after them before stepping into the lobby of his apartment building. Making his way up the carpeted stairs he thought about the events that had transpired, “Did I really just do all of that, perform in front of a good hundred ponies on a dare. And get offered a freaking job for it?” He thought, it had been one huge blur between stepping up onto the stage and walking off. Cadance had told him he had performed for a solid half hour, but it had only felt like fifteen minutes. Come to think of it, did Shining ever.... Shit.
Author's Note
Edit: I changed the chapter title, realized that particular name would be better suited later on.
Edit 2: changed some dialogue and added a few more songs at the end to make it feel more like a replacement concert rather than just a brief performance. Plus the songs are great so whatever.
Sunlight filtered in through Kyle’s blinds, washing across his face and waking him from slumber. Rolling over, his hand brushed against the piece of paper the band leader had given him last night. “I didn’t even catch the rest of their names.” Kyle thought as he sat up in bed, staring at the scrap.
After getting dressed in some specially made blue jeans and t-shirt, (God his tailor rates were murder) Kyle threw on a jacket and headed out the door, grabbing an apple along the way. “Well the address isn’t really all that far from me, I need the exercise anyway.” He thought as he descended the main staircase of his building.
“Good morning Kyle, going out?” A light blue mare at the office desk called out.
“Morning Lemon Haze, Yep I’ve got an appointment today.” Kyle replied.
“Oh another job interview?” She asked.
“You could say something like that yeah.” Kyle said, scratching his head.
“Well I hope it goes well, goodbye Kyle.” Lemon Haze said, waving her hoof.
“Bye Lemon Haze.” Kyle called, walking out the building door and onto the sidewalk. Checking the piece of paper one more time, he set out in the direction of the hotel.
Walking through the streets of Canterlot had gotten easier over the years, but it was still difficult. Most ponies had stopped screaming or running at the sight of him, but the long stares and judgmental looks persisted. Paths were cleared and mothers unconsciously pulled their foals closer.
Thankfully there were some that welcomed the unusual. Parts of the city had gradually become more integrated. He passed gryphons, hippogryphs, reformed changelings, and even some minotaurs, all going about their days. It was in these neighborhoods where Kyle felt the most at ease. Sure there were still stares, but not at all like the mostly pony parts of the city.
The hotel Kyle sought was inside one of the integrated neighborhoods. Stepping into the lobby he approached the front desk. “Excuse me, but is this where ‘Mane Attraction’ is staying?” He asked the brown colored stallion working there.
“Ah yes, they told me somepony, someONE?” He said, subtly asking Kyle his preferred way of being addressed.
“Someone is fine.” Kyle replied appreciatively.
“Right, they told me someone matching your description might show up here looking for them. Room 203 through 205 is where I believe they are staying.” The stallion informed Kyle, who thanked him and proceeded to the hotel’s elevators.
Reaching the correct rooms Kyle knocked on 203 first. A few seconds later one of the guitarists in the band opened the room door.
“Oh, hey let me get the others.” The gryphon said, squeezing past him to knock on the rest of the rooms.
Soon everyone had assembled inside 203, the small hotel room becoming cramped due to the number of occupants. It was a fairly nice space, with two queen sized beds, a desk, and a pair of cushioned chairs making up the main bulk of the room.
“So, have you considered our offer? It’s Kyle right?” The yellow unicorn mare asked.
“Yeah, it’s Kyle. I don’t think I caught the rest of your names last night though.” He replied
“Oh no worries, I’m Regal Melody.” She said, touching her chest with a hoof. “This is Garvyn.” Gesturing to the dark blue gryphon who lent his guitar the night before. “And his brother Geron.” The light brown gryphon gave a small nod.
“I’m Bass Note.” An orange Pegasus chimed in. Definitely the bass player from last night.
“You’ve already met me.” Mythic Beat said, smirking. “These are our roadies, Forest Apple and Lucky Prize.” He said, waving his hoof to a large brown earth pony and white unicorn.
“So what are you guys proposing?” Kyle asked.
“We want you to open for us at a few shows on our next tour.” Melody replied, the rest of the band nodded in agreement. “Ponies seemed to really like what you did last night,” she continued “If word gets around that you’re traveling with us our ticket sales might go up.”
“Ok, but I have no way of replicating what happened last night.” Kyle pointed out. “Humans have special boxes that shape the guitar signal going into the amp. That’s how we get the kind of sound you heard last night without breaking our amps. Last time I checked Equestria doesn’t have those.”
“Equestria doesn’t, but Griffinstone does.” Geron piped up, “Us gryphons can’t really use magic at all, so we have to use other sources of power for things like lights and appliances.”
“Wait.” Kyle said, “You guys use electricity? Like with ohms, volts, circuits, that kind of stuff?”
“Yep, we use all of that. Magic Crystals don’t really have much of a market back home though, they don’t work outside of Equestria and magical energy converters are super expensive.” Geron explained.
“Do you use vacuum tubes?” Kyle asked, the gears in his head already turning.
“Most of our amplifiers are powered by vacuum tubes, there’s a few newfangled “transistor amps” floating around but those are still like a brand new thing, I don’t know much about them.” The gryphon continued.
“Well that solves my replication problem, humans use tube amps too. And I used to build those little stomp-boxes back in college.” Kyle said, still surprised that he never heard that gryphons use analog technology.
“We still have that amp you played out of before, and some old backup equipment from our Griffinstone tour in storage. Is that enough of what you need.” Royal Melody asked to Kyle’s enthusiastic nodding.
“Oh yeah, I can absolutely work with that.” He said “Guess that electrical engineering degree isn’t worthless now after all.” Kyle thought.
“How soon is your next show?” He asked, knowing that what they were asking for was going to take some trial and error to get right.
“Our tour isn’t for another few months at least. But we have a live radio concert in two weeks.” Garvyn said.
“Are you on board?” Royal Melody asked expectantly.
Kyle thought for a moment, processing all the information.
“So you want me, to open for you, with songs in a genre that is completely brand new, with absolutely no plan and just hope this all works out... Let’s do it.”
“Glad to hear it.” She said, producing a bag of bits. “You saved our show last night so we all thought a little thank you was in order. It’s only 300 bits but hey, once you play a couple shows with us there’ll be a bigger cut.” Royal turned to address Garvyn. “Could you take him down to the storage unit so he can grab what he needs.”
“Sure thing boss, follow me.” He said walking towards the door. Kyle following closely behind the blue gryphon.
“So how long have you guys been a band?” Kyle asked as they walked down the street. The storage facility was about four or five blocks away from the hotel, so they had room for conversation.
“Probably close to ten years, we started when we were youngsters and just never stopped.” Garvyn replied, “It was really hard starting out because a lot of ponies still had prejudice against gryphons. Thankfully now with Princess Twilight’s friendship school and everything those opinions started to change.”
“Yeah I have some experience in that regard, the first few years I still had ponies run off screaming I was a monster. Even now I sometimes get fearful looks, that...that’s rough.” Kyle said, shaking his head and looking down at the ground.
The facility was plain looking, just some large stone rectangles, with rolling metal doors marking the individual units. After retrieving the proper key from a mare at the front desk, Garvyn led Kyle to a unit at the far end of the lot.
“Here we are, this place should have everything you need.” The gryphon said, unlocking and lifting the rolling door.
Only about half full, the unit had a mix of bass and guitar amplifiers lining the back wall. Two combos, two pairs of heads and some speaker cabinets. On the left side was a mixture of mic and lighting stands, and on the right was boxes of various audio mixers, preamps, and other equipment.
Kyle began looking over the amps, the combos were mid size, covered in some sort of tweed material, roughly about 2 feet tall and three feet wide. Peeking around the backs he saw they had two 12 inch speakers and seven controls each, one combo having a reverb unit and the other sporting some sort of tremolo circuit. Judging by the number of tubes they had Kyle guessed they were about 25 to 45 watts.
“Flyer? Never heard of that brand before.” He remarked after seeing the nameplates of each amp.
“It’s the Griffinstone branch of an Equestrian company. You probably know them as Fender.” Garvyn explained.
Moving on to the heads and cabinets Kyle saw that they were pretty standard. With four 12 inch speakers in the cabs and the heads being Marshall-like in appearance. The company was different of course but he knew what they were.
Grabbing a box half full with spare preamps and a few mini mixers Kyle turned to Garvyn, “This should be enough stuff to tinker with at my apartment.” He said.
“Alright, I guess we’ll be at the hotel if you need us. Hope all this works out.” The gryphon said.
“Oh yeah, most of the stomp boxes I need started out as faulty connections in mixing boards. So I just need to play around with these things until they make a sound I like.” Kyle said, turning around and following Garvyn.
The pair went their separate ways soon after exiting the storage lot. Garvyn headed back to the hotel and Kyle made his way back to his apartment building. He had a lot of work to do.
