Punk Rock-A-Bye Baby(67)

Fans screamed.

Angel swooned.

Tommy was on fire.

When the song was over, Angel paused to address the crowd. “Do you like my leash?” He waved the metal chain at the crowd, and they shouted back their approval.

“Me too.” He unclipped the end of the chain from his belt loop, swung it in a wide circle and looked directly at Tommy. “I think I want to save this for later.”

Tommy nodded eagerly with a broad smile, and the crowd hollered.

“Do you want to know a little secret?” Angel asked the audience.

They yelled back in reply.

“We’ve been working on something new. It’s still kind of a work-in-progress, but I’m damn fucking proud of it and we want New Orleans to be the first to hear it!”

The crowd stomped their feet and screamed in anticipation of the new song.

“This is Punk Rock-A-Bye Baby!”

Jimmy stood behind his kit and clacked off four beats on his sticks. The arena came to life with a sexy and sultry rendition of a song that started out as a lullaby for Lucas. It had a hard beat and a quick rhythm. The lyrics were pure sex. Every time Angel sang the word “Rock,” he emphasized it with a thrust of his hips toward the audience. The bulge at his crotch served as the exclamation point.

The audience was rabid. Fists pumped in the air. Bodies thrashed against one another. A couple was making out near the railing, heavily groping one another. It was an upheaval of sexual energy that could barely be contained.

Tommy looked at his bandmates. Jimmy was lost in his own world inside his drum beats, but Damien returned eye contact. He raised his brow and chuckled at the mayhem the song incited. It was fucking awesome.

When Angel sang the last lyric, he put the mic back in its stand and waited for the noise to die down, but the fans still screamed with excitement. “Does that mean you liked it?”

A pair of panties landed on the stage, followed by a bra and a ladies top. Angel stared down at them and laughed. “I guess that song was too hot to keep your clothes on.”

Tommy stepped up to the center mic, which incited the crowd into another round of screams. “That song wasn’t always about sex.”

The audience quieted enough to let him speak without yelling.

“It started out as a sweet serenade for someone we both love like crazy.” He turned and pointed to the screen behind Jimmy. It opened up to a video montage of Lucas. The crowd immediately gushed with staggered shouts of “Aww.” In the video, Lucas smiled into the camera with eyes the size of saucers and as blue as Tommy’s. His wispy, blond locks framed his smiling face, and he giggled. The camera panned back to reveal that he was sitting in front of Tommy who was playing his Les Paul. Lucas crawled over to him and pulled at the strings with his chubby little hand, mimicking Tommy. It ended with Lucas sleeping peacefully in his crib in an Immortal Angel onesie.

Angel and Tommy were both overcome at the sight of Lucas, but it was a rare occurrence when a punk rock crowd was silenced and captivated by a baby.

Someone in the crowd yelled, “I LOVE YOU, TOMMY BLADE!” and the fans resumed their shouts and cheers.

Damien spoke into the mic. “I love that little dude, but if we’re done with the G-rated segment of the show, I say we get back to some hardcore punk rock shit.”

The second half of the show was wilder than the first. Bodies rushed at one another and slam-danced in the circle pit. It was a chaotic confrontation of energy-fueled testosterone that left several bloodied foreheads. Security tried to get through the sea of pushing fans and shut down the rowdy mosh pit, but the group of slam-dancers disbursed and hid in the crowd before security could impede their good time.

A succession of crowd surfers floated on top of the audience and created a carpet of human bodies. Tommy looked more intently. A naked woman was among one of the fans that was carried toward the front of the stage by an assembly line of hands. Most weren’t aware that she was totally nude until she passed over their heads. When they saw her, cheers rose up from the crowd. Security was waiting with an unpleasant scowl and promptly escorted her out of the venue when she reached the railing, to the hissing disapproval of the crowd.

Confetti filled the arena with a colorful blizzard of paper. Lights swirled with dizzying staccato flashes of white and yellow. The end of the show always came around too quickly. It brought a dramatic high in the sense of achievement, but at the same time it was a farewell to the roaring crowd, the ambush of fans, and the general ego boost of 19,000 people that all cheered and called everyone by name.

Jimmy ended with a showy round on his drums, followed by an assault on his cymbals. He stood on his stool and threw his sticks into the crowd. They sailed between Tommy and Angel and flew into the audience. Tommy shielded his eyes from the glaring lights and followed their path. About ten rows back, a girl stripped down to her bra was lifted above the crowd and caught one of the sticks, while the other stick disappeared somewhere into the blackness.