Emma squeezes my arm so hard it nearly bruises, and I know, without being able to decipher her almost hysterical cheering, that she is of exactly the same opinion.

I feel fascinated and stupid at the same time, and still, I’m somewhat grateful for my state of shock. At least my throat refuses to produce any embarrassing sounds. I can only stare.

There are three band members onstage.

The bass player looks like the most laid-back person in the world, a tall young man wearing suspenders and a bowler hat. The drummer is positioned farther back, smiling almost constantly.

And then there’s the guitarist. Words fail me in trying to describe the apparition. Maybe it’s the low ceiling of the club, the stuffy crowd, the bright lights, but he looks outworldly to me. 

I feel like Alice stepping through the looking glass. The world has turned into some kind of fever dream, and I’m no longer sure whether I hate my childhood friend for bringing me here or should be eternally grateful.

My haze is broken by a scream that could easily have belonged to a Viking woman charging into battle a thousand years ago.

The singer storms onto the stage in a whirlwind of magnificent chestnut hair, her mane billowing around her as the scream turns into something melodic and almost otherworldly.

I wouldn’t consider myself knowledgeable when it comes to music. My parents are very concerned with status and presentation, so you will rarely hear anything but classical music in our living room. Even as a child, I hated how pretentious and fake that made me feel. Everyone else got Christmas carols, and we listened to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

As a private act of rebellion, I secretly listen to the most absurd anime and video game soundtracks through my headphones while doing schoolwork.

That more or less concludes my musical education.

But thirty seconds into whatever they are playing, I’m converted.

The singer is tall, her hair falling in wild waves down her back. She has incredible eyes and the most perfect cat-eye liner I would never be able to reproduce without blinding myself. Her lips are full and bright red, but other than that, she’s dressed almost identically to the guitarist: torn jeans, Dr. Martens and a tank top.

Apparently, they have uniforms too. Theirs are just considerably cooler than mine.

The guitar picks up again, and the singer launches into the song with a strange mixture of pagan-sounding trills and the kind of old-school rock Emma sometimes plays through her AirPods.

The crowd begins to move like waves, back and forth. Without noticing when it happens, I stop gripping the barrier because I’m afraid of being crushed. Now I’m gripping it because I want to be closer.

The singer raises her arms and I notice dark paint covers her forearms and fingers. She has a crown of roses, twigs and antlers sitting in her wild hair. For one absurd second, I genuinely believe she might be some kind of enchantress.

Guitar notes rise into a hypnotizing shrill and my attention is returned to him.He plays like he’s fighting with the instrument, or seducing it.

Emma screams something at me, but her words are swallowed by the music, the crowd, and my complete inability to focus on anything except what is happening on that stage.

They play two or three songs in succession. The crowd is small but knows every word, shouting them back at the singer. To my surprise, the guitarist occasionally steals her microphone.

His voice is low and dark, sometimes strong, sometimes almost smoky. His long black hair falls into his eyes whenever he moves, and he rarely stops moving long enough for me to decide what colour those eyes actually are.

At the end of what I think is their third song, he steals the singer’s microphone again.

This time, she chases him. She reaches for the microphone, he pulls it back from her grasp but she’s fast enough to grab the cord. She makes to pull back with her prize, but his fingers close in her hair, stopping her escape.

For a moment, they simply stand there. The crowd is going wild around me.

I watch as they sit indecently close.They stare at each other with an intensity that makes me inexplicably uncomfortable, the room feels suddenly much hotter.

Then she shoves him hard enough that he stumbles backwards.I’m fairly certain she loses several strands of that impressive mane between his ring-covered fingers.

“Stubborn as an Ox,” the singer says into the microphone.

He glares at her for half a second. Then he turns away, walks straight to the edge of the stage and grins at the crowd as if she no longer exists.

I make a mental note to ask Emma what exactly is happening between those two. Then I immediately make another mental note asking myself why I care.

I most certainly will not be repeating this experience.

“Appreciate all you freaks joining us tonight,” the singer says.

There’s the slightest accent beneath her English, but I can’t place it.

“As you know, we still don’t have a name. But we have songs, and that’s all that matters anyway. We’re not about bloody conventions. Are we, Romeo?”

The bass player answers by lazily playing two notes and smiles, not at the crowd, but to himself. 

“Are we, Leo?”

The drummer takes the question much more seriously and gives us what, in my humble and extremely inexperienced opinion, is a fairly impressive short solo.

The singer turns.

“Are we, Ox?”

Ox.

So that’s the guitarist’s nickname, it’s too short to be his actual name.

While she was talking, he sat down on the edge of the stage and lit a cigarette, which now hangs casually from his lips.

To my absolute shock, he raises one hand and gives her the middle finger.

She smiles. Then presses her own middle finger between her red lips for a moment before offering the gesture straight back.

I could swear I hear him mutter, “Piss off, Rox.”

Rox.

Ox and Rox.

The crowd is delighted with the exchange, and I find myself sharing the sentiment. So much so, that an actual cheer nearly escapes me before I manage to swallow it.

Ox starts running his fingers over the strings again in a way that I’m fairly certain causes every heterosexual woman in the room to imagine something inappropriate.

He interacts constantly with the crowd, winking, flirting, leaning towards the people pressed against the stage. And for one brief second, I could swear his eyes stop on me. How many of the girls in the crowd imagined the same thing, I wonder.

The low hum of the singer’s voice returns.

“This one is something else,” Rox says. “Not many of you will recognise it. Then again, I don’t expect you to.”

She begins singing in a language I don’t recognise. It might be Spanish, or Italian, or it might be something older, slavic.

Something about it evokes deep forests and wild rivers, though I couldn’t explain why.

The effect on the room is immediate, the crowd settles and even Ox changes.

The permanent edge in his expression softens, and he looks down at his guitar with the kind of smile someone wears when remembering something especially dear.

For once, the lights aren’t blinding me and I can finally see his eyes. They are the strangest shade of dark violet, almost black but not quite.

I’m sure I’ll never be able to say exactly how long the concert lasts. But in a breath, it’s over and I’m left struggling to catch my breath. As the lights turn back to normal, I discover that my plaid skirt has torn where it caught on the barrier.

I’m no longer angry with Emma, so when she turns towards me squealing, I hug her just as tightly. For a moment, I assume she’s gushing about the concert.

I’m still dazzled enough by the once in a lifetime experience to tune out most of what she says. But one word catches my attention and sobers me up instantly.

“Backstage.”

I pull away.

“What?”

Emma grins.

“Backstage.”

“Em, what?”

But she already has my hand.

And before I can protest, she’s dragging me towards a hallway that smells like basement, spilled alcohol and very poor decisions.