Chapter 113: The Steel City
Saturday, March 12, 2016 (2:00 PM)
The Prevost crossed the bridge into Pittsburgh under an industrial gray sky. The city rose between three rivers, a mix of working-class history and modern renewal that gave it a unique character.
Michael was in his suite, vocalizing softly to test his throat. After Cleveland, he had slept ten hours straight and drunk more honey water than he thought humanly possible. The result was a voice that, for the first time in days, felt almost normal.
Karl entered with the day's itinerary.
"Soundcheck at five. Doors at seven. Show at eight."
"How many people?"
"Twelve hundred. Sold out for three weeks."
Michael nodded, looking out the window at the Pittsburgh skyline.
"I don't have a new song for them," he said thoughtfully. "Cleveland had 'Hope.' Pittsburgh needs something different."
Karl sat across from him. "What do you have in mind?"
"My throat is back. Not at a hundred percent, but strong enough to go crazy." Michael smiled, a smile Karl had learned to both fear and love. "Cleveland was emotional. Pittsburgh is going to be pure chaos."
"Define 'pure chaos.'"
"I want to open with 'Look At Me!', straight into 'Boss', straight into 'Gucci Gang.' No pauses. No introductions. Just relentless energy for fifteen minutes."
Karl blinked. "That's going to destroy your voice again."
"Not if I do it right. And after the chaos block, I bring the energy down with something atmospheric." Michael pulled out his phone and searched for a file. "Remember 'Drugs You Should Try It'?"
"The psychedelic track. Atmospheric autotune. Astral sounds."
"Exactly. I haven't sung it in a while. It's too ethereal for a normal show. But after fifteen minutes of rage..." Michael paused. "The contrast is going to be brutal. They're going to feel like they're coming down from a drug."
Karl considered the strategy.
"So the setlist is: extreme chaos, followed by astral trip, followed by..."
"The rest of the normal show. But with that opening, Pittsburgh won't forget tonight."
---
(5:00 PM)
Stage AE was a modern venue on the banks of the Allegheny River, with views of the Pittsburgh skyline. The acoustics were designed for heavy rock, which was perfect for what Michael had planned.
During soundcheck, he tested the transitions between the opening songs.
"T-Roc, I need 'Look At Me!' to end and 'Boss' to start in less than a second. Literally without a breath."
T-Roc adjusted his setup. "I can do a half-second crossfade. The bass from 'Boss' will come in while the last chord of 'Look At Me!' is still resonating."
"Perfect. And from 'Boss' to 'Gucci Gang'?"
"Same treatment. I'll keep the BPM constant so it feels like one fifteen-minute song."
Michael tested his voice with the first verse of "Look At Me!" The characteristic scream came out strong, bouncing off the walls of the empty venue.
"Sounds good," T-Roc said. "Your voice is back."
"Almost," Michael corrected. "But enough for a night of war."
Then they tested "Drugs You Should Try It." It was completely different: the beat was slow, the synthesizers floated like clouds, and Michael's voice, processed with heavy autotune, sounded like it was coming from another planet.
"More reverb," Michael requested. "I want every word to feel like it's falling from space."
The engineer adjusted the parameters. The next test was perfect: ethereal, hypnotic, almost religious.
"That," Michael said. "Exactly that."
---
(7:30 PM)
The Stage AE dressing room was functional but comfortable. Michael was sitting on a couch, headphones on, listening to "Drugs You Should Try It" on repeat. He needed to internalize every inflection, every moment where the autotune should stretch, every pause that turned the song into an experience.
It was the hardest song in his repertoire to perform live. Not because of the vocal technique, but because of the atmosphere. It required a specific mental state, a total surrender to the sound that was hard to maintain when twelve hundred people were screaming.
'But after fifteen minutes of chaos', he thought, 'they'll be so exhausted that the silence will be a gift.'
Karl poked his head in. "Ten minutes."
Michael took off his headphones and stood up. He did some breathing exercises, stretched his neck, shook his arms to release the tension.
"Ready for war?" Karl asked.
"Always."
---
(8:00 PM)
The lights went out.
Pittsburgh's roar was deafening.
Without introduction, without greeting, without anything, the distorted bass of "Look At Me!" exploded through the speakers with a violence that made the floor tremble.
Michael appeared in the center of the stage like an apparition, screaming the first lines directly into the crowd's face.
'I took a white bitch to Starbucks'
'That little bitch got her throat fucked'
The mosh pit formed instantly. Bodies colliding, arms flailing, a mass of controlled chaos occupying the entire center of the venue.
'Look at me, fuck on me'
'Look at me, fuck on me'
'Yeah, look at me, fuck on me'
Michael jumped from one side of the stage to the other, his energy fueling the crowd's madness. There was no subtlety. There was no restraint. It was pure aggression channeled into music.
The song reached its climax and, without pause, the beat of "Boss" entered with the same intensity.
'Got a hundred in my safe, a hundred on my waist'
'You ain't a real one, I see it in your face'
'Pop a four in the morning, still gettin' paid'
'We some bosses, we some bosses'
The crowd didn't have time to recover. The energy kept rising, relentless, breathless.
'Pull up in a lambo, fuck your Honda'
'Smokin' on this dope shit, marijuana'
'Countin' all this cash up in my sauna'
'Boss shit, boss shit'
Michael could feel the sweat running down his back, his hoodie soaking, his throat heating up with every scream. But he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
"Boss" ended and "Gucci Gang" entered without transition.
'Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang'
'Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang'
The venue lost its mind. The most viral song of the moment, the one everyone had been waiting for, launched like a missile in the middle of the assault.
'Spend three racks on a new chain'
'My bitch love do cocaine, ooh'
'I fuck a bitch, I forgot her name'
'I can't buy a bitch no wedding ring'
Michael came down from the stage and entered directly into the mosh pit. Security panicked, but he ignored them. He walked through the chaos, singing directly into the faces of the fans surrounding him.
'My lean cost more than your rent, ooh'
'Your momma still live in a tent, yeah'
'Still slanging dope in the 'jects, huh'
'Me and my grandma take meds, ooh'
It was complete madness. Michael in the middle of a mosh pit of hundreds of people, everyone singing, everyone jumping, everyone lost in the moment.
'Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang'
'Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang, Gucci Gang'
When the song ended, Michael was back on stage, panting, soaked, with a wild smile on his face.
Fifteen minutes of uninterrupted chaos.
And now, the descent.
---
(8:20 PM)
"Pittsburgh," Michael said into the microphone, his voice hoarse from the effort. "Are you alive?"
The roar of confirmation shook the walls.
"Good. Because now..." he paused, letting the silence extend. "Now we're going somewhere else."
The lights slowly dimmed to almost total darkness. The synthesizers of "Drugs You Should Try It" began to emerge from the speakers, soft, ethereal, as if coming from another dimension.
The contrast was brutal. A second ago, the venue was a battlefield. Now it was a sanctuary.
Purple and blue lights began to pulse slowly, creating patterns that moved like waves in the air. Smoke from the machines filled the stage, giving Michael a ghostly appearance.
And then his voice emerged, processed with autotune so heavy it sounded alien:
'I try it if it feels right'
'This feels nice'
The melody floated in space, each word extending far beyond its natural duration.
'I've been down and lost for days'
'Glad I found you on the way'
The crowd was motionless. After the chaos of the previous fifteen minutes, the calm was almost hypnotic. Some closed their eyes. Others slowly raised their arms, swaying to the almost nonexistent rhythm.
'When the day gets better, the night gets brighter'
'I always feel this way'
'Through the hills I hear you callin', miles and miles away'
Michael walked across the stage as if in a trance, his silhouette barely visible through the smoke and pulsing lights.
'We up all night, from dawn to dusk it's always poppin''
'I fell in love, fell outta love, we both had options'
'I played the drums, she rolled the joints'
'I rocked the club, we both throw up'
'We was the band you never heard before'
The astral sounds filled the space between words. Synthesizers that sounded like falling stars. Reverberations that extended to infinity.
'You got that tat above your crack'
'And on your cat you be right back'
'Your momma never know'
'We were rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin' stones'
'When I'm all alone, I wish you had a clone'
'I take that puff, you take that puff'
'You know we never care to overdose'
The chorus returned, this time with additional layers of processed harmonies that made Michael sound like three voices singing from different points in the universe.
'I try it if it feels right'
'This feels nice'
'I've been down and lost for days'
'Glad I found you on the way'
'When the day gets better, the night gets brighter'
'I always feel this way'
'Through the hills I hear you callin', miles and miles away'
An instrumental interlude took control, the synthesizers rising and falling like waves of a cosmic ocean. Michael stood still in the center of the stage, letting the music speak for itself.
'Shit I tried it, it feels nice'
'Shit just kinda feels nice'
'Miles and miles away'
'Miles and miles away'
The final section arrived like a repetitive mantra, almost meditative:
'When you're home alone in the mood'
'I know you wanna move'
'I know you wanna dance'
'I know you're gettin' ready to'
'Chase the night away'
'When you're home alone in the mood'
'I know you wanna move'
'I know you wanna dance'
'I know you're gettin' ready to'
'Chase the night away'
The music faded slowly, the last notes floating in the air for what felt like an eternity.
The silence that followed was absolute.
And then, like waking from a collective dream, Pittsburgh exploded in applause.
---
(8:35 PM - 10:00 PM)
After the astral trip, Michael lowered the intensity but maintained the connection. The remaining songs of the setlist flowed naturally: "Star Shopping" for the romantics, "Lucid Dreams" for the phone light moment, "Hope" for those who had discovered it last night on the internet.
During "Hope," something special happened. Even though the song was only a day old, much of the crowd already knew the lyrics. Voices joined Michael on the chorus:
'There's hope for the rest of us, the rest of us'
It was proof that his music spread faster than anyone had anticipated.
The show ended with "crybaby," as always. Michael sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling, letting Pittsburgh sing most of it while he only added his voice at the key moments.
'Oh, it's a lonely world, I know'
'Gon' get a lonely girl, that's for sure'
'Oh, I'm a lonely boy, she made a lonely boy, yeah, I know'
When the last notes faded, Michael stood up and looked at the crowd.
"Pittsburgh," he said, his voice barely a hoarse whisper after two hours of show. "You didn't have an exclusive song like Cleveland. But you had something better."
He paused.
"You had my voice back. And I used it to give you everything I had."
He took a deep bow.
"Thank you for welcoming me to the Steel City. I'll never forget it."
The applause that followed lasted long after Michael disappeared into the darkness of the backstage.
---
(11:30 PM)
In the dressing room, Michael was lying on the couch with an ice pack on his throat. The show had been brutal on his voice, but it was worth every second.
Karl entered with his tablet.
"The numbers?" Michael asked without moving.
"'Hope' has four million plays in less than 24 hours. It's the strongest debut of any of your songs."
"And the clips from tonight?"
"The video of the opening block already has half a million views. People are losing their minds over 'Drugs You Should Try It.' They're saying it was the most atmospheric thing they've seen at a rap show."
Michael smiled with his eyes closed.
"What's next?"
"Day off tomorrow. Then New York on Monday."
"New York," Michael murmured. "The big one."
"The biggest so far. Three thousand five hundred people at Terminal 5."
Michael opened his eyes and looked at the dressing room ceiling.
"You know what, Karl? A week ago I thought my voice was destroyed. I thought I had ruined everything by not listening to the warnings."
"And now?"
"Now I know I can do anything." He sat up on the couch. "Cleveland taught me to be vulnerable. Pittsburgh taught me I can still be wild. New York..." he paused. "New York is going to see both."
Karl smiled. "Rest tomorrow. You're going to need it."
Michael nodded and lay back down.
Pittsburgh had been proof that his voice was back. That chaos still flowed through his veins. That he could go from screaming "Gucci Gang" in a mosh pit to floating in space with "Drugs You Should Try It" without losing the audience along the way.
Contrast was his weapon.
And it was sharper than ever.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Thanks for reading!
You can support with Power Stones if you're enjoying the fic.
If you want to read 15+ advanced chapters you can visit my Patreon page: Patreon / iLikeeMikee.