The heavy walnut door of the lounge was pulled open from the outside by a staff member.
The sterile, twenty-four-degree air-conditioning from the hallway, mixed with the muffled thud of a bass drum soundcheck from the main stage, instantly flooded the room.
"Number sixteen, please follow me." The staff member stepped aside, their electronic terminal flickering in the dim light.
Masami shouldered her guitar bag and led the way. Yuki, Rie, and Maki followed closely behind.
The four walked through a corridor lined with sound-absorbing carpets. As they advanced, the double doors ahead, wrapped in black acoustic material, drew closer. The dull vibrations traveled through the floor and into their feet, climbing up their bones until they triggered a heart-pounding resonance in their chests.
The staff member pushed open the soundproof door. A deafening wave of sound hit the four girls like a physical blow.
This was the dark backstage area behind the main stage. Thick black cables and massive metal trusses crisscrossed overhead. The pungent smell of dust mixed with the burnt scent of high-heat halogen lamps filled the space.
On stage, the fifteenth group was performing. It was the hardcore male band they had encountered in the hallway earlier.
Masami stood in the shadows of the curtain, quietly watching the performance on stage.
The male guitarist stomped hard on an overdrive pedal. The amplifier's distortion was instantly maxed out, and the mid-frequencies were heavily scooped.
His grip on the pick is so steady...
Masami's gaze was fixed intently on his hands.
Can the range of motion for high-frequency alternate picking really be compressed to such an extreme? There's almost no extra wrist movement. It's all pure muscle explosiveness...
His left hand is cutting so cleanly at the high frets. Not a single hitch. Is that... Phrygian scale shredding?
Her gaze shifted to the drum riser in the back.
The drummer was playing a dense sixteenth-note bass drum rhythm, his feet rapidly alternating on the double bass pedals. Meanwhile, the syncopated snare hits perfectly locked in with the guitar riffs. Continuous waves of low-frequency sound traveled through the solid wood floor, making the soles of her feet feel faint and numb.
These guys... are really strong.
The area below the stage was extremely empty. Scattered across the velvet seats in the front row were five or six executives and producers from the planning department of S.A. Entertainment.
Faced with a wild performance that could set any underground Live House on fire, these industry elites, who held the power of life and death, remained expressionless. Their eyes were like those of workers on an assembly line evaluating the pass rate of metal parts. Occasionally, they would lower their heads to quickly jot down a few notes on the documents in their hands by the light of faint reading lamps.
Yuki swallowed hard. She gripped her old drumsticks, which were wrapped in electrical tape, so tightly that their tips trembled slightly in the air.
The anger she had felt in the hallway after being looked down upon was now being forcibly suppressed by the opponent's incredibly solid and violent technique.
"So strong..." Yuki murmured, her voice instantly swallowed by the massive wall of sound.
Rie was in even worse shape. She hugged her heavy bass tightly, her body instinctively shrinking back half a step.
Maki remained silent. However, she wasn't looking at the people on stage. She was staring at the wall of speakers, the desire in her eyes completely undisguised.
This was the internal final audition for Japan's most prominent star-making factory. Everyone standing here was a monster who had fought their way out of hundreds of bands.
But then again, "Blue Echo" was one of those monsters as well.
They were strong... but that was all.
Masami turned around. She didn't offer any hollow encouragement like "Good luck" or "We can do it."
She reached out and grasped Rie's and Yuki's wrists.
Masami's palms were slightly cool, carrying a reassuring sense of stability. The direct physical contact acted like two doses of cold sedative, forcibly interrupting their escalating panic.
Rie and Yuki instinctively looked up.
Masami looked them straight in the eye. There was no ripple of emotion in her clear eyes, and a flawless, gentle smile hung on her lips. In this dark area filled with violent soundwaves and blinding lights, she was like a reef that would never be moved.
"Phew—" Masami watched them, her chest rising and falling slowly and deeply as she guided them through a very calm deep breathing exercise.
Rie's gaze was locked onto Masami's face. Following her rhythm, she slowly inhaled the stale air and then slowly exhaled. Yuki's fingers also stopped trembling, and the rise and fall of her chest gradually stabilized.
"Don't listen to anyone else's sound," Masami said, her pace steady. "Listen to our own."
The roar on stage came to an abrupt halt. The resonance of the last chord slowly dissipated. The house lights came on.
The male musicians, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, bowed to the audience before exiting through the tunnel on the other side.
A stage assistant wearing a headset walked quickly to the dark waiting area. "Number sixteen, Blue Echo. Prepare to take the stage. You have two minutes to plug in."
Masami picked up her guitar and led the way out of the shadows.
Crossing the threshold of the curtain, they stepped onto the solid wood floor of the stage. Blinding cold white spotlights fell vertically from directly overhead, making the dust in the light beams impossible to hide.
In the depths of the darkness below the stage, the expressionless professional judges picked up their pens again.
The four girls quickly took their positions.
Once they were actually on stage, the tension surprisingly dissipated quite a bit. The spotlights made their vision blurry, leaving them only able to see Masami's back as she stood at the very front.
Yuki sat on the drum stool in the back. She took a deep breath, gripped her old drumsticks wrapped in electrical tape once more, and struck them together twice in the air.
"Click, click." Her once-weak wrists were instantly flooded with strength.
Rie slung the bass strap over her shoulder. The heavy body of the instrument pressed against her chest, its physical weight acting as a grounding force. She looked at Masami's reassuring back, bit her lower lip, and slowly placed her cool fingertips on the familiar thick strings.
Maki stepped on the tuner pedal at her feet. A clean electrical hum came from the top-tier monitor speakers. She reached up to pull down the brim of her baseball cap and gripped the neck of her paint-chipped Fender guitar tightly.
All the external pressure was blocked by that single silhouette. They felt the familiar vibrations of their instruments under their fingertips and listened to the breathing of their companions gradually becoming synchronized.
The two-minute countdown ended. The stage assistant retreated into the shadows. The entire venue fell into a dead silence.
Masami stood before the microphone stand in the center of the stage. She adjusted her breathing. Her left hand gripped the neck of the guitar, and her right hand held the pick tightly. She turned her head slightly, looking over her shoulder at Yuki on the drum riser.
Their eyes met at the edge of the spotlight. After a half-second pause, Masami gave a slight nod.
Their song for this final audition was a cover of "Genkai Lovers," a classic hit by the legendary Japanese all-female hard rock band SHOW-YA.
Yuki raised her arms high and struck her drumsticks together three times in the air.
"Click. Click. Click." Her right foot suddenly exerted force. "Boom!" A dull and explosive bass drum rhythm erupted in the venue. Immediately following it was the iconic, oppressive, and dense intro of this heavy metal rock song.
Masami's pick swept across the strings with crisp precision. The clean yet slightly overdriven, gritty sound of the electric guitar poured out. Her rhythm guitar playing was incredibly steady, the heavy rhythmic web firmly supporting the entire band's foundation.
As the intro progressed, the song needed the low frequencies of the bass to flesh out its structure. The moment Rie's fingers touched the thick strings, they still carried a hint of uncontrollable stiffness. A very faint tremor appeared in the sustain of the second note.
Masami immediately noticed the slight shift in rhythm. Holding her guitar, she tilted her body slightly and moved half a step closer to Rie.
The vibration of the high-power speakers traveled through the wooden floor directly to the soles of Rie's feet. Rie snapped her head up and met Masami's gaze. Masami gave her a slight nod, the range of her strumming increasing as she used a more powerful sense of rhythm to forcibly cover the bass's flaw.
Rie bit her lower lip. The stiffness in her fingers vanished as muscle memory took over her nerves. The deep bass line sank rapidly, perfectly aligning with Yuki's violent drumbeats. The "rhythm section"—the core of the song—was now completely locked in.
The verse kicked in. Masami gripped the microphone stand with both hands, tilted her head back slightly, and pressed her lips to the mic. "Back to the fire—!" Her raspy, piercing, yet cool voice exploded through the top-tier Marshall speakers, instantly filling the entire soundstage.
"Genkai made! Genkai made! Akiramenai! To the limit! Never give up!" The frantic lyrics poured out along with her forceful strumming. "Angel! Tenshi no furi shite. Pretending to be an angel..." "Angel! Mayoikondemo. Even if I lose my way..."
Pure rhythm and emotional release collided wildly in the air. Masami closed her eyes, completely stripping away the Okura Masami who usually maintained a gentle mask, and used aggressive vocal inflections to nail every downbeat.
Vroom— Maki's boot stomped on the distortion pedal. The transition to the second verse arrived as scheduled.
In the high-pressure environment of extreme focus, the breathing frequencies of the four girls miraculously began to synchronize. The drums, bass, and rhythm guitar—three distinct frequency ranges—intertwined in the air.
They entered a state of flow.
Rie closed her eyes, her fingers flying across the strings, never missing a single beat again. Yuki's sweat flew onto the drumheads, every strike carrying a sense of cathartic pleasure.
The song progressed to the climactic chorus. Maki suddenly struck the strings. That racing lead guitar solo was like a blade unsheathed, cutting through the heavy air of the venue.
In this moment, the four girls merged into an inseparable whole. They were performing at a level far beyond the terrifying standards of their daily underground rehearsal room.
Below the stage, Sato, the ace producer of S.A. Entertainment's planning department, finally stopped spinning the ballpoint pen in his hand.
He leaned forward slightly, propping his elbows on the table, his gaze locked on the center of the stage. The lead singer with the Yamaha guitar was like a stabilizing force. Every casual turn of her body, every meeting of eyes, was invisibly driving the gears of the entire team.
Their technical skill is only upper-middle among these underground bands. But this terrifying stage control and team chemistry are unique among current Japanese girl bands.
The current trend from above seems to be focusing on "girl bands." The rock market is currently dominated by male bands, and the pure girl idol market is already saturated...
Sato lowered his head and opened the judge's file in front of him. With a red pen, he drew heavy circles around the categories of "Team Cohesion" and "Commercial Visual Appeal."