Chapter 94
Like a song traded back and forth, the other band members shouted as they added backing vocals. Alongside the jangly guitar solo, the vocalist clapped and urged the audience to sing along, drawing an enthusiastic response from the crowd.
The refrain kept repeating. The bands watching from their seats—even if only for the cameras—stood up, danced, and cheered along.
But even a refrain that seemed as though it would continue forever eventually comes to an end. The vocalist’s voice gradually lost its strength, becoming a low murmur.
The guitar sound that had filled the stage disappeared, and with the final drum fill, the sound slowly faded away.
“Thank you.”
At the farewell signaling the end of the performance, the audience responded with applause, cheers, and encouragement. The reaction continued until the MC came up onto the stage.
“Did you enjoy that? If so, please give ‘Ulim Stones’ another big round of applause!!”
Applause poured out once again. The MC waited for the right moment, skillfully cutting off the audience’s response before continuing the proceedings.
“The first battle, 2MAJOR and COTRA! That was a truly exciting battle. And the second battle, Ulim Stones and Group Sound!”
The MC paused for a moment, perhaps intending to draw the audience’s attention.
Taking photos of her favorite group, 2MAJOR, and Han Seungyun from the edge of the audience, she found herself looking toward the stage, unconsciously steered by the MC’s intention.
“If the first stage was this exciting and thrilling, I think we can look forward to the second stage as well!”
‘Is that Ulim Stones? They were pretty good in their own way.’
At first, she had not been interested in them. She had only looked into them after they became Group Sound’s opponent in the repêchage, and even during the repêchage, they had not left much of an impression on her.
But this performance clearly felt like they had sharpened their knives. They had trimmed away the original song’s loose opening, kept only the vocal sections, given the song a clear progression, and strengthened the climax. Even to someone who did not know much about rock, it was an exciting and entertaining performance.
‘Can those kids beat this stage?’
For some reason, that thought crossed her mind.
There was the first-round performance she had seen with her own eyes, and the second-round performance she had only heard about through rumors. In the released portions of Episodes 0 and 1, they had clearly shown incredible performances and put on spectacular shows… Yet after reaching the main competition, they seemed unable to show much of their strength.
Even as she pointed her camera toward Han Seungyun, she found herself rooting for Group Sound for some reason, hoping they would put on a good performance.
“Now, it’s time for Group Sound’s stage! Please welcome them with a big round of applause!”
By then, the setup was complete. Four people stood onstage. The drums and keyboard were positioned in the back, while, unlike usual, the bassist stood slightly to the left of center, with a microphone set up in front.
‘Is that person the vocalist this time?’
And beside them… as always, there was the guitarist, ‘Ha Suyeon,’ with her head slightly bowed. She reflexively raised her camera to take a picture of Suyeon. At the same time, she noticed something placed beside Suyeon. Behind the desk-like object was a chair someone could sit on. What was that?
“Hello~ We’re Group Sound! Today’s vocalist is me, Choi Iseo. Nice to meet you~”
‘Wow! She’s incredibly cute!’
After briefly touching her guitar, Suyeon sat back down and began manipulating something. The bassist had taken the stage microphone in Suyeon’s place. It was a completely unfamiliar voice—utterly unlike what one would expect from someone with such a large build and strongly defined features.
“The members of Ulim Stones just gave us such an amazing performance that we’re feeling really nervous~ Maybe that’s why Suyeon is having some trouble setting up the instrument she brought. She’s the type to get a little nervous, so we’d appreciate it if you could wait just a little longer… Huh? You’re not nervous? She says she isn’t~ Well, if she says so, I guess that’s that~”
This was the exact opposite of Suyeon’s usual atmosphere, when she said only what needed to be said and immediately began performing. Iseo’s gentle voice and friendly manner softened the slightly tense mood, and the camera turned toward her as if entranced.
‘She has a lot of accessories.’
“Looks like everything’s set up! Then we’ll begin. We’re performing the exact same song as well! Please enjoy ‘Roll Out a Carpet in My Heart’!”
Before long, the sound began to die down. Unlike Ulim Stones’ performance, a bass sound that seemed to preserve the original intro began to play. But its tone was completely different from the original’s blunt, concise sound—the sort of sound one would simply recognize as a ‘bass.’
What began ringing through the venue was a bass slap with its low end seemingly carved away. The sound left an afterimage. Like a ping-pong ball thrown into a huge plastic box, it kept bouncing and created an atmosphere completely different from the original song.
Then a sharp guitar sound cut in. It came from a yellow-and-black guitar completely different from the one Suyeon usually played.
The ear-piercing sound bounced along with the bass, creating a sense of unease. The arpeggio and cymbals that joined in moments later had the same effect. It was enough to make her wonder whether this was really the same song Ulim Stones had performed moments ago.
‘Is this really a different song?’
The song was completely different in its opening, before the vocals appeared, and its latter half, after they began. The music had played once when the song was introduced at the beginning of filming, and she had listened to it several times because Group Sound was going to compete with it.
But wasn’t the feeling completely different?
Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the song was gradually changing. The intro, which she had thought was long and boring, had passed by long ago while she was overwhelmed by a type of sound she had never heard before.
The pitch rose. The tempo quickened. The bass and guitar riffs changed slightly. Along with a drum fill announcing that the time had come, vocals flowed from the speakers for the first time.
Yet the thing everyone had been waiting for was nowhere to be found.
Given the atmosphere, the vocals should have burst forth. Instead, what flowed from Iseo’s mouth was a monotonous murmur.
As the vocal section that could have been called the song’s highlight unfolded in that manner, quiet sighs passed through the audience. It was clearly an unfamiliar form of song, with a new sound, and it was a good song. But people could not hide their disappointment.
In the meantime, she realized that Suyeon had stopped playing the guitar. Suyeon placed the guitar beside her and began moving her hands over the desk-like object.
The sound that erupted shot high into the sky.
“What is that?”
One of the band members sprang to their feet and shouted. Kim Seungjae, Mystica’s vocalist, narrowed his eyes and craned his neck forward.
It was an incredibly intense sound, completely unlike an ordinary guitar. Rising and falling, stopping and trembling, yet continuing without end, it was so powerful that it made one imagine that the instrument being played onstage was a string instrument like a violin or cello.
“Is she playing with a bottleneck?”
“No, I think that’s a lap steel guitar.”
No one in the band answered Seungjae’s mutter. Instead, the answer came from the band seated beside them. WEKIDS, was it? They seemed to be a band from a major agency.
“A lap steel guitar?”
“Yes. It’s played with a slide. The act of running a hand over it is probably the playing itself.”
They broke off in the middle of the explanation and suddenly held out a hand, looking somewhat awkward. “I’m Taeyoung from WEKIDS.” “I’m Kim Seungjae.” After exchanging handshakes, Taeyoung refocused on the performance before them. Seungjae considered striking up another conversation, but then began watching Group Sound’s performance again.
‘Indeed, I don’t want to miss that performance either.’
In the original song, the vocals decorate the entire climax. It is structured so that the buildup of the intro explodes through the vocals.
Ulim Stones had removed the buildup and focused on the vocals, turning it into lively modern rock. What they gained was a cheerful and exciting mood. But that approach had its drawbacks as well. Removing the intro reduced the song’s explosive power and weight.
Group Sound, however, presented the exact opposite arrangement. They created an ominously psychedelic buildup completely unlike the original, with guitars and bass subjected to enough panning and delay to make one’s head spin.
‘So that’s why they used that.’
Seungjae thought about it. Since they had made the buildup so heavy, the climax needed to have more impact as well. That must have been why they had arranged it this way. They must have thought that decorating the highlight with vocals, as in the original, would feel too light.
They had changed the moment everyone was waiting for—the point where the vocals burst forth—into a murmur, rested for one more beat, and then unleashed the impact through an instrument that most people, even Seungjae himself despite being in a band, did not know.
Before long, the lap steel guitar’s sound kept soaring as though announcing the end, finally coming to a stop at a certain point. Reverb layered over it created the sensation of wandering through fog.
A subdued chorus had somehow settled over the stage. The voices grew fainter along with the band’s fading performance. Crossing with those voices, applause began to leak out from the audience little by little. One person’s applause woke ten people, and ten people’s applause woke twenty.
Seungjae scratched his head.
It was the same applause, but Seungjae knew that it had a different meaning from the applause before. The applause during the earlier performance had felt closer to encouragement and support.
But now? It was gratitude for showing them such a performance, or perhaps praise. Looking around, he saw the same thing everywhere. Even the bands participating in the competition were applauding the performance they had just witnessed.
Seungjae clapped as well, thinking inwardly that this was a real headache. Those kids really were strong. Then how were they supposed to beat them? The question was what kind of mission would come next…
* * *
After the repêchage performance ended, the mission was announced in the venue after the audience had left.
“Does that make any sense?”
Myeongjeon muttered as he looked at the screen. The words were clearly written in Korean, but the content was so incomprehensible that he was not even sure he had read it correctly.
No, he did understand it. But just because he understood it did not mean it made sense. Why on earth had they been given a mission like that?
“Am I reading this correctly?”
The MC’s mutter seemed to speak for the bands currently staring at the screen on the set. The MC did not believe it himself, either.
“Now… let me introduce it again. Round 3, following the repêchage! The mission for Round 3 is… Free-for-All!”
But the cue to continue came, and the MC, flustered, stumbled slightly over his words before resuming the proceedings. Soon, the rules for the round appeared on the screen.
“All eighteen bands that have survived! All eighteen bands will be ‘disbanded’! After eighteen team leaders are selected, they will gather the members of the disbanded bands, form their own bands at random, and compete!!”