Take Me Down To Paradise City

They come on in darkness, treading carefully over the mess of wires, taking their instruments from the roadies, wires already humming with tension, brimming with imminent sound.

Cobb looks around at them, gets the nod from Yusuf, from Arthur. Eames touches the tight strings of his instrument with a single fingertip and gives his nod.

“All right then,” says Cobb. “Let’s give them the Kick.”

*

The tour hits Manila first. Because of Arthur’s environmental considerations, they fly first class instead of by private jet as Saito would have preferred; so they spend thirteen hours in the air with a couple of wealthy businessmen, a minor prince of Oman and a bunch of Korean pop stars who spend the entire journey engaged in an excitable inter-console game of in-flight backgammon.

On being whisked through customs by Saito and Co, they are confronted by a massive horde of screaming fans at Arrivals. Eames crashes into a stunned Cobb. “Wow,” says Cobb, wide-eyed. “I didn’t really expect to be missed so badly.”

Even Saito seems caught off-guard by the unexpected fan turnout. “We have insufficient security!” he is barking at his assistant. “Get me at least a level five cover!”

Arthur alone seems completely unfazed. Eames and Cobb stare at him quizzically. “Read the signs,” says Arthur, which is easy for him to say because only Arthur can read Filipino.

The Korean pop stars and their entourage are hustled past them and through the Arrivals gate. The entire horde of fans turns and chases after them, waving their signs and screaming variations on the theme of “MARRY ME SUPER JUNIOR!”

“…or never mind,” continues Saito, as the fans swarm out of sight.

“Yeah,” says Arthur to nobody in particular. “It’s been a while.”

*

In the Araneta Coliseum, it’s a different scene altogether. Eames has been doing the rap circuit in the past few years, of course – but he’s forgotten what it’s like to step onto a stage and have thousands of people screaming their undying love and adoration in your face. It’s terrifying. It’s like coming home.

It’s also punishing living. Saito has them out of Manila under an hour and on a plane to Jakarta; four hours later, they’re playing ‘Get Out Of My Head’ to another crowd at Mangga Dua before he sweeps them off once again, this time to Singapore.

“Bloody hell,” gasps Eames as they flop, exhausted, into their plane seats. “What is this? Where are the rave parties? The post-concert orgies?”

“Parties and orgies are for celebrities of the now,” intones Saito. “And until you pay off the venue deposits, you are still has-beens.”

“Seriously, man,” moans Yusuf from behind him, “I haven’t slept more than five hours this week.”

Saito merely stares him down. “When you earn enough for a foam party, I will let you know.”

Fortunately he relents by Singapore; they have a three-day stopover and only one show. Saito books them into the island’s shiniest new resort, which Yusuf insists resembles a spaceship.

“No, no, really,” he is saying, “look at it from over here.” They are standing in the driveway of the mall opposite Marina Bay Sands, where Yusuf has dragged them because he is adamant that they see the spaceship. “Say the towers are the launching pad pillars; now, doesn’t the skypark thing look like it’s about to take off?”

It’s sunset; as they watch, lights come on all over the skypark. It looks like a twinkling submarine. Eames has to admit that, lit up, it actually does seem like it’s raring to launch.

People have started snapping phone pictures of them. “Yes, yes, it’s a spaceship,” says Saito testily, “time to go now.”

*

Rehab made Cobb slower, so it was at least a week into album production before he worked out what Arthur and Eames were up to. This was the morning when Eames wandered into the living area where Arthur and Cobb were engaged in their pre-breakfast coffee ritual, which was Arthur making cup after cup of coffee and handing them to Cobb to be consumed in swift succession.

“No, Dom,” Arthur was saying as he entered. “No giant top.”

“Think about it,” exclaimed Cobb with the neurotic frenzy of the very caffeinated. “No rock band has ever used a giant top as a concert setpiece. We’ll go round and round in the middle of the arena, it’ll be sick.”

“We’ll,” corrected Arthur, “be sick.”

Cobb glared at him. “I insist we still have the whole set collapse at the end. It’s significant and apocalyptic.”

“And bloody expensive,” said Arthur, withholding the coffee. “Saito doesn’t love you that much.”

Cobb made a feral noise of frustration and grabbed at the coffee. Arthur spotted Eames and gave him a small smile.

“So I woke up this morning,” began Eames.

“Mm.” Arthur fielded a new cup of coffee from the machine and dropped two cubes of brown sugar into it. “Did you feel like P. Diddy?”

“Forget P. Diddy,” said Eames grandly. “I felt like me. And that was even better.”

Cobb, who was mainlining espresso with a vengeance, stopped to stare at them. “Wait.”

“Good morning to you too, Dom,” said Eames.

“No, no, not you,” muttered Cobb. He turned and pointed at Arthur, who was still stirring sugar. “I don’t take sugar.”

“It’s not for you, Dom,” murmured Arthur.

“Yeah,” Cobb went on, “but you don’t take sugar either.”

He stared at Arthur, and then he turned to stare at Eames. And then he turned back to stare at Arthur some more.

“No way,” said Cobb eventually, and then: “Oh, shit.”

Arthur calmly handed Eames the cup of coffee, folded his arms, leaned against the counter and waited.

“You are not!” exploded Cobb.

Eames drank the coffee. It was good. “Thanks, love,” he said to Arthur, who smiled thinly and nodded.

“Have you thought this through!” ranted Cobb, waving his mug around. Fortunately he had finished his coffee. “Have you considered the twenty million reasons why this would be a bad idea!”

“Yes,” said Eames. “Repeatedly. In all configurations. Arthur’s thorough like that.”

Yusuf wandered in, yawning. Cobb pointed the mug at him. “Arthur and Eames!” he shouted.

Yusuf paused and stared at him.

“They’re together!” thundered Cobb.

“That’s new?” said Yusuf. “You’re thick.” He wandered off in the direction of the bathroom.

Cobb gaped at him. Arthur went to the sink and began to wash a grapefruit.

“If either of you screws this up, I’ll kill you both,” finished Cobb, slightly deflated.

Arthur dried the grapefruit and began slicing it into quarters. “When we’re incarcerated in rehab, you’re perfectly welcome to come laugh at us.”

Cobb scowled at both of them and stalked off to make himself a quadruple shot.

*

They have time before they need to show up at the soundcheck for their show at Fort Canning. The rest of the band is spending it sleeping in, but Arthur gets his guitar, looks meaningfully at Eames and says: “Going for a walk. You coming?”

They don’t so much walk as get the handlers to find them a car. Arthur drives.

This is neither Arthur’s nor Eames’ first time in Singapore. Arthur lived here for anywhere between three to five months during his self-imposed exile, in a service apartment in Robertson Quay. Eames dropped in on the offchance that he might be there – by which time, of course, Arthur had already sold the apartment to an Italian divorcée with twin daughters and vanished to the Mediterranean. Eames thus has only a very vague memory of Singapore, of it being somewhere where something wasn’t.

Arthur parks near the river, and they walk – Eames with his hands in his pockets, Arthur with his acoustic on his back. He’s dressed down today, wearing his old brown leather jacket and slacks. Both of them have on their shades; a necessary precaution, even in somewhere like Singapore where they’re least likely to get mobbed on the street.

He follows Arthur past a bunch of churches and temples, a mess of religions, and into the clusters of bright blue flats. Arthur takes the musty stairwell with purpose, like he knows where he’s going, and Eames comes out after him onto the roof, which is paved with white dust and thick with pigeons. The flats rise all around the empty space, blue fingers clutching at a bluer sky.

Arthur props himself against one of the low walls and takes out his guitar. He plays a few chords, then raps his knuckles without speaking on the chalky surface of the wall. Eames looks: there is a string of chords scribbled in faint marker on the wall. He knows these chords; they’re from the first movement of ‘Penrose Steps’, page six. The ink is faded; countless rainstorms, months, years.

“You like rooftops, don’t you?” remarks Eames.

Arthur doesn’t say anything. Eames can see him, though, on rooftops across the world, carparks, abandoned factories, apartment blocks – wielding his guitar, chasing that same song.

They are alone on the rooftop. The old people who live in the flats watch them, but without curiosity on their wrinkled nut-brown faces, with no more interest than they show the flocks of pigeons. Arthur plays the full instrumental solo from ‘Penrose Steps’, acoustic version; he plays it like a lockpicker twisting the dial on a safe, who smiles to hear the click.

Arthur claps his hand over the strings to still them and tilts his head up. Eames bends down to kiss him, there on the dusty rooftop, the blue flats hemming them in, beneath the flatness of the sky.

*

Though Arthur has stopped writing ‘Penrose Steps’, he’s far from done with it. When there’s space in their crazy tour schedule – and believe it or not, he finds it – he’s working on the song, tweaking this line or that, refining its sound. By now everyone in the band has taken at least one look at it. Reception has been mixed.

“It’s a monster,” says Ariadne when Arthur lets her read the sheet music before they go on tour. “Though some parts of it are really good, I especially like the Tibetan chanting bit in the middle.” She sings out the middle experimentally. Eames likes her voice: it’s low, got a little Cherie Currie in it, doesn’t remotely suit her sweet-faced look.

“It’s Nepalese,” says Arthur, but he looks pleased nevertheless.

The other reviews are less positive. “The drum part?” says Yusuf. “Boring. Without substance.”

“It’s not about the drums,” points out Arthur.

Yusuf bristles. “Not about the drums! Never about the drums! What are we now, country bluegrass?”

“What do you want,” retorts Arthur in irritation, “tom-tom solos?”

Yusuf gives him a severe look. “Do not,” he says, “diss the tom-toms.”

Saito stares at the piece narrowly. “This is not going on the album, yes?”

“Oh, no,” Arthur reassures him, “it’s got its own arc of significance, separate from the album canon. And I’m not done with it yet.”

“Very good,” says Saito. “Because commercially speaking it is absolutely not viable.”

“But it – ”

Saito overrides him. “It is twenty-one minutes long, contains long stretches of instrumental solos, and sixty per cent of it is not even in English. What do you think?”

Arthur stares at him, mouth open.

“Glad you agree, Arthur,” says Saito smoothly, and swans out.

“I can’t see myself singing it,” announces Cobb.

“That’s all right,” snaps Arthur, “nobody asked you to sing it.”

“Yeah, so who’s going to sing it?” Cobb squints at him in a challenging way. “You?”

Arthur has famously never sung any solo lines on any of the Kick’s tracks. Even Nash contributed solo vocals from time to time, but Arthur never opens his mouth beyond chorus and harmony. When asked about it by music journalists, he insists it detracts from his presence as a guitarist. “That’s me,” he says with a straight face. “Out of the spotlight. Guitar gently weeping.”

“And anyway it doesn’t make sense,” continues Cobb, waving the sheet music vaguely at Arthur. “I mean, what the hell is there to go on about for twenty-one minutes? Seriously?”

“Honestly,” Arthur demands of Eames that night, “is it any good?”

Eames stares at him. “Darling, is that actual insecurity I sense in your tone? Do we need to call A&E?”

“Oh, you’re useless too,” mutters Arthur, and ignores him for the rest of the night in favour of rewriting the damn guitar solos for the nth time.

*

Ariadne rejoins them in Macau after her exams are over. She shows up at Arthur’s hotel room holding a giant box of egg tarts, and displays little surprise when Eames opens the door.

“Hello,” she says, peering inquisitively under his arm. “Where’s he gone?”

“Shower,” answers Eames. “If you wanted to catch us in flagrante delicto you probably shouldn’t have stopped to go pastry-shopping.”

“But they’re really good! I can’t stop.” She is munching on one as they speak. Eames peeks into the box. One row is gone.

Ariadne edges past him and plonks the massive box down on the dresser. “Shouldn’t you be in there, you know, with him?”

“You’re horrific,” says Eames admiringly. “I don’t know why people labour under the impression that I’m lewd.”

“Because you are,” interjects Arthur, emerging from the bathroom. “Ariadne, though, she’s deceptive, and that makes it worse.”

He’s in a towel, which sits very low on his narrow hips. Ariadne whistles. “Now that’s a bingo.”

“Allow me to remind you that we are not contractually obliged to have you write the next album,” retorts Arthur. “We can fire you for being lewd any time.”

“I grow on you,” says Ariadne blithely. “Like footrot. You’ll never be rid of me.” She pushes the box towards them. “Tart?”

Arthur takes one and sits down on the bed next to Eames, passing him the box. “How were the exams?”

“Apparently one can be a Billboard Hot 100 contributor and still flunk Anglo-Saxon. How’s the tour been?”

“Super,” says Eames. He takes a bite of the egg tart and discovers that Ariadne is not lying: it tastes like crème brulée had sex with egg custard and came in his mouth.

“We just came from Taiwan,” supplies Arthur. He sits down on the bed beside Eames. “Someone threw a corset at Cobb during ‘Like A Virus’. They missed and hit Yusuf. There was bruising, apparently.”

Eames is watching him finish his tart. Arthur eats neatly; when he’s done, he licks the pads of his fingers and sucks them clean with slow, deliberate pops. Eames can’t quite take his eyes off the spectacle.

“Don’t even think about it,” says Arthur abruptly. “I just showered.”

Eames innocently drops his hand back into his lap. Ariadne releases a peal of laughter. “The two of you are on the Billboard Hot 100 of Adorable,” she croons. “Well, I’m going to see Yusuf now. Will leave you to it.”

“Lewd,” Arthur calls after her. “Firing.”

Ariadne sticks her head back in. “Good girls go to heaven,” she says, and winks, “but bad girls? Go everywhere.”

*

Sometimes Eames thinks he is sleeping with a machine. For one, Arthur’s body has clearly never heard of sleep debt. They’ll be out performing till four in the morning, and Arthur will be up by eight tuning his guitars. International timezones collapse before his internal clock. Sometimes the handlers arrive in the morning to find Arthur making coffee for them.

Eames finds himself being dragged into consciousness some time past seven in the early morning by Arthur, who is sitting on his bed, already fully-dressed and rapping imperiously on his bicep. “You covered ‘Paradox City’.”

“What?” mumbles Eames, trying to wave him off. “What’d I do now?”

Arthur sticks an Ipod into Eames’ face. “What you did,” he says in long-suffering tones, “was a rap cover of ‘Paradox City’. A rap cover.”

Eames gets hold of Arthur’s wrist and peers at the Ipod screen. “You bought my CD? I’m touched.”

“Ariadne torrented it for me.”

Eames falls back onto the pillows. “I’m heartbroken.”

“A rap cover,” repeats Arthur.

Eames sighs. “I’m a rap artist. I rap. It made sense to me to try rapping some of our old stuff. It’s not half bad, you know.”

“It’s abominable,” says Arthur ruthlessly. “It is going on the list of unforgivable things you’ve done in this lifetime, after Robert Fischer and that time in Boston you slipped magic mushrooms into my juice.”

“Arthur, darling, love of my life,” begins Eames, “did you wake me up at 7 in the a.m. just so you could insult my music?”

“Someone has to,” says Arthur. “What is up with your lyrics?”

“I will have you know that my lyrics are most witty and urbane,” retorts Eames. “Just last year, NME called me the ‘Oscar Wilde of British rap’.”

“And as that great man once said: real friends will stab you in the front.”

“I will thank you to stop misquoting my national heroes.”

“And I will thank you to get up.” Arthur drops a kiss on his forehead and gets off the bed. “We’re on the road at nine and I need you to convince Cobb to change the Shanghai setlist before then. I absolutely refuse to play ‘Don’t Think Of Elephants’ again. I don’t know why he likes that song so much.”

Eames groans and rolls out from under the covers. Relationships are about compromise.

*

Japan is Saito’s homeground. It’s his territory, his turf, where they are supposed to be safest and at their best.

Of course, Japan is where everything starts to royally screw itself over.

To be fair, it starts off well. They open with ‘Whole Lotta Levels’, always a favourite with the Japanese crowd, and follow it up with pretty good renditions of ‘Extract Yourself’ and ‘Gravity What Gravity’. The crowd is soaking it up, raucous with delight, and Cobb is lavish with his compliments – “You crazy people, you sound fucking beautiful, y’all.” It is only when they’re halfway through the chorus of ‘Revolution In The Corridor’ when things go horribly wrong.

In short, never underestimate the Cobb Mobb.

Eames isn’t quite sure how it happens, because he’s playing to the opposite corner of the audience when it does. He does turn in time, though, to see the fan – a big, burly woman – take a flying leap through the air as the security guards grab at her and miss. Eames can only watch in ironic slow motion as she proceeds to spectacularly divebomb Cobb, who trips. There is a resounding crack in the Dome, which can only be that of Cobb’s head hitting the speakers.

The feedback is ear-splitting. The pause that follows it is much worse.

Eames can only gape at how surreal the world is getting. Security is carting the attacker offstage. It looks like she’s broken her collarbone in the attempt. Nobody seems to care. The medics are cautiously moving Cobb, who is out cold and bleeding slightly from the temple, into the wings.

Eames looks up at the drummer’s stand and sees his own horror reflected on Yusuf’s face. He stares across the stage at Arthur, and Arthur – unflappable Arthur – is staring back in shock.
Arthur, being Arthur, recovers first. In swift, rough movements he hands Totem IV to a nearby stagehand and walks offstage. Eames hurriedly does the same.

They congregate by the lighting pylons, and then everyone is talking at once.

“We cannot cancel!” Saito says urgently. “We are just three songs in!”

“We have no frontman,” Eames hisses back. “And I know the rest of us are important to the sound and all, but everything about the Kick revolves around there being Cobb. Singing.”

“So? Evolve.”

“Shitshitshit,” Yusuf is muttering to himself, “shitshitshitshitshit – ”

“I got a physician in,” adds Saito, “but he says it will be at least an hour before we can get him back on his feet – ”

Even backstage, they can hear the sounds of a crowd shifting in growing impatience.

“Hm,” says Arthur.

Eames, in that moment, loves him more than he ever thought possible. Their frontman is out cold for an hour, there are seventy thousand people out there who in that time will be ready to rip the stage to pieces, they’re utterly fucked, and Arthur has absorbed this entire catastrophe and distilled it into “Hm.” This is a man to be worshipped.

“Yusuf,” says Arthur. He raps their cursing drummer sharply on the temple. “Yusuf!”

“– shitshitshityes?”

“Get your fancy drums out there,” says Arthur. “The timpanis. The bongo. That thing with the wooden ears, I don’t care, get out there and improvise. You always complain the percussion never gets its own spotlight, now’s your chance. Buy us six minutes, we’re going to prep Ariadne to sing.”

“This is madness,” says Yusuf in wonder.

“Nope,” says Arthur. “This is rock and roll. Now, hit it.”

*

“I knew I should have stayed in Minnesota,” hisses Ariadne.

A quick jaunt with Hair & Makeup has piled her hair atop her head in a messy heap of gel and glitter. They’ve also managed to find her a leather outfit and a substantial amount of jewellery draped over her neckerchief, which is turquoise paisley today. Eames looks her up and down critically. “You’ll pass,” he says. “Might want to lose the neckerchief though, love.”

“THE NECKERCHIEF STAYS.”

“Right, sweetheart, whatever you say.” Eames backs off and leaves her to the tender mercies of Arthur.

“No fear,” says Arthur without pre-amble. “They can smell it. Especially this crowd, they’ll be calling for your blood before you can say chicken.”

“I was scared shitless,” says Ariadne. “Now, I think I’m having a heart attack.”

Eames leaves them to it and goes to check on Yusuf, who is buying them time in a truly impressive fashion. He has all the timpanis out – and the dpanlogos – and the taikos, and the repinique, and other stuff he frequently introduces to Eames when they’re drunk and Eames never remembers when he sobers up – and is whaling on them with vigour, coaxing absolutely enormous sounds from each. Sweat is dripping from him like someone just removed him from a fridge and left him out to thaw. Eames will never, never underestimate percussion again.

Yusuf brings everything to a crashing finish of flawless sound. In Eames’ narrow experience with drumming, finishes involve manically hitting anything he can reach in three seconds. It is not, not easy.

“And that,” pants Yusuf into the mic, “was ‘Did You See That?’ Which I just made up, by the way.”

The crowd gapes at him, stunned, then begins to clap slowly, the applause building into a roar.

“Truly, I am incredible,” adds Yusuf, and stumbles offstage for water and a towel.

“She better be ready,” he mutters to Eames, “because my genius, it is spent.”

“She’s ready,” says Arthur, frogmarching Ariadne past them.

Ariadne gives Eames a look of pure terror. “This is even worse than SATs Biology,” she says in a tiny voice.

Eames gives her what he hopes is a consoling look. Yusuf takes a long swig of water, towels off like he just swum an Olympics 50m butterfly stroke, and hurries out after them.

“Everybody,” says Eames into the mic, “this is a friend of ours.” He gestures for Ariadne to come over, hooks an arm around her shoulder. “And if you’re wondering what she’s doing here, well – she wrote half this shit. So give her some love.”

The applause trickles in, and then crescendos. Ariadne gives Eames a grateful smile, then turns to speak into her own mic. “My name’s Ariadne,” she says, “and when I was a little girl I dreamed about working with these guys. And yeah, dreams do come true. Don’t hate me for it.” And then she grabs the mic and hollers: “A-ONE, TWO, THREE, GO!” and they plunge straight into the crashing opening of ‘Haters Gonna Rotate’.

It takes a couple of songs, but the crowd warms to her. Ariadne is, after all, infectiously likeable, and even broadcast to seventy thousand people it’s hardly watered down. Also, she’s been around the rest of the Kick long enough to be totally comfortable, even in the glaring onstage heat: one moment she’s bouncing next to Yusuf, the next she’s singing the chorus to Arthur, who smiles his amused smile and plays the riff back at her. Ariadne dances over to Eames to press her shoulder against his and they sing back to back; when his harmony is up, he drops a light kiss on her forehead and she grins, then is off to the stage apron to sing directly into the pit.

With Ariadne on lead vocals, they kill a good forty minutes. But whenever they glance into the wings, Saito is still standing there looking bleak. At the end of forty minutes, Ariadne is flagging; she isn’t a seasoned performer, she lacks the stamina to sing for hours on end. “My throat is dying,” she gasps on their third water break. “Please please don’t let’s sing ‘How Do I Drop You’, I just know my voice is going to crack on that note.”

The physician is talking in low, anxious tones to Saito, who comes over to them. “He says he needs another twenty minutes to bring Cobb round.”

There is a long pause.

Then Eames says, looking over at Arthur: “I know a way we can give you twenty-one.”

Arthur snaps up to look at him in horror. “No, Eames.”

“It’s all we have left,” reasons Eames, “short of my rapping. And you abominate my rapping. There are specific lines in the band contract forbidding me to rap in concert.”

“I’m not saying you should rap,” protests Arthur, “I’m just saying that – god, it’s not ready!”

“What do you need to do with it, cover it in yoghurt and chocolate buttons?” Eames grabs Arthur by the shoulders in exasperation. “It’s ready, Arthur. Believe me.”

Arthur swallows, then gestures haplessly at the uneasy crowd outside. “They’re not ready. These people can’t take twenty-one minutes of experimental composition, they’ll riot.”

“Not if you pull a Boston,” says Eames.

Arthur’s eyes go wide. “No, Eames. Not that.”

“Why not?” exclaims Eames merrily. “I mean, you’ve done it before! In, you know, Boston.”

“You slipped me magic mushrooms,” says Arthur wearily. “I still haven’t forgiven you.”

Ariadne looks up hopefully. “Is he doing a Boston? Please say he’s doing a Boston!”

“Why,” grits out Arthur, “are you even old enough to know what happened in Boston?”

“Yes,” says Saito abruptly.

Arthur covers his face. “Not you too.”

“It will work with a Boston,” continues Saito.

“You said the song wasn’t commercially viable!”

“Refunds,” thunders Saito, “are not commercially viable. As your manager I command you to do this. Now go forth.”

“I said – ” begins Arthur. Eames decides this is taking far too long and kisses him.

“ – said no,” Arthur continues into his mouth, and then: “ – ah, shit.”

Eames breaks off. “There’s a love.”

“You’re using me,” says Arthur plaintively, but storms off in the direction of the roadies with Totem IV.
“Mister Eames,” says Saito solemnly, “I give you the medal of awesome.”

“Yeah, well,” replies Eames, eyes on the stage, “better save it for him.”

*

“There’s something I’d like to show all of you,” says Arthur.

He’s standing in the middle of the stage, where Cobb would stand were Cobb around. “It’s called ‘Penrose Steps’, and it’s a little long.”

He’s removing his cufflinks as he speaks, dropping them into the hand of the roadie standing by, holding Totem IV.

“So if you don’t mind,” says Arthur, loosening his tie. “I’ll get into something more comfortable.”

He drapes the tie over the arm of the grinning roadie; he’s smiling that smile of his, that thin, amused half-smile that says I know what you did last summer and then some. And then, as seventy thousand people watch in breathless silence, he shrugs off his jacket.

As every Kick trivia page on the web would tell you, there are only two occasions on which Arthur March was seen to remove any part of his suit onstage. The first occurred in 2001 at a gig in Boston: he removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, tossed his tie into the audience and later denied memory of the incident in all press conferences despite video evidence. The second occurred in 2004, and was a result of Dominic Cobb accidentally setting fire to the suit sleeve during a particularly high-octane performance of ‘You Shoot Me All Night Long’ featuring vodka and a sparkler machine.

The third occasion, it seems, is going to top both of those.

Arthur, very, very slowly unbuttoning his vest, begins to sing. The first segment of ‘Penrose Steps’ – there are many segments – is sung a capella, and is written entirely in French. Even Eames in his most indulgent moments has never been able to judge that as being particularly wise – until now. Somehow the entire world makes sense when Arthur sings in French.

Arthur’s voice is low, slightly raspy, not powerhouse like Cobb’s – but it fits this song. Arthur finishes unbuttoning the vest but leaves it on, and this draws an audible groan from the crowd as he takes Totem IV and segues into the second part.

Eames watches Arthur, because there isn’t much for him to do on bass – it is, after all, Arthur’s song – and because it’s hard to keep your eyes on anything else onstage. The song thuds along, ominous and beautiful, and Arthur is coaxing incredibly melodic riffs out of the guitar, sweet and liquid as violin notes but somehow richer and darkly electric.

Minutes pass. Before Eames realises it, they’re already in the strange atmospheric chanting section and Arthur has somehow managed to lose the vest without taking Totem IV off. Eames can’t remember how many minutes they are into the song, and if it weren’t for Saito’s anxious face in the wings he wouldn’t give a damn.

Arthur is unbuttoning his shirt now, maybe one button every stanza, and the tension from the audience is at fever pitch. He doesn’t lose the shirt yet; instead he unbuckles and slides his belt out of its loops in one smooth curl, and the crowd lets out one vast sound that is half-scream half-moan.

Like its name, ‘Penrose Steps’ is sometimes never-ending; it curls in on itself, picks up at places where you thought it’d leave off, and all so smoothly you’d never notice unless you were looking for the hooks that keep it together. It’s uncanny and unearthly and downright bizarre, and at this moment it’s the most beautiful thing Eames has ever heard.

And then suddenly it comes to a stop, a sort of heart-crashing stop like you’ve been chasing somebody and he disappears, and in the next heartbeat you realise he’s been behind you all this while. Arthur lets Totem IV hang loose, peels off his shirt in one polished move, then grabs the guitar and really rips into it, tears up the song like it’s confetti and detonates it in the air. The Dome is alive and shrieking with the sound of it, and of seventy thousand people revelling in the power of the storm.
Eames stares and drinks it in; he wants to remember this vision forever, of Arthur’s lean torso silhouetted against the glare of a hundred strobing lights, and the sound, the sound that is bleeding through those fingers.

And then it ends. Arthur stands, drenched in sweat, fingers dripping over the strings of his guitar. Eames can’t see his face, it’s turned towards the seventy thousand people screaming his name; but then Arthur unslings Totem IV and thrusts it into the hands of the roadies coming to field it, and then he flings his arms around Eames, hard and vicious and rib-cracking. Arthur’s soaked to the skin with perspiration, getting it over Eames’ jacket. Eames doesn’t give a fuck.

“How was it?” he hears Arthur breathe.

Eames smiles into Arthur’s hair. “Fastest twenty-one minutes of my life.”

*
In the midst of the giant frenzy following ‘Penrose Steps’, Cobb’s revival pretty much goes unnoticed.

“How is he?” demands Arthur over the heads of the make-up artists swarming over a groggy Cobb. Someone has found Arthur a T-shirt to wear, which is going to make a lot of people very upset when he goes back on. “Is he coherent? Can he sing?”

“I was going towards this bright white light,” mumbles Cobb. “And she was there. Mal. Standing in the path of the light.”

“Let me guess,” says Arthur hopefully. “She said, ‘Go back, Dom, they need you.’”

“No, actually she said ‘What the hell is taking you so long, I thought you’d be here already.’” Cobb rubs a hand over his eyes ruefully. “So I said ‘But Mal, I have the kids and I have the music’, and she said ‘Play your damn music then, but it had better be worth all this waiting I am having to do.”

Arthur blinks at him, speechless.

“She’ll wait for me forever if she needs to,” finishes Cobb. “But she really hates it when I waste her time, so we better not.”

He swings himself off the bed and dashes out of the sick bay. The rest of the Kick stumble after him in shock.

Cobb grabs his guitar from a stunned roadie and marches onstage. The crowd goes insane as everyone else follows him, attempting to make it look like this is all part of the performance schedule.

“You are not getting rid of me this easy,” says Cobb into the mic, as the crowd shrieks his name. “Thanks for waiting, people. I know it’s hard. So now I’m going to play you something about that, about waiting.”

He takes hold of the mic with both hands and closes his eyes for a beat. Then he opens them and says: “This song is ‘Waiting For A Train’.”

He doesn’t cue Eames, but Eames knows to start playing the bassline. A hush has fallen over the crowd. Cobb closes his eyes again and sings:

I will tell to you a riddle
You are waiting for a train
You don’t know where it’ll take you
But you know it’ll ease your pain
Have you ever been a lover
Have you been half of a whole
Where the train goes doesn’t matter
We’re together in my soul

There are tears in his eyes as he goes into the bridge, but his voice doesn’t break. Eames, playing, watching him, remembers: they are the legend they are today, because Dom Cobb made them so.

When he finishes the song, there is silence, a full ten seconds of silence before the applause begins to trickle in. Cobb looks up, up over the crowd he isn’t really seeing, and says quietly, “Yeah, I love you too.” Then he bows his head and steps away from the mic.

In retrospect, Japan may well be their best show to date.

*

“So do you want to hear my new song idea?”

“And that’s our version of pillow talk now, is it,” says Arthur, arching an eyebrow.

“It is my plan to outdo you,” continues Eames grandly. “It will be twenty-seven minutes long, contain stretches of Latin and Swahili, and – wait for it – it will be entirely in rap. Iambic pentameter.”

“If you ever finish it,” says Arthur dryly, “you can release it as the B-side to ‘Penrose Steps’. They’ll practically be their own album.”

“It’ll be epic. ” Eames turns dreamily into Arthur’s side. “Like, the Iliad circa Kanye.”

“If you need creative inspiration, I could go sleep with Fischer,” offers Arthur. “Believe me. It does wonders for the muse.”

“Don’t mock the man dedicating a twenty-seven-minute-long rap to you.”

“What can I say?” Arthur shrugs. “It’s a long way to the top – if you want to rock and roll.”