Lindsey rode with her bandmates and their sound engineer. Dan’s friend Troy had come through on his promise to handle their soundboard. He was traveling with them. He had listened to their music and made a few suggestions that Lindsey made notes of.

Dan’s older sister Brenda jumped at the chance to be the band’s manager. She had registered their band name and copyrighted all their music so far. She had taken over the merchandise the band wanted to sell or have made. She handled the money they got from her parents and from the realty company Barbara was a partner of.

She was riding with her parents and Barbara. Barbara was riding with Terry’s and Jami’s parents. Ian’s mother had come along as well and joined the other parents.

Kaja had asked to come along and was riding with the band. She would mind their stall. She wanted to see if maybe she could drum up some business for herself or get some ideas on what Steampunk people like.

Dan’s sister Brenda was going to see if she could talk with people at the convention to get more venues for the band. Maybe talk with the organizers of the convention to see if there are more possibilities for the band to play.

The ride to where the convention was taking place, took about an hour. Since, all the band members were under the age of 18yrs old, except Dan’s sister Brenda. They needed to have an adult present.

They are told where to park and unload their gear. They are assigned a time slot for them to do a sound check and when they are to appear on stage. They were listed as third in line to appear. Since they were a new band, they had twenty minutes to play their songs.

That shocked Lindsey and the other members. She looks towards Terry since he was acting as the leader of the band.

“Which songs do you want to play?” That would tell Lindsey if she needed to unpack her Sax and guitar.

Terry looks back towards Lindsey “which songs do you think will be our strongest?”

“Gypsy Wisp, Love the Dust, Electric Blues, Drum Storm would be our best bet. Start with Gypsy Wisp, then go with Electric Blues, Love the Dust and finally Drum Storm where Ian can cut loose and end us on a high note.” Lindsey figures those songs would fill the twenty-minute slot and give the crowd an idea of their playing.

“Okay, let’s go with that set-up.” Terry knew the tempo of the songs would show how they play.

Barbara comes over to see how Lindsey was doing. The guys had helped her set her synthesizer and speakers up because of her knee. It was doing better, but she still had a few more weeks before they were going to go in and remove the hardware.

Lindsey notices Barbara coming over towards her. She could tell Barbara was a little concern about her.

“How are you holding up, kiddo?”

“Scared, I’ve never stood in front of a lot of people before and performed.” Lindsey felt like she wanted to throw-up.

“I know how you feel. I felt the same way when I first step foot on stage and performed with my dance class.”

That got Lindsey’s attention “you use to dance?”

“Yep, when I was you’re age. I took ballet, tap, and modern dance. We used to put on a show every year.”

“How did you overcome your fear?” Lindsey really wanted to know.

“I block them out and did my routine. Just concentrate on your music and let it fill you. Don’t worry about the crowd. Just do what you do best and play.” Barbara hugs Lindsey.

“Thanks, mom.” Lindsey returns the hug.

They stay like that for a while. Barbara releases Lindsey and holds her at arm’s length.

“Go and have fun on stage.”

Lindsey goes and does a sound check with her bandmates. She watches as Shannon; Dan’s DJ friend makes an adjustment to their soundboard. He comes over and adjusts the speaker settings. He checks everyone’s stomp boxes and has them do a second run. By the third try, he has everyone sounding perfect.

They mingle with other bands and learn a few things about them. They learned that if they want to get their name out there, that they should do a few music videos. The band finds out that a few places were looking for new bands to play at their places and were willing to pay good money.

While they waited backstage for their turn to go on. They listen to the songs that were being played. Some of them were their style, while a few weren’t. She also learned that there was a long list of different Steampunk genre’s they could play in.

When it was their turn to perform. They take their positions and start off slow with the Gypsy Wisp and build up to the main chorus of the song. Lindsey concentrates on playing the synthesizer and singing the vocals for the song.

As soon as Gypsy Wisp is finished, they slide right into Love the Dust. That song has more energy to it and tells a sad story of the Earth turned into a dust bowl. The crowd had responded so well to their songs. Once they were finished with Love the Dust, comes Electric Blues. It goes over extremely well with the crowd. Dan, Terry, and Jamie playing the cords that sounded like an electric storm was going off on stage. At the end of it, the crowd was energized from the guitar work from all three players.

When they start playing Drum Storm, Ian steals the stage with his playing. The energy Lindsey felt earlier during Gypsy Wisp and Electric Blues, was twice as strong as Ian played. The whole entire time the energy kept building and when they came to the end. The crowd exploded in applause. All of them had sweat sliding down their bodies. She looks over towards Ian and he was soaked in sweat.

“ONE MORE SONG! ONE MORE SONG!”

Lindsey looks over towards the stage manager and he nods his head yes to her unspoken question. He was giving them the go-ahead to play one more song.

“Hammer and Anvil.”

“Gotcha”

Jamie starts with his bass and after he plays for a few minutes, Lindsey jumps in with her synthesizer. At certain points in the song, it sounds like a hammer striking an anvil. Lindsey glances towards the crowd to see what they thought of the music. She notices they were memorized by their song.They get to the end of it and the crowd breaks into a loud applause.

They were about to chant again, but Terry stops them before they could get started. Terry had glance towards the stage manager and they couldn’t allow them to continue.

“We have a CD with all the music we just played at our stall for sale.”

“DUSTY GASKET, DUSTY GASKET, DUSTY GASKET!”

Lindsey loved hearing their bands name being chanted as they broke their gear down and left the stage. Lindsey grabs an ice-cold water and drinks it. She wanted to pour it on her head, but she didn’t feel like redoing her eyeliner and mascara. All the guys surrounding her were sweating like pigs.

“You kids did great.” All four parents surround the kids and give them hugs.

Brenda comes walking over to them, while they were packing up their gear. She had a pleasant look on her face as she approaches them.

“You guys won’t believe this, but I just had four different owners of Steampunk theme restaurants approach me, asking if you guys wouldn’t mind playing on the weekend for them.”

All the members look at each other. They wouldn’t mind doing it.

“Before you guys and gals make a decision. Let’s find out what they are willing to pay and get a contract drawn up. Also, as you know, Lindsey has other responsibilities as well. So, let’s talk about this first and as a group decides.” David looks at all of them.

“Your father is right, Terry. We need to discuss this and have contracts drawn up. I’ll handle that part, but as a group, we need to talk about it.”
Brenda knew things might be complicated because all the members, besides her brother, were underage.

“Alright, let's talk about everything. How well did the stall do?” Terry was curious.

“I’ll check on that, you guys need to go out and sign autographs.” Brenda hands several sharpies to the group.

Dusty Gasket Stall:
Kaja was bored watching the stall. She had a few sales, but nothing big. Which gave her a chance to talk with some of the other vendors. She found out anything dealing with old-style Victorian gadgets or wear were hot items at these conventions. She knew a few artists at school that could make some money selling their old gadgets and art.

It didn’t start to get busy till after the group went on. Out of the two hundred CD’s they made to sell. She sold all but twenty of them. The T-shirts and other odds and ends were nearly sold out. She was asked if the band was going to make a second album and how to get in touch with them.

Kaja notices Brenda walking over to her. As she gets closer to the stall.

“How are sales going?”

“Slow at first, but after the band went on. We got swamp by people buying a lot of our items. I got about twenty CD’s left, a few shirts,a few key-chain USB drives, and bumper stickers left.”

“Wow!” Brenda couldn’t believe they had sold a lot of the items. I’ve had a few people sign-up that want their second CD if they make one.”

“I’ll let Lindsey know. She writes most of the band’s music.”

The band spends the rest of the day at the convention interacting with their fans and finding out more about the Steampunk culture. The guys help take down the stall and promise to show up the next day. The band wasn’t playing, but they wanted to learn more about the culture.