“You’re nuts! You know that?” my coworker whisper-shouted across our counter. “Y’all
could have gotten killed!”
I chuckled. “That’s a bit dramatic. We just…well, when you put it that way…”
Looking back on that Labor Day weekend years prior, none of us really had a need to put
our guard up. Reserved for mutuals of my best friend’s band Talking Backwards, this private
campout gig took place on private property deep in the Ozark woods. Surrounded only by trees, tents, and a crowd of familiar faces, we were in good company.
Not to mention, the outdoor acoustics sounded pretty amazing.
Leading up to the performance, my friend Shelby, the band’s multi-talented frontwoman,
perched beside me around a radiant bonfire. Our hair, damp with lake water, dried frizzy.
Straddling several conversations at once, we snacked on classic s’mores and rich chocolate treats passed around on a platter.
Licking the sugar from my teeth, I caught the words “made special for the occasion” and
“the chocolate is loaded with it” in peripheral conversation.
“Hold on.” I pulled Shelby aside. “Those were edibles?”
My friend shrugged, grinning, which struck me as hilarious considering neither of us had ever taken much interest in leisurely substances. Together, we scanned the audience of heavy-lidded friends and family slouching in their folding chairs. Someone passed around a pipe to smoke. Others cracked open cans of beer from their coolers.
The door to the trailer swung open. Appearing from “backstage,” Talking Backwards, known at the time as a four-piece group called Fresh of Breath Air filed out with giddy smiles.
“Shelby!” Shawn, their drummer, dangled a shooter of whiskey over his head. “Come take a shot with us before the show!”
Scowling, my friend trudged toward their huddle. “No, that’s where I draw the line.”
Loosened up, the group tested their microphones, claimed their respective instruments,
and flashed a thumbs-up. Blue string-lights draped on the trailer behind them flicked on, casting each member in an otherworldly glow.
Talking Backwards dove into their set with enthusiasm. Their originals drew from math rock, shoegaze, and folk influences. Shelby alternated between guitar, violin, and keys while belting out gorgeous melodies. Even during these early-career shows, the group delivered a
lively performance, feeding off of one another’s energy with ease.
Dusk seeped into night, inky blues bleeding across the sky. Eventually, the show transitioned into a fun activity: live karaoke. Talking Backwards invited volunteers to the stage to pick from a binder filled with lyrics. Their musical inventory was stacked, weeks of rehearsals evident in their confidence to mimic the karaoke machine itself.
Volunteers requested classics like Fleetwood Mac, the Cranberries, John Denver, Chicago, and Talking Heads. Intoxicated laughter and cheering warmed up our luminescent patch of woods, drowning out the natural symphony of crickets and crackling logs.
When our applause ebbed, however, our ringing ears registered another sound: distant
clapping and whistling from behind us.
We swiveled. Emerging through the darkening patch of trees, a group of gangly strangers
stepped into the glow of our bonfire. Disheveled hair. Scraggly beards. Grimy overalls. Ozark
hillbillies—they had to be. But where did they spawn from?
“Um, hello,” lead guitarist Coleman stammered.
The man in front grinned. Maybe it was the cannabis daze playing tricks on my eyes, but
I could have sworn half of his teeth were missing.
“We’re from across the lake down that way,” he drawled, tracing a knobby finger across
the dimming horizon. “Bunch of us heard your music, so we came walking. And here we are.”
Oh man.
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, because this sounded like the turning point of a horror movie.
Maybe we should have screamed. Or fled to our cars. Or chased those cryptids back into
oblivion. But stoned campers didn’t possess the survival skills necessary to act on caution.
“Welcome, neighbors!” our host greeted. “Grab yourself a seat. Our very own band is
putting on live karaoke.”
The hicks lit up at that. “Let our buddy Jed on the mic! Guy’s a whiz. Hey, you there on
guitar. Let Jed here borrow your acoustic for one tune, will ya?”
I noticed the gears turning behind Coleman’s eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, he surrendered
his Ibanez acoustic to the stranger.
The newcomer already had a tune in mind. Moseying in front of the microphone, he
strummed the opening notes to “Folsom Prison Blues.”
Our combined audience howled, and with that, Talking Backwards backed a voice that
sounded nearly identical to Johnny Cash. And man, could that hillbilly strum the guitar. The
vague apprehension written on Coleman’s face transformed to admiration.
It couldn’t have been a more memorable night to kick off Talking Backwards’ career. Familiar and foreign faces alike relished the performance, singing and dancing along until the blaze simmered to embers.
By the time Shelby and I crawled into our tent, my marshmallow-thick thoughts registered that I never saw those hillbillies depart our site. They merely vanished, mysteriously as they once appeared.
Two years later, as I recounted this story, my coworker shook his head.
“Nah, see, that’s wild,” he said. “Those strangers could have snuck up behind y’all and, I
don’t know, slit your throats!”
“Hm.” This was a possibility I hadn’t even thought to consider.
Looking back, the whole encounter seemed rather hallucinatory than concrete. Having
officially rebranded themselves as Talking Backwards, toured both in and out of state, won the American Royal Battle of the Bands at Kansas Speedway, and released a full-length album, my best friend’s Kansas City-based band now prepared to move to Texas for greater opportunities.
That early-career gig was merely a speck among what they have accomplished in the meantime.
On my break, I messaged my best friend reminiscing on the peculiar events from that
blissful night.
God, what a time that was, Shelby wrote back.
I glanced at my incredulous coworker. But I wasn’t imagining it, right?
No, Shelby replied. That definitely happened.
Bethany Cutkomp is a writer from St. Louis, Missouri. She enjoys catching chaotic vibes and bees with her bare hands. Her work appears in HAD, trampset, Ghost Parachute, Exposed Bone, The Hooghly Review, and more. Find her on social media at @bdcutkomp.
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