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“What do you two think of the new guy?”
The faces that 2D and Noodle gave Russel were exactly why he’d been putting off asking that question. No one was more aware than he was of when his caution could veer into counterintuitively causing problems. And admittedly, half an hour before they were due to go on stage wasn’t the best time to bring it up. But the feeling hadn’t been subsided by a good walk, or seeing an act of kindness, or any other ways that usually reassured Russel that he was worried about the world, and not an individual. Which meant this concern was real.
“What you mean?” 2D chirped, “I think he’s great! Proper enthusiastic, and I dunno why, but everything he says is so funny to me. He’s taken to all this like… well, like it’s water.”
“He might be a little… erratic.” Noodle added, gauging the reason Russel had likely asked, “but nothing we can’t handle.”
The band hadn’t had a massive amount of time to get to know the new bassist before having to leave for the second half of the tour. It was a marriage of convenience more than love, as Jamie knew a guy that was available for the whole tour, could play, and had an annoying irreverence that would gel with the three of them. He also had, in Jamie’s words, a Grand Canyon sized chip on his shoulder, which had sealed the deal for the trio in signing him on. There was no bigger quality that was needed for being part of the band than having something to prove.
“Have you asked about all the connections he’s got yet?” 2D said, “Mate, the amount of celeb cameos we’re gonna be able to get in our videos now, it’ll be well fancy.”
Noodle put a finger to her mouth and tried to think of any other untoward behaviour, “He did keep apologising profusely for some film his friend made years ago.”
“What film?” Russel asked.
Noodle shrugged. “Before my time, he said. How old is he, actually?”
“Hard to tell with them LA types.” 2D muttered.
The subject was changing, and Russel was considering leaving it at that. But he promised himself he’d be better at voicing his worries, and while he wasn’t an ‘I told you so’ sort of man, reaching the halfway point of telling them so seemed fair to all of them.
“I’m having doubts as to whether he has the best interests of the band at heart.”
2D and Noodle shared a quick look that told Russel his opinion hadn’t even been considered, let alone shared.
“Well…” Noodle started, using a pragmatic tone Russel was much more used to being on the giving end of, “…have you tried talking to him about it?”
“Two can drink a Tango, Russ.” 2D concurred.
Russel groaned inwardly. He knew now had been a bad time to bring it up.
“You know what, you’re right.” He said, turning for the dressing room door. “I’ll be right back.”
Russel channeled his well-worn relaxed self as he walked. It didn’t help matters that the new bassist had been kept away from the band for everything beyond photoshoots up to this point. It was as if either him or them were being protected, and the disconcerting thing was Russel couldn’t work out which.
He looked at the door, which had a piece of paper taped to the front that was simply marked, ‘D.D’. The handwriting looked remarkably similar to the signature they’d gotten on the contract that had been posted to them. Carefully, Russel lifted the piece of paper. Underneath, written much more officially, was ‘Major Lazer.’
He reached up and knocked a firm-but-polite three times, and heard shuffling on the other end. The handle on the other side turned, and after a beat, perhaps for dramatic effect, it swung open.
“Russel!” Daffy cried expectantly, as if he was the one who’d summoned him, “Step on through. You’re just in time, the final preparations have finally been secured.”
“Thanks.” Russel said, and stepped inside. His room was spacious and perfectly air-conditioned, with the only noticeable personal touch being the coffee cup filled with unopened suckers. “I just thought before our first show I should- wait.” He paused in his examining of Daffy’s room and turned to him. “What preparations?”
“Well,” Daffy began, puffing out his chest proudly, “If you ask me, this Gorillaz shtick is starting to get slightly stale when it's all said and done. I suggest, a super sprucing the likes of which those sorry saps have never seen!”
“Cool, do you wanna maybe cool it with the S’s?” Russel asked, using his sleeve to wipe the spit from his face.
“So, to set the scene,” Daffy whispered, jittering with excitement, “you all ears?”
“Sure.”
“We’ve got myself on bass. Usually ducks struggle with the size of a bass but you see, I’m not your standard specimen. Then yourself on drums, Stu on keys and Noods on guitars-“
“Come on now, that was on purpose, there was no need to pluralise that last one.”
“But what’s the next step? The crescendo? How do we make sure people really never forget us?”
As if the hailstorm of saliva was cutting through his defences, Russel found himself softening. Maybe it was the wild ambition, as well as the strange combination of arrogance and desperation, that gave him a certain familiarity.
He shrugged openly. “What did you have in mind?”
Daffy looked around, and put an open hand close to his beak and spoke in a whisper.
“I got a tip off and secured some extra-strength fireworks from a friend of a friend, and went to the trouble of rigging the entire stadium with it.”
Russel raised an eyebrow. “The whole stadium? How much?”
“Two and a half metric tons!”
Russel’s blood ran cold and his fists clenched instinctively. “Tell me you’re kidding. That’s lethal.”
Seemingly ready to explode himself from excitement, Daffy clutched at Russel’s shirt, stretching it out. “We hit the stage, I push the plunger, and KABOOM-argh!”
Daffy’s simulated explosion was followed by what felt like a real one as Russel slammed him hard into the dressing room wall, lifting him a couple feet off the ground by neck alone.
“Watch the neck!” Daffy choked, his entire body squirming in vain, “Do I look like a turkey to you?”
“Listen, Duck.” Russel growled, “If you’ve put us all in danger-“
“You don’t understand, Russ!” Daffy’s voice was pleading, as were his hands, clasped together above Russel’s arm, “I need this! Today’s executives want ‘versatility.’” The word was drawn out mockingly, clearly quoting someone Russel hadn’t met. “You don’t know what it’s like to play second fiddle!”
Russel scoffed. “Is it any wonder with you pulling stunts like this?”
“I have to do something! And it has to be original, you wouldn’t believe how much I don’t actually own. I can’t even say the, the… Y D catchphrase, or the T M W catchphrase. Not unless you want a water tower sized lawsuit.”
“I’m sure you can say it in here.” Russel said with rolled eyes.
“No! They’re listening!”
“No we’re not.” A booming, bass-y voice came from overhead. Still holding Daffy, Russel turned to look for the source, but it seemed to be coming form everywhere. “Uh, I mean, can the owner of a white Fiat Panda please report to, uh, lost and found.”
Russel wasn’t sure what was happening to the world anymore, but it felt like the Duck was responsible. His mind snapped to Noodle and 2D, unaware of the danger they were likely in.
“Right.” Russel said, setting Daffy down slowly, “Well, I’m gonna go and let the others know. You stay put, aight?”
He turned for the door, panic setting in more and more by the second.
“Don’t take too long, mac!” Daffy called to Russel’s quickly departing figure, “It’s almost showtime!”
“Show’s over!” Russel announced milliseconds after entering their room, “We gotta get everyone out, the Duck’s lost it!”
Noodle and 2D blinked at him in perfect synchronicity.
“He’s about to blow this place to hell and back!” Russel emphasised desperately.
2D gave a pained look of sympathy. “…come on, Russ.”
“I’m serious!”
“Let’s talk about it after the show, maybe.” Noodle offered.
“There isn’t gonna be a show!”
“Alright.” 2D stood with a sigh and approached Russel, “I’ve been needing to talk to you about this. I haven’t wanted to, but y’know, as the leader for this album, it’s up to me to have the tough chats.”
“D please, you’re not listening-“
“Noodle and I are worried your head’s not been in the right place for this album. Like, the only thing you’ve wanted to talk about lately is Daffs. Remember at the shoot and you were reckoning the rocket he made us sit on was real?”
“He thought it was real dammit, not me!” Russel protested, “He couldn’t understand why it didn’t go off!”
“We all agreed what we’d do differently this time is be 100% on the same page. There’s only one of us that ain’t been so far, and it’s not Daffs.”
Russel blinked hard. Either he was going crazy or the rest of the world was. He turned to the only other person of sound enough mind that he could trust.
“Noodle, you hearing this guy?”
“Are you?”
Her tone was firm, but sad, and it drained the panic from Russel like an enormous plug.
“I know you’re doing it because you’re worried about us.” She said slowly, cracking a couple of knuckles to indicate the words weren’t coming out easily, “You trusted Murdoc and he let you down, he let us all down. But it’s not fair to treat the people that haven’t hurt us as if they’re the people that have.”
Russel looked down, searching in his heart for if that was indeed what he’d been doing, even subconsciously. Being a stoic protector may have helped from time-to-time, but it felt like on so many more occasions, he should’ve taken a more active role in protecting his friends, and didn’t. He knew it could come across as paranoia, and accepted the label so long as the band were safe. Nobody but him had thought he’d done anything particularly wrong in the lead-up to Murdoc’s untimely departure, but for Russel, him was enough. Perhaps he was trying too hard to look for wrongs to right. Daffy had likely been exaggerating anyway, how would he have gotten a hold of over two tons of fireworks? And why did a duck need a changing room?
Had he really been treating all bass players the same? He’d been raised better than that.
“We’re tryna move on, mate.” 2D said, putting a hand on Russel’s shoulder, “and we want you to move on with us. Besides, if something was up, don’t ya reckon Noodle would’ve noticed it and all?”
Russel nodded, patting 2D’s connecting hand, “Sorry. Maybe I’m a little on edge. Worrying too much as overcompensation, you feel?”
Noodle popped up, relieved for the tension subsiding, and went over to hug him, “Don’t worry. Care.”
2D grinned and exhaled, similarly relieved. Russel freed one big hand from the hug to scritch the back of 2D’s head.
“Hello Massachusetts!”
The three turned in the direction of Daffy’s voice, a little faint and dripping with reverb. He was talking into a microphone. There was no typical crowd cheer reaction, however.
2D snickered, and Russel and Noodle turned to him.
“Bloody genius.” He giggled, “Dunno how he does it.”
“This thing on?” Daffy’s voice muttered, and the sound of three or four thwacks of wing against microphone sounded throughout the arena. “Hello?”
The crowd’s confused silence upgraded to smatterings of applause as the trio bypassed their instruments and headed straight to Daffy, looking impressively dwarfed by the large stage.
Noodle attempted to take him by the arm, “Daffy, the roadies will let us know when it’s time to start.”
He turned to her, cupping the microphone. “This is more important.” He said, before turning to resume addressing the slightly irritated crowd, “Attention everyone, I have an announcement! I know I may not be the billed bassist you were waiting for-“
“Play Empire Ants!” Yelled a surprisingly loud man at the front of the crowd.
“One second, buster!” Daffy spat, “-but just before coming out here, myself and Russel had a talk, and I learned something.”
He began pacing grandly around the stage, and a spotlight appeared from somewhere to shine down on him, and him alone.
“A band isn’t some incredibly underrated, harshly reviewed movie you have to try and steal every scene in. It’s about teamwork, and a bond that stretches beyond what you see on stage, or on screen.”
2D turned to Russel. “You really talked about that?”
Russel was just as confused. “No, I just choked him out.”
“And that’s why,” Daffy reached under his feathers and plucked out a remote with a big red button, and pressed it. A hole in the stage opened and a plunger ascended from somewhere, “I was gonna start this show by pulling this plunger, and giving you all a firework display for the ages. But I’m not.”
He turned to his bandmates, and a warm smile crept across his bill.
“We are.”
The trio looked at each other in turn, offering tentative shrugs and nods, and approached the plunger.
One by one, a hand took hold of the wide lever.
“Get ready, Boston!” Daffy cried, casting quick glances at the band to check that they were ready, “Because WE… ARE…”
Together, they pushed down the plunger.
“G-“
It was if a bomb had been dropped directly on the stadium. Helicopters overhead veered off in fear, hills in a four mile radius were flattened, games of Jenga across the country ended prematurely.
Noodle coughed repeatedly, the thick soot from the explosion meaning only her blinking eyes were visible. “Everyone alright?”
“I’m alright!” 2D called, “Just a bit dizzy.”
He wobbled into Noodle’s field of vision, and she gasped.
“Your head!” She cried, pointing at it, “It’s spun round!”
He looked down at his body, and was surprised to see his own behind.
“Blimey,” he muttered, “now I’m gonna have to sit down every time I need a wee.”
“Hey Duck?” Russel asked as he picked up his own arm off the floor, “Who did you say you got that pyro from, again?”
Daffy spun his beak around to face the correct way and turned to Russel innocently. “Not sure. Why do you ask?”
In London, a plume of thick smoke could be seen arriving from the West. Watching the smoke through the bars of Wormwood Scrubs, a prisoner was chuckling.
“Ain’t I a stinker.” Murdoc purred to himself.