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Chapter – 09
Looking back, there were many reasons why Heo Jun-sung fell in love with the guitar, but the biggest reason was simple.
To his young eyes, the guitar had looked like the true protagonist of the performance.
So whenever he played, he would lose himself in a frantic trance of immersion. It had been that way when he first felt the limits of self-teaching and started learning at an applied music academy.
It had been that way when he formed a band with his friends and synchronized their ensemble.
He just couldn’t break the old habit.
But right now, something felt different.
A street performance that some might consider trivial.
A common, ordinary location like a neighborhood park.
An audience of fewer than thirty people.
In front of them, his senses suddenly expanded.
‘Why are these people cheering for us when it’s their first time seeing us?’
The answer was already set.
It wasn’t just a performance; it was an ensemble.
It wasn’t a guitar solo;
it was music. It wasn’t technique;
it was art.
The constituent notes within the C chord that Cha Seo-ha had talked about.
He was just one of the scales that made up that chord.
Without realizing it, the tension that had tightly gripped him melted away.
And then, Cha Seo-ha’s words came back to him.
Turn around and look back. Because a much cooler sound will be waiting there.
The moment a sensation too profound to put into words enveloped Heo Jun-sung’s entire body, Cha Seo-ha’s high note pierced the highest reaches of Banwol Park. And with that, the guitar solo began.
Zzeeeeiiiing—!
Flaunting a brilliant display of left-hand slides and tremolo picking, he showed everyone what the introduction to a true climax looked like.
His picking, fierce yet retaining its delicacy, was meant to harmonize with the bass.
The left-hand string noise scraping across the frets was executed to avoid stealing the synth’s spotlight. Instead of greed, he poured a sense of belonging and togetherness into every sound he produced, releasing it into the air.
Heo Jun-sung dashed forward, but he did not run wild. He ran, but he did not outpace the rest. The guitar, often called a six-stringed orchestra, knocked on people’s hearts while fully embracing the electronic notes.
“Whoa!” “Hey, crazy! What was that?” “Wow! That’s so cool!”
The people responded. And so, with one final tremolo, Heo Jun-sung’s solo came to an end. Holding his pick high, Heo Jun-sung locked his gaze somewhere in the middle of the audience.
There was no excessive bravado in his expression, nor any pointless humility. Overflowing with pure emotion, his face was filled only with the sheer ecstasy that rushes in after a performance.
Perhaps because he had just finished such a magnificent performance, he exuded a powerful wave of masculinity to those watching.
Cause we are
We are shining sun
We are glorious
We are who we are
Kim Ji-hoo and Lee Do-young sang along into the microphones set up in front of them. It was the sing-along part of the song.
Maybe because it was already a famous track, a few people in the crowd could be seen singing along as well.
The song headed toward its end.
The pre-recorded drums.
Beneath them, Lee Do-young’s heavy, stable bass.
Heo Jun-sung’s sensory guitar.
Kim Ji-hoo’s veteran skill in filling the empty spaces with various synth and brass sounds.
And Cha Seo-ha’s outstanding vocals.
It was the beginning of a band destined to become a legend.
“Thank you!”
“Wowowo!”
“This is insane!”
“Wow, holy crap.
What was that?
What did I just watch?”
“Right? They’re ridiculously good.”
“You’re handsome!”
“Haha, thank you. We are a band that doesn’t have a name yet.”
“Whoa, they don’t even have a name? Did they just form?”
“No way… The band’s name is probably ‘No Name Yet’.”
“Right? There’s no way this skill level belongs to a brand-new band.”
“Exactly, that wouldn’t make any sense.”
A brief murmur rippled through the crowd at the mention of having no name, but most people assumed ‘No Name Yet’ was the name.
After all, indie bands often had quirky names.
“But they’re a band? I thought it was an idol busking performance.”
“Ah, I subconsciously thought they were idols too.”
“It kind of feels like a busking session by a nugu idol group…”
“Hey, their faces are way too top-tier for them to be an obscure idol group.”
“Agreed. Every single one of them is handsome.”
Among them, some people made rather unique guesses.
“How was the first song?” “It was great!” “So cool!”
The reaction from the female students positioned at the front was spectacular.
Honestly, on a personal level, I wanted to hold onto Heo Jun-sung and praise his incredible playing all day long, but now wasn’t the time.
We were in the middle of a show.
“We prepared a heavier atmosphere for the next song.
Please enjoy!” “Yeeees!!”
With that, the next song, by Mandella Effect, began.
“Oh, I’ve heard this song before.”
“Yeah, that guitar tone sounds familiar.”
“They’re good.” “Hmm. Nice.”
The reaction to wasn’t as enthusiastic as the first song.
Although the guitar riff was famous enough to rack up nearly 800 million views on YouTube, the song itself didn’t possess much mainstream appeal in Korea.
We had arranged this 5-minute-and-30-second track down to a shorter version of around 3 minutes.
The long, drawn-out intro where the instruments joined one by one was changed so that all instruments came in simultaneously, and the narration part in the bridge section was completely wiped out.
Even so, it was difficult to draw out a mainstream appeal.
While those who truly loved rock were genuinely enjoying it, they were a tiny minority. Most of the audience members were just staying here because of the lingering afterglow of the first song.
It wasn’t impossible to draw a reaction from the audience with a non-mainstream song.
For that to happen, every single performer needed to have confidence and fully immerse themselves in the ensemble.
Right now, the only people pulling that off were Heo Jun-sung and me.
Kim Ji-hoo was merely playing the song without making mistakes, and Lee Do-young looked as though his confidence had plummeted, as if he had anticipated this kind of atmosphere.
In a performance, it is worst when a performer loses confidence. That’s because not only the performer and their bandmates, but the audience will notice it too.
ended in a lukewarm atmosphere.
In a way, it looked like a mistake in the setlist.
However, it was an expected part, and a necessary one.
Though I didn’t show it to the members, the success of today’s busking didn’t matter much to me.
What truly mattered was our members breaking out of their shells. Lee Do-young was utterly disheartened, and Kim Ji-hoo was dissatisfied with the quality of the ensemble.
They were finally ready to break the shell.
“Everyone, it wasn’t fun, right?” “No! It was fun!”
Both the performers and the audience knew the atmosphere had turned awkward. Cha Seo-ha had no intention of taking the cowardly way out and dodging it.
“Hey, see? I told you we shouldn’t do this one.”
“Huh? Hey, when did you say that?”
“The guy playing guitar over there insisted on doing this song, and he wouldn’t listen no matter how much we tried to stop him.”
“Hey!”
“Pfft!”
“Hahaha!”
Laughter erupted from the audience at Heo Jun-sung’s flustered reaction.
And understandably so, since Heo Jun-sung had been playing the guitar with the aura of a tough, manly guy just moments ago.
“No, seriously, everyone said my song choice was good earlier…”
“Are you cowardly backing out now?” “Wow, forget it, just forget it.”
Heo Jun-sung waved his hand, giving up on arguing back any further.
“The first song we played earlier was chosen by our bassist.
How was it, did you like it?”
“Yeees!”
At the audience’s response, Lee Do-young answered with a short slap bass riff.
“Oohhh!” “Wow!”
Surprised by Lee Do-young’s witty response, Cha Seo-ha immediately kept the commentary going.
“Hey, Heo Jun-sung, you shouldn’t have gotten flustered.
You should have answered with a cool performance like that.”
“Hey, I can’t talk back through my playing.”
“The guitar talking back?”
Heo Jun-sung was completely defeated. Of course, thanks to this banter, the awkward atmosphere from earlier thawed considerably.
“The next song was picked by our handsome keyboardist.”
“You’re so handsome!!!”
A female student at the front of the audience shouted toward Kim Ji-hoo. Like Lee Do-young, Kim Ji-hoo responded with a keyboard riff.
“See? That’s how you do it.”
Cha Seo-ha smirked at Heo Jun-sung once more, and Heo Jun-sung trembled, expressing his frustration.
“Why are those two so funny?”
“Hahaha! Ah, this is seriously hilarious.”
“Are they a comedy duo?”
“That guitarist is so funny.”
Cha Seo-ha was simply grateful that Heo Jun-sung was serving as such a great comedic foil.
“Alright, then let’s move on to the next song!”
Now, it was time for by Mice, the song chosen by Kim Ji-hoo.
Ironically, the song they had practiced the most was .
Perhaps because the difficulty of the ensemble was brutally high, everyone had thrown themselves into practicing it intensively.
In the end, they had reached a state where they could deliver the highest quality ensemble among all the prepared songs.
There was no worry about the performance itself.
However, Lee Do-young kept dwelling on the reaction to the previous song.
‘Songs without mainstream appeal really don’t get good reviews.’
The previous track, , had been chopped up so it wouldn’t be too difficult to listen to.
On top of that, they had practiced it enough that there were no mistakes.
Even so, the response was heavily lacking compared to the first song. ‘Will it be the same for this song too…?’
He wanted to become a talented bassist. Like that genius. But no matter how much he practiced, he couldn’t become like that person.
Of course, he knew his career was still short. But that genius had been incredibly good ever since they were young.
If only he could become like that person, he would be able to draw out reactions from the public regardless of whether the song had mainstream appeal or not.
‘No. Let’s just focus on the stage for now.’
Heo Jun-sung played the main riff, signaling the start of .
Soon after, the drums joined in, and the bass followed.
