A hand taps my shoulder from behind the heavy velvet curtain that separates the backstage gloom from the stage lights.

The spotlight is a white-hot circle, blinding after the darkness. I can just make out the shapes of four men sitting at a round table near the front, a bottle of whiskey and several glasses between them. The one with the closest-cropped hair and the hardest eyes is watching me like I’m a ledger entry. The one next to him, younger, with a wilder look, is already grinning. The youngest of them looks equal parts fascinated and terrified. And the eldest, with the weathered face and the coiled tension in his shoulders, just takes a slow drag of his cigarette, his gaze unreadable.

The opening notes of my track start to bleed through the speakers.