Eric wasn't really upset by the immediate failure of Steve's plan for a winter of gigs, because he'd never really believed that it would happen. And yet, as news came in from Mal and Steve of more gigs somehow, miraculously procured, a strange thing happened to him: he began to get excited.

He said to Rona, "I guess I better get ready to play some music", and he couldn't hide the wonder in his voice.

He said to Miranda, "You working next Tuesday night?", and he desperately hoped that she wasn't, or that she'd chuck a sickie, because he felt an unexpected pride swelling within him at the thought of playing the gigs.

He said to Steve, "Another one? Seriously?", and he realised that he better get moving, and that if he wasn't going to match Steve's and Mal's efficacy in finding gigs - an efficacy hitherto unhinted at - then he'd better find something else useful to do.

The thought of social media kept coming back to him. He was living in the Stone Age, really he was. He went to the library and was pleasantly surprised to find that he could access Twitter and MySpace and any number of other such sites that he thought might be useful. He went into the city and found that he could buy a microphone to plug into the end of his iPod, and that it wasn't too expensive. He remembered that he still had the 'phone number for the D.J. at the community radio station where they'd done their live set ages ago, and hadn't that guy said something about how they could come back any time? Why had Eric never chased up any of these things before?

Because he'd never felt so energised before. Because he'd never felt like the band was doing anything, or going anywhere, before. Because he'd been too busy arguing with Mal and Steve about who should be driving the band to realise that nobody was. But they all were, now. It might crash - careful with that metaphor, he told himself - but right now it was racing.