The fact that the audition didn't go well wasn't the point. The fact of the audition itself wasn't the point, not at all.

It didn't go well, there could be no disputing that. For one thing Mal didn't know what type of music he'd be expected to play until he got in there, and then when they told him the thing that they told him was "funk" and that was pretty much the worst word he could've heard, because although he'd been a musician for longer than he could remember he'd never played anything that anyone would even suggest was anywhere approaching "funky". So he funked along as best he could but he realised pretty much immediately that the fact that he didn't even know if "funk" was a verb or a noun or whatever was probably a bad sign.

They were fairly polite, the people he was playing for - about as polite as you could expect anyone to be under the circumstances, anyway, and when he'd finished struggling his way through some snarled-sounding slap-bass (he spent the whole time worrying about what it might be doing to his strings) they said "Thanks" and let him pack up his gear and be on his way. He stepped out into something that was almost sunshine, and where the autumn leaves had fallen into the puddles left by the week's on-again-off-again rain they were starting to go brown and slushy. He hunched his shoulders (Just like Dylan! he thought; though he realised to his regret that he didn't have a girl on his arm, so not quite like Dylan) and he walked off down the street, carrying all his gear, to the nearest tram stop. He'd have to get the tram all the way into the city and then change and get another tram all the way out again. There were probably buses that would halve the travel time but it was Melbourne, nobody caught buses.

He was hungry; he hadn't had time for lunch. He wondered if he might've played better if he'd had something to eat beforehand. He decided that there probably wasn't a strong correlation between appetite and funkiness. It'd be pretty lame to use that as an excuse, anyway - he was a grown-up now, well and truly, so it was time to stop making excuses. Though he probably could've played better if the people he'd played for had made it clearer on their flyer what kind of music they expected him to play - if they'd done that he could've practiced, and researched. So it was their fault, really.

Still, the fact that the audition hadn't gone well wasn't the point. He'd given it a go. He'd tried something new. That was the point.

Have a good weeked, everyone!