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bemused. The Gas Giants had been in the studio for less than two hours. Yet there was certainly enough material in the can for an album, and for the A and B sides of a single. A double-sided number one single, too, or they’d trade in their headphones for brooms and go street-sweeping, as one engineer put it.
    From the crowd came cries of “No, more—more!” and “Keep it going while it’s hot!”
    Lefty scowled at them and pointed to Aurora. “Look at her, can’t you? She’s about all in.”
    He unplugged his bass and put it into its battered case. This signaled the rest of the group to follow his lead. Aurora revived enough to help a little, though she still looked shaken.
    She spoke once. “Thanks, Lefty. You’re a real rock.”
    When they had left, the studio seemed even emptier than usual. Little groups of people stood around aimlessly for a while, discussing what they had just heard and the rosy future of the band, then drifted away.
    * * * *
    â€œLadies and Gentlemen.... Guys and Gals.... Let’s have a big hand for...the Gas Giants!”
    The curtains rolled back and there was a scatter of clapping as sound began to fill the auditorium. Most of the audience had never heard of the band. It was only the support group, after all. The bar remained full to bursting. Latecomers straggled in and stumbled along the rows of seats, forcing grumbling sitters to stand.
    The stage was bathed in ripples of violet, blue, green, yellow light which changed and pulsed with the music. Herbie had proved to have no mean talent with electronics now that Synth no longer monopolized the equipment, and his second guitar seemed no longer needed. He operated a kind of keyboard which produced changes of light instead of sound. The band had broken with the convention of patched jeans and T-shirts, and all wore close-fitting black, including Aurora; though her costume was more in the nature of a cat-suit, against which her bright hair shone.
    The audience hardly noticed. At first this was because they were talking among themselves, as they normally did during support acts. But very shortly there was a chorus of “Ssshhhh!” and the late arrivals started getting angry glares. In no time the listeners were being carried away on wave after wave of soaring sound, lifting every one of them out of their humdrum, everyday existence, making them forget troubles, ills, quarrels petty or serious, and at the same time welding them into one great corporate entity which was part of the music.
    There were no separate pieces of music or songs this time, nor need for applause. For the two thousand people in the theater, each in his or her own way, gave back as much as they received. But the music changed and flowed, so that at times everyone present was silent and sad, at others joyous, bright-eyed. Management, usherettes and bouncers stood at the sides, relaxed; for, despite the electric, emotion-charged atmosphere, there was no hint of rowdiness. A BBC television crew, setting up cameras for the headline group, hastily started filming.
    Not everyone agreed on what happened next. To some, it remained a really great concert, the best music they had ever heard, with an unusually good rapport between musicians and audience. And even those who saw the “visions” did not all agree on what they saw. But to most of the latter:
    The music was a mighty silver waterfall, leaping and cascading down, down, amongst the crags of a tall volcanic mountain whose peak was lost in the clouds. It crashed, it rushed, it roared, and then it split into myriad streams which splashed, gurgled, tinkled between moss-covered rocks.
    The stream which was the music entered a dark cave, where it flowed in echoing darkness for a while, then light reappeared, emanating from globular shapes—fungi?—on the walls of the cavern: blue, green, purple. As the light brightened, the rivulet widened and figures became