original photo by Ralph Arvesen - https://www.flickr.com/photos/rarvesen/355525081
O'Donel High School, 1988, in alternate universe 578169B. I'm a bit of a socially-reclusive nerd, as are my three closest friends Marc, Stephen and Craig. Nobody expects much of me, or even really notices me. It's nearing the end of the grade 12 school year, and the talent show is coming up. In this universe, though, Marc, Stephen, Craig and I actually have mad musical talent, but we've managed to keep it completely hidden from common knowledge, practising in complete secrecy. We book a slot in the talent show anonymously, billing it only as "Merlin And The Moondogs", with no other details. People see the entry in the program, but pay little attention to it. We secretly install a good set of speakers, a quality soundboard, a good lighting system and a smoke machine, and pay a couple of accomplice classmates to operate them.
The day of the show, nobody expects a thing. The act before ours (a mediocre duet performance of "That's What Friends Are For") gets a few claps and shuffles off the stage. A few seconds pass. The audience, slightly bored, awaits the next act. A few more seconds pass. Then the gymnasium goes darker, and the audience grows quieter in response. The stage fills with smoke, and becomes dimly lit with colourful lights. The audience slowly recognizes the four people on stage: me on lead guitar, Marc on bass guitar, Stephen on drums and Craig on keyboard. "Is this some sort of joke?", the crowd thinks, "These guys can't play or sing!". But then they start to hear the music.
What follows is the most epic performance ever witnessed in the history of high school performances. In this universe, Deep Purple had never written a song called "Child In Time". In this universe, that song was written by us, Merlin And The Moondogs, and we first perform it on this fateful day. Go and listen (with a good pair of headphones) to the live version of "Child In Time" from the album "Made In Japan" (1972). That is exactly what we perform that day, nuance by nuance. I'm the lead singer of course (this is my daydream after all!). The audience, our classmates and teachers for the last three or more years, is dumbfounded, amazed by our unbelievable and unexpected talent. The members of the high school bands Second Generation and Wolfen sit there with their mouths agape, awestruck and full of admiration.
That day changed everything for us, launching our career to stardom and our social popularity to unmatched heights. We get the babes and achieve fortune and glory. The End.
In an alternate version of this daydream, in universe 578169C, we play the whole "Made In Japan" album, but of course it's all originals by us, except for the song "Smoke On The Water" which is a cover of a Deep Purple song. But I generally dismiss this alternate version as being unrealistic, because come on, there's no way we'd be able to book that large of a block for the talent show!
