3. Happy Glasses

He strode onto the stage like he owned it. A towering colossus in both physique and standing in the pantheon of great black vocal artists. His powerful voice, fueled with emotion, engulfed the auditorium as he began to work the audience to a frenzy, each song designed to resonate with them, to penetrate their minds and souls then leave them cathartically cleansed.

Steve was overwhelmed. He had paid good money for a seat in the stalls to be as close as possible to this acoustic force of nature. To feel as if he was a constituent in the court of The King of Soul. Not that it was the real thing. That had ceased to be in ’67 aged 26. But the modern wonders of technology had brought forth a vision simultaneously projected with his unique voice to convey the experience of being at one of his concerts something only a dwindling few had ever done for real.

He commenced with Respect, moved onto I’ve  Been Loving You Too Long and returned upbeat to thrash out Security, leaving Steve enthralled at the energy and vibrancy of the man before him. He knew the songs in his live repertoire and was aware his personal favourite, Try A Little Tenderness would finish the show. But there was Otis on stage jerking his head, sweat jettisoning from his brow, in a gimmicky part of My Girl an impressive showman as well as vocal maestro  and creative composer.

Steve reached for his phone, he had to record it for posterity. He had been so bowled over by the heavenly vision before him that it had escaped his mind to do so, despite prompts from younger constituents of the audience who had taken the lead with theirs. The familiar opening bars of Pain In My Heart assailed the auditorium like a welcome fuselage of funky, horny notes awaiting the application of the Master’s anguished vocals as Steve lifted his phone to capture the moment.

The movement knocked Steve’s Happy Glasses from his face, where they joined some litter at his feet in an alley. On stage, on someone’s roof, in the distance bathed not in the auditorium spotlight but the natural moonlight was a black cat. But not of the King of Soul’s variety. Instead of the feral kind. A caterwalling creature, offering his rendition of Pain in My Ears.

‘Bloody well done, mate!’ A resident said upon observing Steve as he was putting rubbish in his bin at the other end of the alley. ‘Download it to the council. It’s a bloody nuisance. Something ought to be done.’