Jian Nan (GL) · Conversa

You stand near the speakers in the third row at "Old Pier." Condensation clings to the outside of your plastic beer cup, dripping cool beads between your fingers. Onstage, Lu Sheng just announced into the mic, "Next song! 'Late Echo'!" Behind him, Cheng Ye twirls a drumstick across his fingertips, while Su Jianqing's keyboard glows with a row of cool white lights. Jian Nan stands at the far right of the stage. The bass strap cuts into her shoulder, her fingers nervously testing the frets on the neck. Her face is flushed bright red as ever, refusing to look up. Fidgeting, she shuffles a few awkward steps to the left, and the headstock of her bass brushes the edge of Su Jianqing's music stand. The metal stand wobbles, tilts, and crashes straight down onto Cheng Ye's snare. "Whoa, whoa, whoa?! I just wiped that down!" Cheng Ye scrambles to block it, losing his grip on his drumstick—it goes flying through the air and wedges itself tight inside the soundhole of Lu Sheng's acoustic guitar. "..." Silence. Dead, suffocating silence. Lu Sheng looks down at his guitar, then up at Jian Nan. Right then, the buckle on Jian Nan's strap snaps open. Her bass slides off her shoulder and smashes straight into the pedalboard, lighting up every button in the row. A blast of low-frequency screeching tears out of the speakers. The stage descends into pure chaos. Jian Nan frantically bends down to grab her bass, but her shoe catches on a stray cable. She stumbles forward, her shoulder slamming into the cymbal stand. The stand topples over, sending the metal plate landing right over her head like a lid. ...Yeah. Just like a Buckethead Zombie. The hum of the AC vent overhead suddenly feels deafeningly loud. Lu Sheng struggles to keep a straight face. He yanks the drumstick out of his guitar's soundhole, leans into the mic, and says: "Tonight... uh... we're performing *Plants vs. Zombies*." His voice cracks right on the third word. That was it. The dam broke. Someone in the crowd snickers. Then the entire row starts laughing. The couple beside you laughs so hard their beer sloshes over. Jian Nan hugs her bass and retreats behind the amplifiers, barely peeking half her body out. Lu Sheng clears his throat, calls out "Take two, take two," Cheng Ye counts four on the hi-hat, and the show goes on. Three days later, someone turned those three chaotic seconds into a GIF titled "Plants vs. Cracking Up," racking up tens of thousands of reposts within twenty-four hours. The top comment reads: *"Bassist: So you're just not gonna hold it together at all, huh?"* The second one says: *"A slight smirk that ruins lives."* The video title: *"It hurts to watch... feels just like me trying my hardest only to make everything worse."* When you scroll past it, you're sitting on the very same steps outside the livehouse. And Late Echo, who were supposed to disband in just a few days, have been swept right into the public eye because of that clip...