At the center of this storm, Alexa is nervously singing in the hallway while Jordan strums a guitar. Tonight, Fair Fight is battling four bands: Sanus, Take A Gan (her guitarist Joey’s other band, a Led Zep tribute), Regret Me Not (MTV-ready screamo) and last year’s champions, What Tomorrow Held. The equipment for the show is coming from a Boston Guitar Center. It is being brought by Fair Fight’s roadies, who on this night are the guys from Waltham. The battle of the bands can’t start without them. Thanks to traffic, Waltham is two hours late.
When the show finally starts, the crowd is wild, rushing the stage, aware that they’re on TV. Regret Me Not, who are playing before Fair Fight, get a healthy amount of kids standing in the front row slam-dancing.
When Fair Fight take the stage, the teenage girls rush down to the front, screeching and holding up their homemade signs: “I Love Alexa”! “We Love Alexa”! “Fair Fight Rocks”!
Backstage, Josh notes that this is the last Made episode in production this season, “and all of MTV is pulling for Fair Fight. I have ten people I have to call after this ends.”
Bassist Jordan counts out “One, Two, Three!” and their first song, “I Hate You” begins. The chorus has Alexa belting “I! Hate! You!” with the sax echoing each word, and Jordan screaming in a backup voice, “I HATE YOU!” They finish and the crowd explodes, so it’s hard to hear Alexa yell out “Thank you Bow High!”
After that first song, Alexa takes a moment to banter: “I’d like to introduce ourselves as Fair Fight,” she says, singling out the band members and their respective instruments. Becca is the “best damn drummer in New Hampshire. Do you guys believe that? If you don’t believe that, I want you to hear a drum solo.” Becca pounds out a beat and Alexa introduces the next song, titled “Skamo.” This time she showcases her pretty alto voice in the introduction: “Sorry I’m not a girl like that.” The song then speeds up into something like ’90s ska band Save Ferris, with her “sorry” becoming the rushed-out chorus, dissing the boy she likes and the “girls like that.”
Alexa Fay is becoming a rock star. She’s having her moment, making eyes at the camera and the crowd, jumping up and down when the song speeds up with saxophone. She ends the song by pointing at “you, you, and you,” going into an unaccompanied riff, “Like I give a damn anyways! I’ll take normal over easy any day!” Becca gives the drums a soft hit and the song ends.
The crowd screams and Alexa introduces the last song, “Teenage Calamity.” There’s a chant of “Fair Fight rules!” which turns into a chant of “Alexa!” and she replies, “I love you all!”
And this is where we came in. After the performance, Alexa’s riding a high, her face a mess of emotions. And Frank is down the hall nearly crying. Earlier, he had said that while MTV may have picked him for this “role,” he wasn’t going to be a bullshit MTV guy. He’s going to keep in touch with Alexa, to serve as a mentor. In the middle of the hall, Alexa’s mother and Becca’s mother are clucking over Frank: “When I first met him I was like, ‘Oh, god,’ but he was really impressive. The things I heard him say are really wise.”
Brought in for the last week of filming, another Made producer, Kristi, a dead ringer for Veronica Mars, asks Frank to fill in the blanks: “When I first met Alexa she was blank, and now she is blank.” Frank freezes up. “No, no, Kristi, give me a break,” he says. The other camera has moved past Alexa, who is now shrieking unintelligibly with her friends. Her best friend, Sarah Mann Byrd, calls tonight “a gift for them too. They can see who she really is. Everyone goes crazy when Josh is around.”
The cameras are on the sax player, Kevin. He’s sweaty in his Pink Floyd shirt, standing in front of the MTV camera, answering the same question: “Alexa used to be blank, and now she is blank.” He looks at the camera and proclaims the truth: “She has the essence of rock.”
MTV’s Made episode featuring Fair Fight premieres Monday, January 23 at 3:30 pm and repeats January 24 at 2:30 pm, January 25 at 9 pm, January 26 at 11 pm, and January 29 at 10 am and 6 pm.
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On the Web:
Fair Fight: //www.myspace.com/fairfighttheband
MTV's Made: //www.mtv.com/onair/dyn/made/series.jhtml
Waltham: //www.walthamtheband.com/
