As a stagehand cleared the dismantled pieces of Flower Moon’s drum set, the last shred of daylight formed a golden curve around the cymbal.

It winked at the crowd; then the red sun slipped into the sea. In the gathering dusk, the platform shimmered like an enamel shell, reverberating with the audience’s anticipation.

Any minute now, Jesse Reid would go on. Curtis Wilks stood about thirty feet from the platform with the rest of the press. There was Billboard ’s Zeke Felton, sharing a joint with a Flower Moon groupie in a beaded kaftan; Ted Munz from NME, reading over his notes under the nearest floodlight; Lee Harmon of Creem, trading stories with Time’s Jim Faust.

The Flower Moon groupie approached Curtis with the joint between her lips, eyeing the pass around his neck. It showed a picture of Curtis’s face – which Keith Moon had once compared to ‘a homeless man’s Paddington Bear’ – printed above his name and the words Rolling Stone. The groupie offered Curtis the joint. He accepted it…

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