After the last bell rang through Canterlot High, the Rainbooms were already in the music hall with their instruments. Rainbow Dash sat cross-legged against the wall, tightening the strings of her guitar, while Applejack was on the opposite side of the hall, casually strumming her bass. Rarity had left her keytar on its stand in favour of the grand piano, which now had wheels, as she had missed the soothing feeling of proper keys, and was now playing a soft classical ballad. As Pinkie Pie was demonstrating to Fluttershy her technique of playing the drums upside down, the door opened.
“Hey girls,” said Sunset Shimmer, holding a piece of paper in her hand. After the Battle of the Bands fiasco against the Sirens, she was now slowly beginning to gain back some of her fellow students trust, and was now serving as the Rainbooms venue manager and lead vocalist, next to Rainbow Dash, “I’ve just been going through some ideas for what we could do for next year.”
“Well, that sounds delightful.” said Rarity, turning away from the piano.
Sunset looked down at her list, “Well, we can do a special birthday performance for the Cake twins in March, the re-opening of the animal shelter in May, but I’ve got my eyes set for something big in July, seeing as how next year will be the 30th anniversary of the Live-Aid concert.”
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I wanna be Freddie Mercury!” Pinkie cried out excitedly.
“Pinkie Pie, ya don’ look anythin’ like Freddie Mercury.” said Applejack.
“I do when I put this moustache on.” said Pinkie, and she pulled out a thick rectangular moustache with sharp corners and slapped it onto her upper lip, jumped onto her drums and punched her fist in the air.
“No offence Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, “but with that moustache, you look more like Groucho Marx.”
Everybody laughed, except for Rarity. She stared at them confused until she finally said, “Excuse me girls, but would I have to know who Freddie Mercury is in order to get the joke?”
Rainbow Dash tightened the strings so hard that one of them snapped. Her head snapped in Rarity’s direction, “Tell me you did not just say that.” she muttered darkly.
“Rarity, ya seriously never heard of Freddie Mercury?” said Applejack, her eyes wide.
“Well I don’t see why it should be a big deal if I haven’t.” said Rarity, going back to play the piano.
“But you at least know of Queen.” said Rainbow Dash, hoping for a ‘yes’, but when Rarity didn’t respond and just gave a neutral expression, she staggered back as if she had been hit in the face with a heavy weight. Pinkie rushed forward with a stool and slid it underneath her just in time for her to sit down, her head hung low.
“Right.” said Sunset Shimmer, going back to her list, “Well, I’m not saying that we recreate Live Aid, just taking some samples and…”
“YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF QUEEN?!” exploded Rainbow Dash, jumping off her stool and advancing on Rarity. Rarity did begin to feel quite frightened, the look in Rainbow’s eyes gave the impression she was going to kill, “How can you not know of one of the greatest rock bands in history?”
“Well, I’m sorry Rainbow, but you should know by now that I’ve always been a lady of the classics.” said Rarity, stroking the piano slowly.
“But Queen is classic!” shouted Rainbow Dash, “I don’t care if you know all the harmonies and tempos of one of those boring symphonies you love, you can’t go through life without not knowing at least one of their songs. Even Fluttershy knows this!” and she gestured to the quiet girl with the pink hair watching them. “You remember that singing competition we had last term, and she came second with her song? What was it again?”
“I really don’t think you should get me involved in this.” said Fluttershy, hiding behind her tambourine.
“It was ‘Somebody to Love’! By Queen!” Rainbow Dash said, defiantly, “And the victory song that our school football team sing when they win a match is the verse of ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, also by Queen! There’s even a poster of them behind you!” Rarity turned around to see what Rainbow was pointing at, and saw a black and white poster of four men staring down at her; the one in front was wearing a vest of some kind, but had a moustache, while his colleagues all had the basic mop of messy hair she would have expected form a typical rock band, “So I really want to know, how you could not know them?!”
“It just never interest me.” said Rarity, her arms folded and looking quite annoyed now.
Rainbow Dash was now seething. Her hands were bawled into fists and she was rocking on the balls of her feet. Suddenly she then grabbed Rarity’s wrist and dragged her out of the music hall, leaving the rest of the Rainbooms to sit in awkward silence. Eventually, Fluttershy asked, “So, what do you think of ‘We Will Rock You’?”
“Musical or the actual song?” asked Sunset Shimmer.
Rarity kicked and screamed in protest as Rainbow Dash dragged her out of the school and down the street. She tried to pull her wrist free, but to no avail; Rainbow’s grip was just too good. After about ten minutes of walking and shouting, Rainbow Dash finally stopped. Rarity looked up and saw that she had dragged her to a music store. It was a small corner store with a large window that stretched across the length of the front, where a drum kit and saxophone were on display. Rainbow Dash then grabbed Rarity’s wrist again and pulled her inside.
Along the back wall were a series of guitars in different colours and shapes, saxophones, tubas, flutes and a variety of other instruments were all put carefully on stands. The majority of the shop was taken up by aisles, stacked with CDs, vinyl records and music books for all manner or instruments. Rainbow Dash’s eyes scanned the store until finally she found what she wanted; a tall girl with an unruly amount of blue hair with lighter blue highlights. Her head was bobbing up and down while she was stacking a new shipment of CDs, and Rainbow Dash guessed that this was due to that fact that she was wearing her headphones so talking to her directly wasn’t an option, so she tapped her on the shoulder.
Vinyl Scratch almost dropped the stack of CDs in her arms. She removed her headphones, and lifted up her purple lensed glasses. “Hey RD, I’d kinda like you to not do that!” she snapped.
“Sorry Vinyl,” said Rainbow Dash, “But we’ve got a serious music epidemic. Where’s your nearest Queen CD?”
“Queen? Hold on a second.” and Vinyl went and disappeared down one of the aisles. She soon returned with a CD labelled, ‘Best of Queen Collection’. It showed the four men that were on the poster that Rainbow Dash had pointed at back at school.
Rainbow Dash paid for the CD and thrust it into Rarity’s hands, “There. Now go home and listen to it!”
“Rainbow Dash, this is getting ridiculous now.” groaned Rarity.
“What’s ridiculous is you being in a band and not knowing basic band history!” cried Rainbow Dash, “Now go and listen to it, and I want you to at least know the chorus of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by tomorrow!” and with that, Rainbow Dash stormed out of the shop.
“Honestly, that girl is such a child.” Rarity grumbled, later that evening. She had left the CD, still in its plastic wrapping, on top of her school books, and now she was getting ready to start work on her new fashion ideas, “Just because I don’t know a particular band, she has to act as if I’ve committed a crime of some kind. Well, no matter, there are more important things than knowing the lyrics to a song.” and she sat down at her sewing machine, put on her designer glasses and started feeding crimson fabric through the machine.
Normally, this activity would calm her down, but tonight, she just couldn’t concentrate. Her eyes kept going up and looking at the books where the CD laid. Eventually, she gave up and went over to the CD. “I suppose I could do with some background music while I work.” She then removed the plastic, opened up the case, took out the CD and placed it into her CD player…