Stranger Things Have Happened | Marcus Bontempelli

seventy.

March 5th, 2020. 3 months later...

"We've been Valencia and Nashville, you have been amazing. We will see you soon. Good night!" I yelled into the microphone as Danny started throwing his guitar picks out into the crowd. 

I looked out to a sea of screaming fans all jumping around to the guitar solo Connor was ripping as we turned to face our incredible photographer, Zoey so she could take a group photo.

"Holy shit," Jake yelled as he jumped down off his drum rise with a huge smile on his face, throwing his sticks out to the mosh pit in front of us.

With one last wave, we exited the stage and ran through several pairs of hands who were high-fiving us as we basked in our post-show adrenaline. It was such a great feeling being back out on the road and now that we were a couple of weeks in, it felt like home again. There was a small congregation backstage when we walked into the dressing room, mostly friends from other bands or local friends who had come along to support us. The drinks were already flowing and the vibes were immaculate from where I was standing.

"Nashville is fuckin' superior," I mused as I threw myself onto the small couch and patted Danny's knee who still had a huge smile on his face.

Dion (Danny's fiancé) had been travelling along on this tour with us so it was amazing to have family as well around us on what had become a pretty mammoth tour even by our standards. The album had done really well and we were filling rooms that we could've only dreamed of playing even a couple of years ago. Tickets were selling out all across the states and we had sold out every show for our Australian tour, which kicked off practically straight after this one.

"Hey can I talk to you two for a sec?" James our tour manager asked in a whisperer. I nodded and motioned for Danny to come with us out into the hallway so we could get away from the commotion in the dressing room.

"What's up?" I asked as I looked into his distressed eyes.

"We're gonna have to make some pretty tough decisions because of this virus that's going around," James said as Danny scoffed with a quirked eyebrow.

"Seriously? It's not that bad, surely," He said and I nodded in agreement, not really knowing how serious the disease had become.

"What decisions would we even have to make? We have 2 weeks left of shows and then we'll be back home anyway," I said, looking into James' eyes that didn't seem to be wavering in their intensity.

"I'm getting word that if we don't cancel these shows and head back to wherever home is for everyone that we'll get stuck here. The next show is in New York and it's kicking off really badly there," He warned, making both Danny and I glance up at each other to silently calculate what James was saying.

"We can't do that half way through a tour. What times the flight to New York tomorrow?" I asked as James flicked open his phone and looked at our schedule.

"Mate, I don't even know if we'll be able to even fly in to that state at this stage... It's literally developing as we speak so we need to make a call tonight or at the latest tomorrow," James said, slightly exasperated as Danny sighed, clearly finding this to be a lot more serious than we originally thought.

"Let's go back to the hotel so we can sit down and calmly make some decisions with the boys. I mean, the crew are mostly Aussies as well so we need to think about them too," Danny suggested and I agreed, turning on my heel to collect all of our shit and head back to the hotel in Downtown.

The short drive to the hotel we were staying at was filled with frantic conversations. Jake was of the opinion that we should cancel the tour and sided with James while Danny, Roxy and Connor were all on the side of at least doing the NYC show and making a decision from there. As I was scrolling through the news stories coming out of New York, the situation seemed like it was getting more and more sinister. This coronavirus saga was stopping a lot of movement around the city and airlines were cancelling flights so it looked like the decision may end up being made for us.