just another roadie {s.t}

8

The hours had passed and there I stood backstage, waiting excitedly for the band to run out to begin the concert. My boss hardly even noticed me when I showed up to help out. He was too busy conversating with the dogs of men he had hired. I don't call them dogs because they're horny or anything like that, I call them that because I believe that most of them share the same brain capacity as one. However, a dog will come when his name is called. I was the only one who actually showed up on late to work. This time with Serj was one of the first times I was ever late, and even then it could've been worse.

"So, what? Are you sleeping with the band now or something?" I heard a voice ask out of nowhere. I look around to see where the question came from and saw that it was one of my coworkers. He was a tall, beefy man with dark brown hair. He was always the roadie that people would try to flirt with to get backstage.

"What's wrong with you? Do you not remember leaving me behind in California? Did you expect me to walk here?" I asked, a bit perturbed by his question.

"Jeez, no need to get so bitchy about it. It's not like we did it on purpose." He said, raising his hands up in false defense. "This is why they shouldn't hire women for this kind of thing." He mumbled under his breath as he walked away from me. His final comment made me want to lose it. Though, I knew it was a helpless situation to fight, so I kept my raging thoughts to myself.

I continued to do some final maintenance around backstage, fixing whatever my coworkers failed to accomplish while I was absent. The men I work with like to push me around and be assholes about me being the only woman, but I know that if I wasn't here the whole thing would go overboard. I'm essential to my boss and he knows it, so he keeps me around.

While I tweaked the various sets of equipment and any other work I deemed inadequate from the bone heads I worked with. I was determined to have the performance go on without a hitch, so I worked everything to perfection, unlike my colleagues. There got to a point where I was so caught up in the mindless jobs I saught out to kept myself occupied, I almost completely missed the band go on stage. As soon as I got word that they would be starting the show soon, I rushed to any spot with a good view of the stage like a teenager going to see their favourite band in concert. Unfortunately, the work I was assigned was on the opposite side of the stage from the band so I couldn't see them before they went on. However, I'll settle for seeing them after the show if I can.

The crowd was already roaring and causing a dull feeling inside my ears. The venue was smaller, a bit underground, but big enough to hold a decent audience. The place smelled of cigarettes and a musty scent comparable to a school gym. It wasn't an overpowering smell, but definitely not a pleasant one. The energy the crowd had created was positive and I knew that the band would reward them for that. The noises the crowd emitted were surprisingly powerful for being so small, their screams bouncing off of the walls and ceiling. I was excited to see how the band will harness the intense energy of the crowd into their performance.

When the lights went dim, the crowd became quiet for a second, before regaining their voices all at once, creating an even louder sound than I heard previously. The lights were to signal to the audience that the show would be starting soon, and I believe that they got the sign with the way that they yelled for the band. Even I got excited at the change of lighting, looking forward to seeing the band in action. Especially now that I've spent the last couple nights with them.

It wasn't long after the lighting change that the beginning of the song B.Y.O.B began to play over the sound system. The band then all made their way our one by one, Daron's fingers already working the guitar strings. Daron wasn't playing alone for too long before Serj, John, and Shavo joined him, completing the band's sound. The chorus hadn't even started before the crowd began to move around the venue, pushing and shoving each other around the pit. I watched Serj move around the stage, his vocals filling the building, Daron joining in when the time came. There was something about the way he moved on stage that was so magnetic. The way that he swayed his body to the sound of the band, the random dance moves he would make up on the spot to the beat of the song. When he would change a lyric or let the crowd finish his sentence showed how much he enjoyed being up on stage and it made me smile to see his passion. The way that Daron and Shavo moved while playing their instruments almost seemed inhuman, spinning, jumping, and banging their heads all while shredding. John played absolutely flawlessly, managing to sound almost identical to the studio recording of each song. The way that each member absolutely excelled in their position in the band made the roof shake both literally and figuratively.