The Unexpected

Ch2 - The Show

Chapter 2 – The Show

I spent most of the hour long car ride to Toronto trying to catch up on missed sleep. Every once in a while I would try and tune into Kate and Brooke’s conversation but all I heard about was the band we were going to see, so I lost interest and fell back into sleep. The band seemed really cool, and their song Try Hard was really fun to cover at live gigs but I wasn’t interested in discussing them for hours on end.

I closed my eyes for a moment but then found myself being shaken again. I opened my eyes to, once again, see Brooke above me.

“I swear Brooke, I’m going to get brain damage from being woken up like this.” She rolled her eyes and pulled me out of the car.

“You can sing, you don’t need a brain!” Kate burst out in laughter beside her and I smacked her on the back of the head.

“Hey!”

“I’m just joking; hey look there’s the studio!” she exclaimed pointing.

“How the hell is there already a lineup? It’s only two in the afternoon!” Kate exclaimed, and I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. It was only about 20 people, but it was 4 hours before the concert! When Alex, Derek and I did a gig last month, we had some dedicated fans wait two hours, but we felt awful and made sure to talk and take pictures with them after.

We walked over and stood in the lineup. I looked around once before crossing my legs and falling into a sitting position.

“What now?” I asked looking at my two friends. They looked between each other and shrugged before Brooke’s eyes lit up.

“I have cards in my bag!”

For the next couple of hours we laughed and played cards, while more people trickled in and the line started growing. When it was 5:30, a car with tinted windows drove by and everyone in the lineup started screaming. I looked around where it looked like there were hundreds of people gathered and I started to realize how much I really didn’t like being in crowds.

When we were let into the venue was a bit of a blur. I had grabbed onto the back of Brooke’s jacket and just followed her. We somehow found ourselves at the back of the room, hovering at the edge of the crowd. I couldn’t quite see the stage, due to the amount of people in front of me, but I could tell when the band came on from the screaming.

“I really want to be closer!” Kate said over the loud noise of the room. “You guys up for it?”

Brooke quickly chorused an agreement, I didn’t say anything, but not wanting to be left alone I grabbed onto them as they pushed their way through the crowd. I spent about 10 minutes in the front row with Kate and Brooke, when I felt my pocket vibrating. Pulling it out of my pocket I saw Derek’s face flashing. Silently thanking my luck for an excuse to get out of the forming mob I tapped Kate and motioned to my phone.

“Be back!” I tried to shout over the band and screaming girls, but I couldn’t even hear myself. Kate seemed to get my message because she nodded before turning back to the stage.

I pushed my way through the crowd that seemed mostly to consist of 12-14 year old girls not wearing many clothes and finally got to an empty space at the back. Covering one ear with one of my hands and shoving my phone to the ear with my other I tried to block out all the noise.

“Hello!” I almost screamed into the phone.

“Where the hell are you? Sounds like a mass murder.” I heard Derek’s voice yawning into the phone.

“I’m at that concert that Kate and Brooke wanted to go to, the one of the band that we covered.” I explained moving further into the corner to escape all the noise.