To The Stage (An Of Mice & Men Story)

Chapter Two

This is where the story really kicks off.

Lena's POV

Today was the day. We had hopped in our fifteen-passenger van packed with instruments and suitcases and drove for hours to our first Warped Tour. I was still a bit in shock since we had received the news.

And here we were. Since we had arrived, we had received our schedule of when we would be playing, on what stage, and when and where our signing would be. Our set was towards the end of the day and our signing was a half hour after that.

Since we had so much time to kill, we ended up going opposite directions to check out the whole venue. Alex and Sam went one way, Curtis and Tom went another way and I went on my own. I checked out some bands, the new ones that interested me and some that had come back that I had seen in previous years.

Of course, I found myself at Of Mice & Men's set. At this point, the guys had met up with me. All four of them knew that this band meant a lot to me since I had discovered them three years ago. Everyone knew I wouldn't miss this band's set for the world. They hadn't come on yet but we made our way around the stage until we got to the side stage.

When they ran on stage, I saw Austin, Alan, Phil, and Tino, along with one new face in the lineup. He had brown hair and held a bass guitar. I noticed that Shayley wasn't there. I could only hope this would be the last lineup change.

They played some new stuff that was on the re-release of The Flood. It was really interesting, watching all the bands from side-stage instead of in the crowd, and to be perfectly honest, I preferred the crowds. It was more exciting. But being able to see them this closely was an amazing feeling as well.

They finished their set and took their instruments and equipment off stage to prepare for the next band. I suppose one of them had noticed us because the new guy walked over to greet us.

"Are you guys one of the bands? I only assumed cause of the passes." He pointed at the laminates hanging from lanyards on our necks.

"Yeah. We're Infamously Unknown." Tom responded.

"That's an awesome name. Did you enjoy the show?" He smiled.

"It was great." I responded.

"Lena over here is the Of Mice & Men fan of the band." Sam said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pushing me gently. I blushed a bit, my shy-ness from my high school years coming back. It never really left, it would just pop up at times.

"I'm Aaron." He held out a hand to shake, which I took. "New bassist and clean vocalist."

"Lena. I play guitar and sing a bit."

"More than a bit, frontwoman of ours." Tom added. "She's all 'grr' and stuff." He tried to growl. It just came out sounding like an aggressive whisper of sorts.

"I might have to check you guys out." Aaron said, with a smile still on his face. This guy was just awesome.

"Well, you won't need to worry about big crowds." Curtis said.

"We're on in an hour." I informed Aaron.

"Sounds like a plan. See you guys around." He waved as he walked back to his band.

Tom, Sam, Alex, and Curtis all looked at me with huge grins on their faces. I must've looked utterly starstruck; I felt it.

"Holy shit." I said, as my inner fangirl came out.

Later on, we had our equipment set up and we had fifteen minutes until show time. We were on one of the smaller stages. I looked out and saw a fairly big crowd. It reminded me of Of Mice & Men's crowd at Warped Tour 2010. Their first year, their crowd was similar to ours now. Thank god for YouTube.