My Idol's Baby Sister

First Concert Nerves

"Are you excited?" Tommy asks and I smile.

"Well, I spent all morning puking in the bathroom. I guess that's excitement." I laugh into the phone and I hear him laugh. "I'm sure it's just nerves, I mean I still feel kinda sick. Maybe I just ate some bad food."

"Tequila or Jack Daniels will usually get rid of that." He assures me.

"Okay, I'll try that." I say and take a deep breath. "I've never been so stressed out about a show before. I nearly had a heart attack when we did sound check and I saw the stadium for the first time from the stage. It's insane and I can't imagine ninety thousand people filling up the stadium. My brain can't fathom it." I admit.

"Don't worry, it's never as bad as you think it is. Once you're out there it's like you're on top of the world and no one can fucking touch you. It's the best feeling on this planet." Tommy explains and I smile. "I wish I could be there with you, I wish I could be there when you pop your concert cherry." He jokes and I laugh.

"I miss you so much, Tommy." I admit quickly.

"I miss you too." Tommy says as Beck pokes his head in the room.

"Come on, they're almost ready for us." He says and I nod.

"I guess that means you have to go." Tommy says and I frown.

"It does but I don't want to. I just want to talk to you all night." I admit.

"It's morning where I am." He laughs and I smile. "You drink something, have a great set, and call me when you can. Okay?"

"Okay, I'll call you back as soon as I can." I promise.

"I'll be waiting, go break a leg." Tommy says and I smile.

"I will, talk to you soon." I say as I follow Beck out of the dressing room.

David, Alex, Eddie, and Michael are getting ready for the concert by bouncing around and shoving each other like little kids. Zac, Hannah, and Ace are leaning against crates when Beck and I walk up.

The techs get Hannah and I set up with our guitars, Beck with his bass, one makes sure that Ace has drumsticks, while another gets Zac set up with a microphone that is attacked to his face because we found out I'm sound check that Zac can't be trusted with anything of value, he broke two microphones.

That's about the time I remember Tommy's advice about drinking to settle my nerves and I sneak over to the bar. I help myself to a shot of Jack Daniels and I can feel my nerves starting to calm. Eddie and Alex walk up on either side of me and Alex takes the bottle away from me.

"You ready, Katie?" My eldest brother wonders while studying the bottle.

"I think so." I say simply and Eddie bumps me.

"Nervous?" He wonders and I nod.

"A bit." I admit and he smiles.

"I've seen you play, Katie, you're fucking good. You're going to do great." Eddie assures me and Alex nods.

"We believe in you." Alex says and I smile.

"You both got really supportive all of a sudden." I say kinda confused and they both shove my shoulders.

"We're your older brothers, it's our job to be supportive." Alex says and I roll my eyes.

"I ought your job as older brothers was to strike fear into the hearts of any and all male suitors." I joke and they laugh.

"That too but we've already done that with Tommy." Eddie laughs and I smile. "But we didn't hurt him, I can promise you that."

"Good." I say and Alex spins me around and points me at the stage tech.

"Time for you to go." He tells me.

"Spread your wings, little bird." Eddie laughs and kisses my hair. "Love you, break a leg."

"Love you more because I'm older." Alex says quickly and kisses my hair as well.

With that my older brothers send me off onto stage in front of almost one hundred thousand people.

Tommy was right, it's only scary for like the first thirty seconds then it's the best feeling ever. I thought I five song set was going to be a really long fucking time on stage but stage time is different from real time. Twenty minutes of stage time feels like three minutes even though you know it's longer than that. There was so much adrenaline pumping throughout my body that I didn't know what to do with myself, I did the only thing I knew for sure that I could do and I played my fucking heart out with my fucking six string. I didn't want to get off stage, I didn't want that feeling to go away...I think this is what cocaine feels like.

When I got backstage I was still shaking from the adrenaline and I noticed that everyone else was too. I couldn't sit still for the entire concert and I honestly thought that something was wrong with me. Hannah, Ace, Beck, Zac, and I were bouncing off the fucking walls the entire time my brothers and their band was on that stage.

Can too much adrenaline in your system make you puke? I don't know but I'm sitting on the bathroom floor after puking up whatever was left in my system from puking beforehand. I stand up and rinse out my mouth before going back into the dressing room to watch the concert on the tv with the rest of my band.

I drop back down on the couch between Zac and Ace as the cameras zoom in on David.

"Okay, okay, let's take a break for a second here and talk." He says to the crowd. "Remember the opening act? And the little brunette guitarist that looked meaner than all hell in the Harley Davidson shirt? Well I'm gonna tell you a little bit about her." David says and the crowd cheers.

"What's he doing?" I wonder and my band members look as confused as I am.

"Her name is Katie and she's Eddie and Alex's little sister. Now Jacksonville, this was Katie's band's first time playing a venue that wasn't a bar. Now I know they're watching this backstage so how about we show them how fucking good they were." David offers.

In that exact second the entire stadium erupts with cheers and we all look at each other completely dumbfounded.

"This is all pretty surreal, huh?" Ace asks with a laugh.

"I never thought we'd get here." Beck admits.

"I thought we'd be working in that fucking bar until we were old and senile." Zac admits with a laugh.

"It's like a dream." Hannah says.

"It's like a fucking awesome dream." I say happily.

I never thought we'd make it this far yet here we are. It seems like it was so fucking long ago that we met on the set of Bye Bye, Birdie and none of us wanted to be there. My mum talked me into it and said that I could go on tour with Eddie and Alex that if I did the play. Ace and Beck were only there so they didn't get expelled. Zac was there so he could graduate. Hannah was only there to make her parents happy. I mean it all worked out for us and it's one hell of an origin story.