My New Obsession [BxB]

Chapter Twenty-Two- It Has To Be This Way

The whole festival area was absolute mayhem.

 Vans and cars slowly edged their way towards what seemed to be the eye of the storm, although we in our van took a different route as we got closer to the site. In the near distance I could see groups of people dressed in black laughing and pushing each other- having fun. I made damn sure to take in everything I could see and make it a memory because who knew what I would be drinking in a short while.

 Eddie had never been a roadie on this tour before, so we followed the London Hell van and trailer to make sure we were headed the right way. They had played this tour three times already and knew exactly where to go and what to do. I felt ridiculously like we were uneducated children, greatly excited for a new experience but also terrified of it.

 After a while there were so many people milling around that it was difficult to drive through the area; fans who had fought their way to our journey route knew that the people in the vans were “important”, and were desperate to find out who was where. It became incredibly tricky to decipher who was a fan, who was part of a band, and who was a crew member.

 Somehow we made it through the chaos and pulled up behind the parked London Hell van. My stomach flipped as I saw the guys in the other band stepping out of their vehicle- this was it. We were here. We had made it.

 Following George out of the van, we gathered in a group before being asked to follow the London Hell guys. Eddie and David stayed behind to sort out our things whilst we walked over to a somewhat large portable cabin. As we were going on right before London Hell, we were to share our warm up space.

 The cabin was fairly empty, the only real furniture being some chairs and a table. On the table, however, was all different foods and drinks for us- I could see Jake immediately eyeing up the bottle of Jack Daniels. My nerves were starting to get the better of me and I could feel the overwhelming urge to be alone, to not talk to anyone… but this was supposed to be fun, so I tried to relax. We were told to make ourselves comfortable, so I sat down in the nearest chair, gratefully accepted the beer Jake passed to me, and tried to slow my breathing down. From in here the live music was just a faint background sound, but the roar of the already large crowds was daunting.

 I took a large sip of the beer; and so it begins…

 Rich pulled some small portable speakers out of his bag and put his iPod on, and people just started to chat. We had drinks, we had music, we had company- everything was great. But I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. I couldn’t stop my leg from bouncing up and down out of time to the music. I concentrated on the beer…

 “Hey, James…” Jethro said as he crossed the space to stand beside me. “…how’re you feeling?”

 I shrugged.

 “Are you excited?”

 I shrugged.

 He sighed and grabbed my hand, pulling me up and out of my seat. I followed him outside and we went and sat on the grass a few metres away from the cabin. The coolness of the winter had made the ground rock hard, with no rain so far to soften it. I took another large sip of my beer before offering it to Jethro, who accepted.

 “You need to calm down, James.” he stated. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at me, but I refused to make eye contact.

 “It’s alright for you. You’ve done this before. I’m fucking terrified…” I muttered.

 “Yeah, I have done this before. But I also had to do it for the first time too, and d’you know what happened?” he asked. I shook my head. “I fucking threw up on stage. I took one step out there, saw that crowd, and hurled in front of everyone.”