Camera Shy || Ben Barlow

Four

My favourite part of this job used to be the fact that I was getting paid to watch my personal favourite genre of music live. I got to meet State Champs and muck around with Evan Ambrosio back stage, and it was the best few weeks of my life. Now, I've met them all. They all know me as Essa, the photographer. The one they don't really talk to, but will listen to when she's got a camera in her hands. 

Now, my favourite part of my job was how little I had to go home and visit my mother. If I was never there, she never got the chance to tell me how much of a disappointment I was, subtly, in comparison to my brother. But followers don't mean anything.

"Tell that to the several thousands of people here tonight," I mumbled, looking out into the sea of ticket holders, queuing at the doors of Sheffield's O2 Academy, all anticipating their favorite band's entrance. 

This was my favourite part of the concert. Just standing here, sporting my giant Neck Deep sticker and camera bag, with the security detail. The pre-concert playlist. The little group of girls who love Brand New and Bowling for Soup, the grown men bitching when we play Bring Me The Horizon, because "they've lost their edge". People watching.

I smiled at a girl sneaking a drink from the plastic bottle she'd somehow gotten through security as a sickeningly old Fall Out Song began to play, half the crowd screaming along to Patrick Stump's artful noughties gibberish. 

I preferred Ben Barlow's gibberish. 

I, awkwardly and impatiently, stood up onto my toes before letting my heels fall back down onto the floor, in an empty gesture to waste time. Pointlessly opening and closing my phone had gotten boring at least twelve and a half minutes ago, causing me to give out an impatient huff of breath. I'd concluded, already, that I should have gone to check on the boys ages ago, but I figured that (knowing my luck) they'd all appear the second I got backstage. 

Dani appeared first, followed by Sam, Fil and West, Ben waltzing onto the stage last, frankly looking like he'd just rolled out of bed. He more closely resembled a second year college student with caffeine withdrawals than the front-man of a successful band. Without having said a word, the boys rolled straight into Gold Steps, giving themselves whiplash for the sake of giving themselves whiplash, giving the fans raw throats for the concert aesthetic. Lime St. was just as medically detrimental to all parties involved. 

What really bothered me about Neck Deep, as a whole, was that they all jumped perfectly in sync with each other without even making any efforts to communicate, but they lost Dani on every single day off they'd had since I'd been work for them. Man. Children.

"How the fuck you guys doing tonight?!" Ben shouted to the crowd, his attempts at manners mediocre, as always. "In case you can't read that giant red sign," he said, turning to point behind Dani, "that's about to fall down, we're Neck Deep." The crowd screamed as if it were a socially acceptable response to, 'hi, my name is-'. "Who came to see us here last time, with The Story So Far?" Again, the crowd rioted as if it made perfect sense in a conversation. "Well, thanks for coming back," he said with an awkward nod, processing the unnecessary screeched 'I love you's from the crowd.

Fil's turns to talk were my favourite. I'd recently discovered that, while he was actually meant to sing a bit of backup, his microphone was only there for his little chats with the crowd. He'd taken a liking to screaming all of the songs into the microphone and drowning out Ben just for the fun of it, so the sound techs now have to switch his microphone off during songs. 

"This is sick!" My second favourite member of Neck Deep said, a light in his eyes. "We're only four-"

"Three, mate," West yelled, earning a couple of giggles.