Things Have Changed

“Okay, Okay, sorry I’m late” I yelled, bursting into the NME office board room.

Jim laughed “Gee Liz, did you remember to catch the name of the bloke you woke up next to this morning?”

The room roared with laughter.

“Gee, guys, I like to have a bit of fun but I don’t wake up next to a different guy every morning” I said loudly.

The room laughed even louder.

Fine, so maybe that was a lie.

“Alright alright, enough prying into poor Liz’s private life, let’s get down to business, the Carling Weekend is coming us, so let’s assign interviews” Mark, the chief journalist at NME Magazine yelled over the noise.

Ok, let me rewind about...seven and a half seconds. Yeah, here we are. Currently, I’m working at NME magazine as one of the several journalists covering the various shows and festivals that grace England each year. Well, this was actually my first year writing with NME, but that’s the plan.
I’ve been working at NME for the past seven months and it’s been one of the best seven months of my life. NME was great to work at for three reasons.
1) The workplace is always so relaxed, heck, some days I’ve come in half an hour late and everyone still manages to make light of it.
2) I get to go to awesome concerts and I get paid for it.
3) I also get invited to the hottest parties in town and, the hottest parties in town were always full of the hottest guys in town and... well, I’ll let you’re perverted mind decide where the real after party is.

Sure, some might call it slutty, I call it enjoying my youth, I’m never going to look the way I do now, so I might as well use it for my own fun. Anyway, on with the story.

In two weeks, the 2006 Carling Festival would be commencing in Reading and Leeds, and yes, I was one of the reporters, set to report on the event.

I know what you’re thinking, how can an eighteen year old be working at one of the most respected music magazines in the world? Well, it turns out that the teachers at my school in England convinced my parents to let me skip the rest of my high school days and go straight to uni, so, here we are now.

“Alright, taking care of the interviews on the main stage at Reading on the 25th is Charlie and Liz” Mark read out.

“What?” I was shocked to be included in the reporting for the Carling Weekend let alone be reporting from the main stage, interviewing the headlining act.

“Alright, grab out your pens, you’re interviewing four bands each” Mark continued “Liz, you’ve got Franz Ferdinand first up, the Kaiser Chiefs, Fall Out Boy and newbies Panic! At The Disco”

“Suck shit! You got the emo pussies” Jim laughed.

“Who?”

“Oh, Panic! don’t forget the exclamation mark At The Disco, bullshit, they’re not even old enough to get into a fucking disco where they’re from.”

“Yeah, yeah yeah shut up guys and let me continue...”

I looked down at the names I had scribbled down on my paper Panic! At The Disco I knew them from somewhere.

I waited outside for Lilly, my roommate, best friend and partner in crime, she was my age, I met her out on a job once, back when she was a free lance photographer. She got a job here at NME and soon after we were roommates and best friends.

“Oh, my god, you’ll never guess what stage I’m on” she squealed literally jumping onto the underground.

“Main stage at Reading on the 25th” I said sarcastically.

“Are you fucking physic or something” she yelled.

“Oh my fucking god I’m interviewing that stage” I squealed, annoying the rest of the passengers on the underground.

“Are you fucking serious?”

I nodded “Franz Ferdinand, The Kaiser Chiefs, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco!”

Shit, it dawned on me Panic! At The Disco, Vegas, Ryan, Brendon.

No, it couldn’t be, someone else who was in a young and upcoming band just happened to have the same name as them. In fact, I couldn’t even remember if Panic! At The Disco was even their name, it was probably Panic! At The Dance Hall or Panic! At The Arena, I was positive it wasn’t Panic At The Disco, or so I told myself.

“Liz, Liz! What’s wrong?” Lilly yelled.

“Huh?” I said snapping back to reality.

“You’ve gone as pale as a fucking ghost” she cried.

“Oh, it’s nothing” I said quickly.

She shrugged her shoulders “Okay, just keep your hand off that Ryan Ross, he’s mine” she smiled.

Ryan Ross? Panic At The Disco?...Shit.