Erin William's Guide to Warped Tour

I opened the door to the tour bus and let out an excited shriek. I ran inside followed by my band mates. Dylan, one of our guitarists and my older brother, and Ryder, the other came in first, arguing over who got a top bunk. Next our drummer, Damian, came in lugging his bags over his shoulder, and sweating from the summer heat. Finally, Jasper, our bassist and my best friend, came running in, screaming almost as loud as I did, before squeezing me into a rib-crushing hug.

“Can you believe it Erin?” he asked me, after finally letting me go. “We’re going to be on Warped Tour,”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s awesome!” I was happy that our band, Conspiracy Theory, was on any tour. We were brand new and had just been signed by Hopeless, but Warped Tour was amazing. Better than anything I could have hoped for. I remember going to Warped for the first time when I was twelve with Dylan. We swore the next day we would start a band.

“Well we better go claim bunks,” he said. We walked over to where everyone was crowed around the bunks.

“Ladies first,” I said pushing my way to the front of the band and jumping into one of the two top bunks.

“That’s not fair,” Dylan said. “I already called that bunk!” I laughed at my older brother.

“Yes, but I’m the only girl in this bus, probably even the whole tour,” I said. “So, I get to pick my bunk,”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll just take the other top one,” he turned around to climb up but Damian had beaten him to it. We all laughed, well all of us except for

“Oh fuck you,” he said, dropping his stuff on to the middle bunk, right under the one Damian had just claimed. Jasper plopped down onto the bunk under mine, and smiled like a five year old who had just eaten way too much sugar.

“Well, who’s driving?” I asked, putting a finger on my nose. That’s what we had always done on our small self-booked tours: last person to put a finger on their nose got the task of driving to the next venue. A chorus of ‘not – it’s rained down from all the boys, except for Dylan. Dylan slowly turned around looking at all of us.

“I don’t get my bunk know this,” he said jokingly. “Fuck all of you,” We all laughed, but were stopped by a cough. We all turned to see, Amy Peirce, our manager standing at the entrance to the bus with guy I’d never seen before.

“No need Dylan,” she said. “You guys have your own driver,”

“No way,” Ryder said. “Are you serious?”

“I sure am, “ she said, turning to introduce the guy to her left. “This is Griffin. He’ll be you’re driver,”

“Awesome,” Dylan said.

“Well you better get going,” Amy said before turning to leave. “You’ll be meeting all the bands tomorrow,”

***

“Erinnnnnnn,” someone was shaking me awake.

“Five more minutes,” I groaned.

“We’re in Salt Lake,” my brother said.

“I don’t care,”

“Don’t you want to meat the other bands?” he asked.

“No,”

“Come on,” he was still shaking me.

“Nope,”

“Please?”

“I want to sleep,”

“That’s it,” he said. He began shouting for the rest of the guys “Hey, I could use some help over here,”

Before I knew what was happening I was being hoisted by my arms and legs by my band mates.

“I’m up!” I shouted. “I’m up! Just put me down,”

“Alright,” Ryder said, before all four boys dropped me on to the floor of the bus and walked away laughing.

“Damn,” I said, as I got up, rubbing my shoulder. “That hurt,” I whined.

“Get ready,” Jasper said. “We’ve got half an hour,”

“Fine,” I went to the bathroom and took a shower. After I was finished, I walked over to where I had put my stuff the night before and pulled out some jean shorts and a purple tank top. Nothing special. I slipped on my converse high tops just as Ryder came to come get me.

“You almost ready?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Here I come,”

We all walked out of the bus into the field where everyone was parked. I looked around at all the buses, some with names printed on the sides, others not. I was amazed how many there were.

“Can we get some food?” Damian asked. He was always hungry.

“Umm sure,” I said. “It looks like people are eating over there,” I pointed to a bunch of picnic tables were lots of people were gathered. There seamed to be a table where everyone was getting food. I could smell burgers and hot dogs.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“About 12,” Jasper told me.

“Gotcha,”

We walked over to the food table. I looked around at all the people and noticed something. There were no girls. ‘Weird’ I thought as I got my food. When I turned around to say something to Dylan, they were gone. My entire band was missing. I didn’t care too much, I was hungry. I made my way over to a table that was half empty. Four boys I recognized took up the other end.

“Umm, hey,” I said shyly. “Mind if I sit here, I kind of lost my band,” They looked at me for a second before the tall one with dark brown hair laughed.

“Sure,” he said. “How’d you manage to lose them on the first day?”

“I really have no idea,” I said. “I was getting my food. I turned around and they were gone. If only they were that easy to lose when I wanted them gone,” I joked. They laughed.

“I’m Jack, by the way, and this is Alex, Zack and Rian” The one who spoke first said, gesturing to the other boys in turn. “I haven’t seen you ‘round here before, you in a new band?”

“Yeah, we just got signed.” I told them as I sat down. “I’m Erin,”

“Awesome,” Alex said with a smile.

“Okay,” I said awkwardly. “Random question. But, are there any other girls on this tour?”

“Not that I know of,” Rian said.

“We didn’t think there were going to be any,” Zack told me.

“Lovely,” I said. We all ate and joked for a little while longer. I found out that I recognized them because they were in a band called All Time Low, which I used to listen to a lot a couple years ago. I was just about to say something when my phone rang.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, and then I picked up the phone. “Hey bro,”

“Erin! Where the hell are you?” Dylan yelled at me.

“Chill the fuck out Dylan,” I told him. “I’m just eating,”

“So were we when we realized you were gone,”

“I turned around and you were gone. I wanted to eat, so I didn’t go look for you. I just sat down,” I told him.

“Just tell me where you are!”

“Look, I’m going to stand up on this bench and wave, and you’re going to look for me. Got it?” Sometimes I felt like I was the older sibling, not him. I stood up on the bench of the picnic table and waved.

“I see you!” he shouted. “We’re coming over,” I hung up the phone and sat down.

“Who was that?” Jack asked.

“My brother,”

“Is he in your band?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s our guitarist,”

“Talking about me eh?” Ryder said. Coming up from behind me.

“You’re her brother?” Zack asked. “You look nothing alike,”

“He’s not my brother,” I said. “He’s our other guitarist,” Then I turned to Ryder. “Ry, where’s everybody else,”

“They’re coming,” he said, sitting down next to me, “Who are you’re friends?”

“Oh yeah, Ryder this is Jack, Zack, Rian, and Alex,” I said, pointing to each boy. “And guys this is Ryder,”

“So he’s the guitarist,” Alex said. “Or one of them, but you never told us what you do.”

“Oh,” I said, before Ryder interrupted me. “I..”

“She is an epic screamer,” Ryder said. They all looked at me strangely, which it what normally happened when I told people I screamed. It wasn’t that it was all I did, in fact most of our stuff was just singing. But I was a girl, a small girl at that, and people were just shocked when they heard I could scream.

“You scream?” Alex asked.

“Just a little bit,” I said. “I mostly sing, Ryder just thinks it’s funny when we tell people ‘cause they don’t expect it,”

“Yeah I definitely didn’t” Jack admitted.

“Hey Erin,” Dylan said as he sat down with Jasper and Damian.

“So which one of you is her brother?” Jack asked.

“Me,” Dylan said, awkwardly half raising his hand. We talked for a little while longer before Matt; All Time Low’s tour manager came over to get them. We said good bye and then headed back to the bus.