Nicotine and Faded Dreams

After arriving in Salt Lake City I quickly made my way through the airport so I wouldn’t be late again. I was supposed to be looking for a man holding up my name on a sign. That shouldn’t be too difficult but then again I can be unbelievably oblivious sometimes. Luckily I saw my name colorfully decorated onto a piece of poster board. It had little colored flowers around it and was written in swirly writing, every letter was a different color. It was completely adorable and not what I was expecting at all. The man holding the sign looked completely uncomfortable holding up something so girly. I giggled to myself. He was dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans. I didn’t think he was in the band, he just didn’t quite look like he was, but I could definitely be wrong, who knows.

I walked over and extended my hand to the man, “Hey, that’s me. I’m Leila, nice to meet you.”

“Hey there, I’m Mike.” He replied smiling “I’m the bus driver. I wouldn’t let the guys come in because we’re kind of on a schedule and I didn’t want them to get mobbed or anything, but they decorated this sign for you.” He gestured to the sign in his hand and rolled his eyes.

The thought of men who were in a band coloring that for me made me have a short laughing fit. Once it died down I smiled at Mike happily, “Well I love it, I can take it if you don’t want to hold the flowery thing anymore,” I giggled a little more.

Mike smiled and looked relieved as he handed it over to me. In exchange he took one of my bags and led me out of the airport. I saw the large tour bus in front of me and immediately got excited. I was finally going on Warped Tour with a successful band. I was more eager to get started than I had ever been before. I just had a really good feeling that this tour would be amazing.

Smiling still, I followed Mike onto the bus, which was probably the nicest I’d ever been on and didn’t smell at all. I was relieved at that. Immediately five men got up from their seats and walked over to me.

“HI, I’m Leila Jones, thanks for the sign!” I said just a little too excitedly. The guys laughed a little at my eagerness.

“I’m Coley O’toole”, the bearded man to the left said to me. I shook his hand enthusiastically and learned that he played keyboards for the band. Next I met Danny Duncan who was their drummer, Hunter Thompson their guitarist, Charles Trippy their bassist, and lastly, I could tell, was their guitarist and vocalist who immediately caught my attention with his head of long red hair, slew of bracelets on his tattooed arms, and tangled bunch of necklaces around his neck.

“Hey I’m Travis,” He smiled at me happily.

“It’s so great to meet you, all of you.” I said as I shook his hand and smiled at the rest of the guys.

“Here, I’ll show you around our humble abode.” Travis offered.

I laughed as I obeyed and followed him through the bus.

“This is our front lounge,” He said while we remained standing in the front of the bus. He started walking down the narrow hallway with bunks on each side. He showed me where everybody slept including their tour manager Scooter who I would be meeting later. My bunk, it turned out, was directly parallel to Travis’s bunk. He then kept walking and showed me the back lounge, complete with various types of video game systems.

“Oh my gosh a Nintendo 64!” I was so excited.

“Yes!” Travis seemed excited too, “Best video game system in existence.”

“I agree,” I said excitedly as looked closer at the system, the game that was inside was Mario Kart, “No freaking way.”

Travis laughed, “You wanna play a little one- on-one.”

“Hell yeah I do! And I’m gonna whoop your ass.”

“I know that you don’t know this yet but I am the champion of Mario Kart around these parts,” Travis replied cockily.

“We’ll see about that,” I said as I took a remote and sat on the comfy black couch.

Four victories later Travis sat pouting on the couch. I laughed at his cute little pout. “I know your sad mister champion but you put up a good fight.” Travis smiled at this.

A few moments later we felt the bus come to a stop. Travis and I both looked outside to see a collection of tour buses around us, I could see the venue’s gates in the distance which were clearly empty since it was, in my opinion, way too early in the morning.

Travis and I made our way towards the front of the bus where the rest of the guys were already filing outside. I quickly went out as well and was greeted by the guy’s tour manager, Scooter. Together we unloaded the tour bus the same way we would be almost every day. Once we were in the venue Scooter showed me exactly where we would be setting up our tent. We were in a pretty secluded spot that was kind of hidden.

Once the tent was set up and the boxes of tour shirts and bracelets were displayed, the fun part came, a whole lot of sitting around and waiting. I sat and talked a little bit with Scooter about the band and the tour. Once the gates were opened I watched as fans ran as fast as they could through the gates and spread out throughout the venue. It wasn’t long before our booth got some action.

After a few hours of catering to fans, I felt a tap on the shoulder. I turned to see someone with a grey hoodie on with the hood up and large dark sunglasses on. I looked closer and noticed it was Travis, obviously trying to not be noticed by fans and get mobbed.

“Aren’t you sweating under there,” I laughed lowering my voice and walking with Travis to the corner of the tent so as to not draw attention to ourselves.

“Of course I am,” he stated smiling, “But I wanted to ask you something.”

I smiled back happily, “And what’s that?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to see our set today. No one usually comes here during our set because they’re watching us, so Scooter won’t need any extra help.”

“Yes of course I’d love to, but are you sure it’s ok.” It was my first day and all, I felt bad for just taking off.

“Of course it’s ok,” Travis replied happily, ”Main Stage, 4:00, show your pass to the dude on the side of the stage and you can watch from there. Catch you later.” And with that he turned around and half-sprinted away.

I laughed as I looked at my phone which read 3:30. After helping a few more people with their purchases and checking again with Scooter to make sure it was ok to leave, I headed off towards the main stage.

I found it easily enough and showed my pass to the man on the side of the stage who let me through. Once I was backstage, which was slightly covered so the audience couldn’t see back there, I quickly found the band preparing to go on.

“You made it,” Travis said smiling, guitar in hand.

“Well of course I did.” I smiled back.

A minute later the guys were all on stage playing. It really looked like they belonged up there. Travis probably mentioned his love and appreciation of their fans at least five times throughout the set. It warmed my heart, I always appreciated when bands did that because speaking as a fan, it meant so much. When the set was done Travis ran backstage and gave me a surprising big sweaty bear hug, almost making me fall to the ground.

“That was an amazing set,” I proclaimed laughing as I hugged the sweaty man back.

“I’m glad you liked it!” Travis said, still not letting go of me.

Yeah, Warped Tour was most definitely gonna kick ass.