Write It Down, Without a Sound

July 2nd

Dear Journal,
I’ve been dragged to my first official full-on-tour-party tonight. The term ‘dragged’ about explains it too.

Going too big parties (apart from family parties) bar, clubs and pubs aren’t my thing. It’s not something I’m really all that interested in either. I don’t drink and I’m not that great with being crammed into a small room with a bunch of sweaty people that smell like alcohol while music is playing so loudly you can’t hear yourself think. Personally I don’t like it. Never have, probably never will.

This party wasn’t all that bad but I didn’t know many people there and there was some people who were really, really drunk. The party was held between a bunch of busses that had been parked into a circle shape, with fold out chairs and tables scattered around. A lot of people wanted a bonfire but it wasn’t aloud, so someone got a bunch of sticks and stuck them between pieces of coloured paper to look like flames. I’ve never seen purple and pink flames before, must be a new thing.

I was having fun for a while but it did end up getting awkward for me. Without having a voice being in places like that and trying to talk to people or groups of people gets hard. It makes it harder when people start getting drunk to the point it takes them ages to understand what I wrote. It’s one of the other reasons why I don’t like going to parties like that.

I left the party when it got hard to talk to people, not that I was talking to many. I did have a great short conversation with Beau Bokan from Blessthefall before he got called away by his band mates. He is lot nicer than what I’ve seen by YouTube videos. I watch their tour vids all the time; guilty.

I’m the first one back on the bus, besides Nate who’s sleeping. We don’t have bus call until really early in the morning, so I doubt that most of the guys will be back any time before one. Kennedy’s been texting me though, random jokes that people are telling him and what John’s apparently up to.

I hope John, Beau and Jack Barakat never end up together in the same place. It would the trio of bad ideas. I can only imagine the stuff those guys would get up to if they teamed up. The thought is quiet scary.

Then again, it would be one hell of a free show.

July 3rd

Dear Journal,
I had a Skype date with my family tonight. They’re doing fine which is good to hear. I talk to them via Skype every third day, if I happened to have internet access. I miss them.

There was another round of volleyball matches today, The Maine didn’t play but we still went to watch. It was very entertaining to say the least, expressly when Alex and Jack (ATL) started arguing over the game rules and as it turned out they were both wrong when Zack settled the squabble by checking the rules on his phone. What made it so funny was them being on the same team, the team they were going against (a mixed band/tech team) actually just sat down on the ground rolling the ball to each other until Alex and Jack had finished. It doesn’t sound as funny as it’s written here but I really wish I could have filmed it.

And filmed what the guys on the bus got up to today. The weird, crazy and stupid, but funny, things they came up with sometimes. Wow. I think about asking them sometimes how they come up with all that stuff but then I remember that I really don’t want to know.

Like how I really don’t want to know why John and Kennedy thought it would be a good idea to bellyflop into the kiddies’ pool we set up today.

We sort of stole that idea from another band. Probably the best thing we’re done all tour considering the heat. It was sort lived, because John and Kennedy broke it the moment we had filled it up. We now have to wait for out next shopping trip to get another one.

As usual there was a bunch of other things that happened today but they don’t feel important to spend time writing it all. I think I’m getting a little lazy. Maybe I should start writing when I can during the day instead of right before I go to bed. Despite the fact for the most part I’m busy the heat really takes it out of me some days. Reasons why I don’t like summer.

I’m tired. Good night.

July 4th

Dear Journal,

The day in a life of me:
- Wake up, hopefully by alarm and not with someone jumping on me.
- Breakfast wherever we can find food.
- Get ready for the day and savour the quietness of the bus while it’s there.
- If travelling find something to do, if at venue start to set things up.
- Walk around grounds for ‘daily exercise’, set up the merch tent
- Help and watch the guys at sound check, watch shenanigans ensue.
- Remind John that no he can’t climb the stage frame and hang like a bat.
- If band doesn’t have their set right away hang out or find something to do.
- Watch band play, take photos.
- Pack up gear.
- Mess around if we have time and hang out with other people or lounge on bus.
- Do whatever we fell like on the day until bus call.
- Find stuff to do on bus.
- Stay up late to do it all again the next day.

Well, a basic summary mixed with a lot of fun and “good hangs” as Garrett would say.

What I write here feels nothing like what happened throughout the days. Too much to tell, so little time and not much of a good writer.

July 5th

Dear Journal,
Today was the second scariest day of the whole tour, if you could count the almost-bus-crash incident as being number one. There was a major storm that hit suddenly and almost out of nowhere about two o’clock.

I had been keeping an eye on the weather reports and they did say a chance of a small storm but this defiantly wasn’t a small storm. It’s one of the worst storms I’ve ever seen.

It was cloudy when we arrived at the venue and had been raining over night, bucketing down on our drive over to the point it was deafening. Puddles of mud littered the ground and the wind was nippy. The sky wasn’t too dark but it was hard to tell what it was going to do, it wasn’t windy when we got there, barely a breeze. We arrived well before the gates were opened and I quickly helped some of the guys set up the merch tent while the others sorted out the stage gear.

It was near on impossible to peg the gazebo tent for the merch down because of how wet the ground was and had to move it over so it was basically right next to another band’s tent. When it was mostly done I left the guys to it and went back to the bus to sweep out the mud and wet sand that had been brought in. I knew if I didn’t do it, no one else could and the last thing we wanted to do was rush someone to the hospital because they slipped over and cracked their head open on something. Really, all tour busses should have non-slip flooring, some busses do but this one doesn’t in the kitchen area.

It started raining not long after and most of the guys came back to get out of it. The band didn’t have their set until 5:25 so we had a lot of time to spare.

The rain slowed and stopped before lunch and that was when the wind started to pick up. I ran to run back to the bus to get the ropes and more pegs out the cargo hold for the tent and got it secured down just before a huge gust came whipping past knocking the display boards over. By the time we battened everything down we were late enough for lunch that there was still heaps of food left and missed the crowd. I check my phone there for the latest weather report, it hadn’t changed. John came running into the food tent then, wet, water dripping down his face and said the sky looked dark as night.

Not ten minutes later all hell broke loose, as the saying goes.
First it was the wind, in a matter of minutes it tripled in strength and the rain started coming down sideways. There weren’t sides on the food tent so we all ran for the closest shelter, which happened to be one of the stages. I was soaked before I was two steps out into the open. It was hard to see and got hard to run when the ground started to turn into slosh, I swear I was up to my shines in mud at one point. Our group got a little separated and the rest of us ended up either holding hands or each other’s clothes as we rounded the stage and piled into one of the storage trucks where a few people were already taking shelter. I was one of the last ones in with Kennedy holding my hand and Jared clinging onto the edge of my shirt.

I turned around and looked back out the doors, the rain was so heavy I couldn’t see further than three meters and I’m sure I saw something fly past, one of the large banners or something.

Then the thunder and lightning started. That wasn’t bad, but the thunder was quite scary when it was right on top of us, it seemed to echo in the truck trailer. At that point Kennedy and Jared wasn’t about to let go of me, I totally didn’t blame them, I didn’t let go of them for a long time. It’s one thing to sit though a storm like this in your home, but a large metal create on the back of a truck in a open area were hardly anything was a solid building, now that’s a different fucking story.

Despite what was going on outside and being summer, the temperature dropped. Not enough to become freezing but enough to be really noticeable when you happened to be soaked. Jared started shivering at one point so I moved closer to him, sides touching; it wasn’t until then that I found the real reason why he was shivering. There was a small crack in the metal roof allowing water to drop down and land on him; it was tight fit in the truck so he couldn’t move away from it.

I don’t know how long we were stuck there for; it seemed longer than what it probably was. A couple of other people found the truck and hid with us, but other than that we didn’t see anyone for a long time. Once the rain lightened up enough our group ran for it back to the bus as lighting cracked over head, it was a good thing we took that chance because five minutes after we got back on the bus and wrapped up in towels it poured down again.

Safe to say Warped got cancelled. It wasn’t classified safe to get our stuff and check out the damage until four, four thirty. One of the stages had a couple of support beams fall down but most of the damage was to the tents and anything that wasn’t at least half secured. From what I’ve heard no one got seriously injured which is good to hear.

Somehow our merch tent was still in tacked, some of the merch, mainly the clothes were a bit water logged but other than that we got lucky with our gear. We packed up our stuff and helped a few other people struggling to fold up things in the wind. At six we were cleared to leave with a clothes line of wet clothes running though the middle of the bus.

Today was defiantly something I won’t forget, it just goes to show how bad and unpredictable nature can get.