“ I am not staying until 8:20 at night to see that band perform!” My mom said.
My mom and I were standing on a grassy hill at Merriweather Post Pavilion in
Maryland. I switched my weight to my left, crossed my arms, and looked around.
People sat on the hill in skinny jeans or shorts, band shirts, with different colored
hair. I smiled. I loved the sight of everyone being different. I looked back over at
my mom and my smile slowly faded as I remembered what I was in the middle of.
“ But that’s like the perfect time for them to play! Bring Me The Horizon playing
at night! We have to stay!” I argued.
Bring Me The Horizon is my favorite band of all bands and one of the main reasons I
came here, Vans Warped Tour ‘13. An all day concert where one can feel at home.
“ We’ve been here since eleven, Classy. You and your friend are going to watch the
next two bands play and then we’re leaving. That’s final.” She snapped.
I groaned and sat on the grass with attitude, next to my friend, Andrea.
“ We can’t see BMTH.” I sighed.
“ What?! But we have to!” She threw her arms up in frustration.
We watched Never Shout Never(a.k.a Christopher Drew) on the hill as he performed
my favorite song “ Cheatercheaterbestfriendeater” and sang along. Then I got an
idea, and whispered it to Andrea. She nodded in agreement.
“ Mom, we need to get closer for Sleeping With Sirens.” I pleaded.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We walked to the gates that separated the field and the blue seats. The gate had a crowd of
people waiting to enter, after all Sleeping With Sirens are pretty big. As soon as the lead
singer, Kellin Quinn, strutted onto the stage with the rest of the band following after,
the security guard opened the gate and everyone rushed in.
“ Hey everybody! How’s everyone doing out there?” Kellin asked with much enthusiasm.
The crowd screamed in response.
“Haha, well this is Warped Tour 2013! And we’re Sleeping With Sirens and we’re going
to play some songs for you guys! This one’s called ‘ A Trophy Father’s Trophy Son’!”
He announced, and everyone screamed with joy, everyone loves that song and it’s one
of my favorites.
“ Father, father, where have you been?…” He sung as we hopped down the large steps
towards the pit. The pit is the smaller area in front of the stage with no seats, and where
everyone jumps, moshes and crowd surfs.
“ Okay you two, I’ll be in the seats.” Mom said and walked away.
Andrea and I made our way to the gate just to be halted by a short man in purple with a white small pocket and having ‘Warped Tour Security’ sewed in.
“ Hold on girls,” said the guard. “ I can’t let you in there. Capacity is at maximum.”
“But there’s space for us right there!” I exclaimed, pointing to the open space.
“I’m sorry kids but once the band starts I can’t let you in.”
“Fine.” I sighed.
We stood on the steps instead.
“ Is this what you call a family?” He sung with the crowd singing along, and
swaying with the beat.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“ Thank you Warped Tour! You guys are the best.” Kellin through his fist in the air
and they walked off stage. Now was the time to put my plan in motion.
“ Hey mom, we’re going to go down there for this next band.” I called to her.
“ Okay you two but be back here when their done.” Mom replied. Me and
Andrea waited by the gate and made conversation with some guys in line
about Bring Me The Horizon. The guard opened the gate, and we were the
first to go in.
We tried to get as close to the front as possible and ended up behind
four people, pretty close. So here’s the plan: Andrea and I will go into
the pit for the band before BMTH, done. When this band is finished,
instead of getting out and going with my mom we’re going to stay here
for BMTH. Knowing my mom, she would never enter a closed in space
full of sweaty teens, or young adults, jumping and pushing each other. Also
like the man said ‘ once the band starts I can’t let you in’ so my mom
wouldn’t even be able to get in find me! We didn’t even know what band
we were watching! I was willing to do anything to see Bring Me The Horizon.
The next band walked on with their heads held high. They didn’t announce their
name, they just played straight away. They played about 6 songs, thanked us,
and walked off. Bring Me The Horizon is next! It was dark out, and a while
later Oliver Sykes , lead singer, strolled on stage with his head down.
The rest set up their instruments. The instrumental played while Oliver
walked back and forth, preparing himself. I looked over to the seats and
saw my mom standing up searching the crowd for me. I quickly averted my
eyes and shrunk a little.
“ Andrea bend down a little!” I pulled her arm.
She looked over, saw my mom, and ducked real fast. I looked back up to see
my mom wasn’t looking anymore. It worked!
I took my iPod out and hit record, I was going to watch this moment over and
over again. I was glad they were playing this song first, “Shadow Moses”. Before
he began to sing the crowd was already screaming the chorus. When we stopped
singing, Oliver started.
“ Can you you tell from the look in our eyes? We’re going nowhere. We live
our lives like we’re ready to die. We’re going nowhere. You can run but you’ll
never escape! Over and over again. Will we ever see the end? We’re going
nowhere.”
The song started slow but when the beat dropped everyone went wild. Everyone
was jumping, moshing, and crowd surfing. This is the way we let go. The way
we take away everything thats happening back at home, and replace it with this
feeling that we have now. This is how we let off our adrenaline. Here, we can
feel safe because no one can judge you because in some way we’re all the same.
When I realized that, it took my breath away. My favorite part was coming up.
It’s my favorite because all the music goes away and Oliver is singing “ This
is Sempiternal!”.
“… We’re going nowhere.” The music stopped. Oliver stood on stage with
his head down, legs together, and arms in a T-shape and his hands gesturing
“Come on”. At that moment, I swear every single person on the venue yelled
as loud as they could “ THIS IS SEMPITERNAL!”. It was so cool! The beat
dropped and things went crazy again. I couldn’t even keep my camera
still! Everyone was so close to each other that if you weren’t jumping, the
crowd would make you jump.
The third song they played was the first song I heard by them,
“ Chelsea Smile”. Before they started someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned to see a red faced girl with glasses. Andrea.
“ Classy, I’m getting kind of claustrophobic! I’m going to get out.” She yelled over the noise.
“ You want me to come with you?” I asked, begging her in my mind
to say no.
“ Do you want to?” She raised her eyebrow.
“ No.”
“ That’s what I thought! You don’t need to come with me!” She laughed
and walked away. Bring Me The Horizon started the song.
“ I’ve got a secret. It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s on the back of my lungs,
and I’m gonna keep it. I know something you don’t know.”
I sang along to every word. I moshed through the song and lost my
spot up front, so now I was in the back. My favorite part was coming up
and I knew I needed to do something big.
“ I’m going to crowd surf.” I accidentally said my thoughts out loud.
My adrenaline was so full right then, I cared for nothing. I made eye
contact with the people around me and chanted “ Up, Up, Up,”. They
all nodded and picked me off the ground as I pushed myself up. I felt
like I was flying when the crowd was passing me around. I laughed
and threw my hands in the air. As the part came I threw my fist in the
air to the beat, and I sang along.
“ We all carry these things inside that no one else can see! They hold
us down like anchors, they drown us out at sea. I look up to the
sky, there maybe nothing there to see.”
The security guard grabbed me and let me down. I ran down the barrier
still singing and giving random people high fives. I went back to my spot
and enjoyed the rest of the show.
When the show ended I started to really antsy. I didn’t know how my
mom would take my actions. Disobeying her just to see a band? That’s how
she would see it. Will she take away my electronics? Ground me for months?
Tell my dad that I shouldn’t come back to Warped next year or ever? Or
something even worse? I started to regret ever staying.
“ Excuse me but you have to move from the exit.” A different security
told me, motioning me to step towards the stairs. I snapped out of my
thoughts and back to reality. I’d been frozen in this spot. I took a deep
breath, wiped my hands on my jeans, and made shaky steps towards my
mother and Andrea.
My mom clear her voice when she saw me coming.
“ I see you stayed for that band anyway.” She said, raising an eyebrow
at me, and folder her arms across her chest.
“ I-I had to…” I strained to get out.
My voice trailed off, knowing I was probably in trouble. My mom gave
me a hard look some more then her face lightened up.
“ Nice plan, girl” She smiled at me.
“ I knew you weren’t going to come after us in that!” I smiled back,
feeling the weight of the world lift off me knowing I was okay. My mom
can be mean at times but she probably knew how much they meant to me.
Since I blab about them all the time to her, so she let me go this time.
Yeah, they do mean a lot to me.
“ I sure wasn’t!” We all laughed and walked towards the exit.
A guy that worked there gave us a Warped Tour magazine with
pictures of some of the bands and how they were vegetarians. I flipped
through it, pointing to pictures with Andrea, and admiring their faces.
When we were walking to our car, there was a group of people sitting
on the grass. One guy in a tank top, sunglasses, with curly hair held
out his hand. Obviously expecting us to be coming from the concert.
“ That was awesome wasn’t it!” He exclaimed.
“ Yeah!” I high-fived him, the sound of the impact echoing.
We three strolled off, laughing, to the car.
“ I love the people here!” I laughed.
I’ll never forget this day, July 10th, 2013.