~Calum
The four of us were all getting ready for our first show of the Meet You There tour and the energy was exuberant. We are all so excited and have a strong feeling that this is going to be our best tour yet.
The album has shown how our music has grown lyrically and instrumentally, and we can hardly wait for the audience to see how much we've matured as a live band.
"Oh my God! Are you 5 Seconds of Summer?" A high pitched female voice echos through the room.
Ashton pauses the music and the four of us freeze, looking directly at the door assuming that a fan had found their way backstage and into our dressing room.
We turn our heads with genuine shock plastered on our faces at how to handle the situation, but once we see who it actually is we sigh breaths of relief.
"Okay dickheads, 5 minutes till show time lets' go!" Paige announces as she opens the door to our dressing room a little wider, fully stepping in now.
"Paige," Michael says breathing heavily. "You scared the shit out of me." He says clutching his heart that is no doubt beating just as fast as mine is.
Before Paige came in to remind us that we actually have a show to perform, the four of us were rocking out to bands like Blink-182, Green Day, and Nirvana to get us pumped up before we walked out on that stage. Being men in our early 20's, we got distracted and forgot to get fully dressed.
My shirt was tied around my head as a makeshift bandana, and my chest and stomach are on display for her to see, not that she hasn't seen it before, but still.
Not that Luke, Michael, and Ashton were any better. None of us looked stage ready whatsoever.
Luke was clad in his boxers and still wearing a sweatshirt from our merchandise, Michaels hair was a disheveled mess from head bopping, and Ashton had his drumsticks waved in the air like a lunatic.
"Yeah well, I knew that would be the only thing to get your attention over the Nirvana you had playing." She shrugs holding on tightly to the camera that hangs around her neck.
"You heard that?" Luke asks ashamed.
"Lu, everyone standing in line could hear it." She says but I can tell she's being sarcastic. Luke however, believes her. "Now everyones gonna think my favorite Nirvana song is 'Smells Like Teen Spirit." He says embarrassed.
"Luke, Mate she's being sarcastic." I say to my best friend that probably just rethought all of his life choices.
"Oh, yeah I knew that." He says brushing it off and returning to the mirror to continue brushing his curls.
Michael, Ashton, and I look directly at Paige mentally preparing ourselves to be scolded by her, "Don't think that I'm letting any of you off the hook. You're supposed to be on stage in five minutes and none of you are ready."
"We're sorry Paige, we just got excited and pregamed a little too hard." Ashton apologizes for us.
"It's alright," She says giving us all a small smile. "I'm not mad, I just want you guys to be on top of it always so that you can perform your best out there."
Within the past seven years that we've known Paige, she has always been this way. From the moment she became comfortable around us, she's always been more of a tour manager than our actual manager.
Paige serves as our photographer, hairstylist, clothes designer, first listener of all new songs, and always gets the final say of our set lists. This is all voluntary and it comes naturally from the good of her heart.
She doesn't get payed for more than what being the bands photographer entails and that's how you know she really cares about us, and we care about her just as equally back.
"Calum where's your shirt?" She asks concerned that I'm only wearing my pants and shoes.
"On my head." I say ashamed and slightly embarrassed.
"Let me see it," She says putting her hand out in front of me. I unwrap it from around my head and place it in her hand. I watch as she straightens it out and holds it in front of her face to observe it. "It's too wrinkled now and there is not enough time to iron it before you go on stage. What else do you have?"
I point to where my closet is and walk us over there. Paige opens it and skims through the different options. She pulls out a black button up that has already been pre-ironed, and hands it to me. "Put this on and," She walks over to the mirror, "This necklace, but leave the two top buttons unbuttoned."
"Thanks pretty girl," I smirk at her. She looks up into my eyes and I can tell that she is trying so hard to hold back a snarky response, but stops herself.
When the two of us broke up at 16 years old it wasn't because we lost feelings for each other, but because of what the media thought about our relationship.
We were naive and immature for believing what strangers had to say about our relationship but that still doesn't change the fact that there will always be lingering feelings between us from what we had.
Even now, the two of us at 21 and 22 years old can't deny that we still don't have feelings for one another, its' just that we push those thoughts to the side and avoid the conversation of it.
"Okay Mike," She says breaking eye contact and turning her attention elsewhere. "Let's figure out what we're gonna do with your hair." She guides him over to sit in the chair in front of the mirror and begins brushing through his hair.
I can tell that my comment made her nervous and that she was finding a way to distract herself. I felt a burst of confidence rush through me because of the power I know I have over her.
Paige finishes helping all of us get ready for the show. She turned four rambunctious boys into men ready to start the tour in style. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we look and feel great now that she helped us look more presentable.
The boys thank Paige as we exit the dressing room and head for the backstage area to pick up our instruments, but I exit last.
"Thanks for everything Pae," I say before pulling her into a hug. "You always save our asses." I say truthfully. If it wasn't for her this band would be in deep shit.
"It's my pleasure, you boys mean a lot to me and it makes me happy seeing you succeed." She says smiling widely at me. Paige is practically jumping from where she stands, definitely as excited as I am. The adrenaline is pumping through our bones from anticipation to finally get this show started. "Now go kill it out there, rockstar."
"Maybe if you get lucky I'll invite you backstage after the show." I wink at her.
"Oh my God, do you think Luke will be there?" She teases.
"You're an idiot." I laughed shaking my head in mock disappointment. Our conversation then getting interrupted by the team backstage informing us that I was needed to be on stage in a few minutes. So with that, I placed my hand against my lips kissing them before playfully pressing my hand to her cheek and shoving her face to the side lightly.
I began to walk backwards towards the stage still looking at her. Her hair is partially covering her face because of what I did. Her smile is still very evident, and its the brightest I've ever seen.
She just elicits happiness and its all I need to get me through this show.
Paige cups her hands around her mouth and yells, "Try not to suck!"
"Only for you!" I shout back at her.
I turn around and walk face forward to grab my bass and join my bandmates.
Suddenly, the stage is lit up and the intro the Babylon begins playing, causing the crowd to scream in excitement.
"This tour is going to be fucking amazing," Ashton says clutching onto his drum sticks tightly.
"One for the books for sure," Michael adds on gaining a nod of agreement from Luke and I.
"Love you boys, see you out there!" Ashton says running onstage and sitting on his drum stool. The three of us could hear the first two beats of the song signaling that it was our turn to enter stage.
We all walk on and stand at our respective spots behind our mic stands, causing the audience to scream even louder.
As I started singing my solo that starts off the concert, I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins and its' the best feeling in the world.
I spot Paige standing in the front of the barricade on my side as always. I know that throughout the concert she'll go around and take pictures of the other boys, but she always starts off on my side, ever since 2011.
She rotates between singing along and taking pictures of us. I do my best to focus on the crowd singing the lyrics back at us, but its so difficult when the prettiest girl in the crowd is standing right in front of you.
I love how obvious it is that you can tell she's having fun. We transition from Talk Fast into Moving Along giving my bass a moment to shine. Paige captures it perfectly and looks down into the screen of her camera to admire the picture that she will definitely be showing me later.
As Luke sings his solo in She's Kinda Hot, I walk to the foot of the stage and crouch down in front of Paige. We sing the lyrics to each other and have goofy grins plastered on our faces. I'm not worried about the fans taking pictures or spreading rumors about us, simply because they all know the full story already.
Paige takes her phone out and turns her back to me so that the two of us could take a quick picture together, "New wallpaper!" She squeals still pretending to be a fan. I'll never get bored of her sense of humor.
The boys and I rock our hearts out with these next few songs and the energy from the audience never dims.
"Japan, we're gonna slow it down a bit if that's alright with you." Luke says from the piano. "This is Ghost Of You, I wanna see you lighting up this arena. Let's make it beautiful."
Ghost Of You is by far the most meaningful song to this band. The four of us have dealt with many heartbreaks, so we wrote this song to show how we feel about not being able to move on. When situations similar to this happens to a person they tend to cope with alcohol or drugs, but for me I've always gravitated towards smoking.
Only one person has been able to help me overcome my habit, and she's standing in this room. Although my addiction isn't fully gone yet, she still hasn't given up on me.
Valentine is next and I already know Paige's heart is pounding in her chest, this is her favorite song by us so far. I watch as she dances along with the audience and walks across Michaels side of the stage, to Luke's side, and back to mine taking pictures that I cannot wait for her to show me later.
The entire concert was amazing, it was everything the band has worked hard for and more.
As we close it off with Youngblood, the crowd sings the lyrics back at us 10x louder knowing the concert is coming to an end. We thank them one last time for an incredible first show and exit the stage.
The four of us embrace in a hug and congratulate each other, sharing words of encouragement on a fucking amazing show.
"I don't think any show can compare to what we just did out there!" Luke says looking at the three of us proud beyond measures.
"You guys!" The familiar voice of our best friend shouts. "That was amazing!" She says running over to us and pulling us into a tight hug. "I am so proud of all of you, seriously." Paige says shaking her head in disbelief.
"Thank you Paige! That means a lot." Ashton says ruffling her hair resulting in her pushing his hand off jokingly.
"Man we killed that." Michael says mainly to himself.
"Mike's right," Paige says agreeing. "I am so unbelievably proud of all of you." She gushes.
"Should we celebrate?" I ask excitedly ready to go out and do something.
"Let's do it!" They all agree.
"Here's to a great tour." Paige says, to which we all agree.
This will be a great tour, maybe the best one we've been on by far.
Or so we thought.
A/N
Hi baes! There was some foreshadowing in this chapter in case you missed it.
What is your favorite song on Youngblood?
Thank you so much for reading. I love you all <3