DAYLIGHT FADING

twenty five | i no longer hear the music

                       | twenty five: i no longer hear the music |

                                                        or

                   | music when the lights go out: the libertines |

 The tour bus is already half-messy and we’ve only been on it for a few hours. Some of the journeys will be pretty long but it’s not like the huge distances I can only imagine you’d have to travel if you were in America.

I think some people believe that spending so much time on a tour bus is like an adventure, like you’re part of a different world, but in reality it’s actually pretty boring. There isn’t that much to do to pass the time in between cities.

Justin, Dylan and Declan have already completed a three hour game of Monopoly and Matt hasn’t emerged from his room, so god knows what he’s doing. From how twitchy he looked when he arrived, it’s probably something harder than weed.

I was unwilling to bring my precious vinyl on a tour bus with a bunch of angry guys who like weird tea and alcohol and a man who’s high as a kite most of the time, so I only have the huge collection of shoegaze records that The Noise have managed to amass, though I’m told most of them are Justin’s.

I have nothing against shoegaze – I love a bit of My Bloody Valentine as much as the next person – but I don’t want to have to spend an entire tour listening to it.

I finally see something in the stacks of records that I genuinely want to listen to. The Libertines’ eponymous album is a bloody masterpiece and I reserve the right to glare angrily at anyone who says differently.

I love the slight crackle the turntable makes as I set the needle down, letting the record begin to spin.

If anyone ever gave me the opportunity to meet Carl Barat, I think I’d forget all pretence of being a musician and just devolve into being a fan girl.

I understand now that musicians are not myths, that they’re just normal people, but he’s Carl fucking Barat. It’s like meeting Jimmy Page or Bob Dylan or Roger Waters. They’re not musicians, they’re living, breathing legends.

I settle back into the sole armchair on the bus, most of the other furniture having been eschewed for beanbags following the time when both Dylan and Matt had to be treated for concussions after being hit with a dining table.

I’m fairly sure it was the driving but sometimes the look on Declan’s face makes me wonder.

No matter how beautiful The Libertines are, I’ve spent far too long fever-dreaming over the past few days, and I slowly sink into sleep with the sounds of the pioneers of British garage rock in my ears.

I am so tired that I forget to smoke before I sleep and then the dreams come back. The past is like a naked flame, burning brighter now that it’s been supressed for so long, and I find the memories aren’t half as painful when I still believe that I am seventeen.

I am jolted from the pleasant warmth of a Christmas fire at Louisa’s with the smell of freshly baked apple pie and cinnamon to the reality of the tour bus. Justin is a few inches from my head and I flinch in surprise.

Given that the driver has shut off the engine, I’m assuming we’ve actually reached our destination rather than stopping for another supermarket run because someone forgot someone else’s favourite type of cereal.

I could thank whatever god may or may not exist because I really need a joint before my head starts contemplating exactly how I got from that fire, my back leant into Adam, to half-bleeding feeling of my eyeballs and waking up to the varying shades of beige of the interior of a tour bus that I’m not entirely sure I want to be on.