The New American Dream

Part One: Before | Chapter Seven

It was definitely a more than surreal experience. I had seen Homesick Soldiers live twice before and that was last year. This time we had even managed to get VIP tickets so we got an extra performance before the actual performance started. I was so nervous that I felt like throwing up. That was one of the more uncomfortable traits of mine, it happened frequently and was especially bad during travel, no wonder I had never traveled much in my life before.

I had managed to convince my parents that I wasn't hungry and that I was going to bed really early, while Nate had sneaked around the house and had placed the big ladder from our garden at my window so I could leave through that. We had hidden the ladder again and then we had come here.

The VIP concert had been awesome, the boys sounded incredible acoustic. I had been so close to them. But now it was time for the meet & greet and I wasn't sure if my nerves could handle it. I was about to meet them for real this time, I was going to talk with them! I had so much adrenaline and energy bouncing around in my body that I myself bounced up an down in line.

I noticed that Mark was filming on his phone. "Are you vlogging this?" I laughed.

Mark laughed too. "Gotta get more videos up on the channel right? We can't just quit here. Well, maybe it's more for personal reasons, but we could do it."

"Doesn't sound so bad," I agreed with a smile.

"Uh, excuse me, sorry?" I heard a girl behind us ask.

I turned around. "Yeah?"

"Are you guys the band from the video? That went viral yesterday?"

The video had hit 5 million views around mid-day.

By now Nate, Jace and Mark had also turned around to us.

"That's us, yes," I answered with a smile. Did I really just get recognized on the street?

"Awesome, I'm Britney. I just wanna say that I think what you did was super cool and brave and that I'm 100% on your side. Your cover of the song was really good as well."

We all thanked her, it was genuinely nice to hear someone say something positive about it. Sure there were loads of positive comments under the video, as well as some negative ones by the way, but it was something different to have someone say it to your face, especially after having my parents shout at me and punish me for it.

"Did you like, get into much trouble because of it?"

I waved my hand. "It was a price we were willing to pay and we managed to largely get around punishment."

"Wow, that's so cool. Hey, can we like, take a picture with you guys?" Britney asked and pointed to herself and her friend that was standing next to her.

"Uh, sure why not?" Nate agreed, it was a slightly awkward situation for us. We had come here to take pictures with our favorite band and here we were, taking pictures with a sort of fan of ours.

My mind didn't want to wrap around it all the way.

"Anyway, keep up the amazing work, I hope you'll upload another video soon," Laura, the friend of Britney, said after the picture was taken.

"Well, we didn't really have anymore riots planned, I doubt we would get out of it as easily this time," Jace told her with a laugh.

"You don't have to crash another speech," Britney said, "you could just record a normal video."

"You know what? This actually sounds like a plan," I agreed, actually pondering the idea.

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While we waited we kept talking to Laura and Britney, then it was finally our turn. As we walked up to the three siblings my heart dropped into my stomach and my hands were literally shaking. I feared I wouldn't get out a single word.

But the boys were so sweet and I hugged all of them which was the best thing that happened to me like, ever. I nearly cried. We took our pictures.

I took out the original 'THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM?' painting that I had done, the one with the gas mask, and handed it to them.

"Here, I brought this for you. I painted it for... a project at school you could say. I wanted to give it to you."

Recognition crossed the boy's faces and they looked back at me.

"You are the band from that video!" Tyler, the lead singer, said and I felt like my heart stopped beating altogether.

"You saw it?"

"Yes, this morning! Everyone tweeted it at us. What you did was pretty cool." Maison, the drummer, said. Once again my heart stopped.

They talked about it with us for a while and I could literally not have gotten any happier. Lastly they signed our tour posters and then we were off.

"Keep making music! We'll look forward to seeing more of you!" Alex, the guitarist, called after us when we were leaving and I smiled like an idiot.

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The concert was indescribable, even better than the one the year prior. The pure energy in the room was enough to send me into a continuous high. We stood very close to the front, second row actually, which made the whole thing even better, considering the boys went down into the crowd several times during the concert.

"I don't know if you guys saw it but yesterday a video was uploaded to YouTube from a band crashing a speech about guns at their school. They covered one of our songs," Tyler said towards the end of the concert, "well, they're here tonight, here in the front," he pointed to us, "we met them earlier and they seem pretty cool. Anyway, this song is for them."

The New American Dream started playing and there were literal tears streaming down my face. This didn't just happen, this couldn't be, right? But the stunned and excited looks on my friend's faces told me that it must actually be happening.

Then the concert was suddenly over. The brothers started saying their goodbyes. Maison handed me a rose, one of the ones he handed out at the end of every concert, which made me cry even more. He didn't throw it into the crowd and I surprisingly caught it, no. He handed it to me. The boys came down once more into the crowd and gave out hugs, I received some more, then everything was suddenly over.

_____

I started crying harder when we had to leave the venue, as post-concert depression set in, but forced myself to contain myself, at least so I could sneak back inside without being noticed. Nate held the ladder for me and put it back into it's place once I was in. He waved at me as a goodbye and then I was alone with my thoughts.

_____

The next evening I had to sneak out once again, Nate picked me up and we went to Jace' house. We had liked the idea of recording more videos and decided rather spontaneously to record more. Julius helped us with the recording as well as possible, considering he was on the phone with us. Nate and Jace' had picked up some equipment he had lent us from him this morning, so we had something to work with and it was even better because Julius was already familiar with it.

We covered two songs, one slow song and one faster song, both were standard for us by now, we had covered them in music class multiple times.

To my surprise it was actually really fun to do it, even though it was also a bit complicated. Next time we definitely had to invite Julius to help us in person, so he could help better with all the technical stuff.

Just for a moment I allowed myself to let my imagination wander and have hope for a possible future of this band. I saw us playing on actual stages, with crowds like the one we had been in the day before. I realized, suddenly, that it was all that I wanted.

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Hullo :3

I just came here to tell you that in the next few weeks I'll actually stick to an upload schedule as I have edited quite a few chapters ahead and they're all ready to be uploaded. The schedule for now is new chapters on Mondays and Thursdays so stay tuned :>