DAYLIGHT FADING

twenty five | i no longer hear the music

I’m assured that by the end of the tour, the tour bus will no longer be the same colour, but I don’t really know how they manage that unless they plan on really messily murdering Matt, which is probably a possibility.

I brush my hair through with my fingers, slipping some Dr Martens on. I yank the Duffle bag next to me onto my shoulder, using far more force than is necessary given that it only contains my clothes for the show, my pedal board and an iPod. I blame it on the infamous I’ve-just-woken-up syndrome.

I hope no one photographs us coming off the tour bus because I probably look like death warmed over.

I’m not quite sure how I’m still tired after I’ve just been to sleep but apparently that seems to be a recurring theme of late. I really need something to make me feel awake, no matter what it is. Coffee doesn’t last long enough.

I would take to energy drinks, but too many of them make me feel sick. Not even music seems to be working anymore and that worries me. I was just listening to the band who said it best, after all.

If you’ve lost your faith in love and music the end won’t be long.

I haven’t even considered killing myself yet so hopefully I won’t be following that quote. If I’m going to end up killing myself, I’ll wait another seven years – it’s almost my twentieth birthday, after all.

Dylan and Declan are already out of the tour bus, Declan half in the compartment that holds all of our gear. He’s passing out circular cases to Dylan and I notice that there’s already a long hard case on the ground.

As much as Jez Wild laughed at them, I’m glad of the labels on my guitar cases. It means when it’s my turn to crawl in there then I’ll be able to pick out which guitar I want with semi-relative ease.

There’s a hysterical laugh and all of us turn to see Matt half staggering out of the tour bus, his pupils blown. Declan turns away with a sigh, resuming the task of getting the various pieces of his drum kit out of the bus.

I’m not quite sure why his reaction with me and drugs is different to that with Matt. Possibly because he’s still, understandably, pissed off about Matt’s newfound love of marijuana pushing Dylan’s brother off the deep end.

I haven’t found the courage to ask if Neil Levesque is dead or not.

Eventually, I grow bored of Matt’s wide-eyed laughter behind us and help grab the cases off Declan. It seems that the more famous a drummer gets, the more kit he lugs around.

I can’t help but notice that Declan scans my bare arms the first time he passes a case to me. It gives me more confirmation that Matt’s odd, completely round several bends behaviour that he’s gone for something stronger than weed. Given that it involves injection, I really hope he hasn’t jumped everything in between and gone for chasing Charlie.

I think I’d like to meet Matt when he is sober, one day, just to see what he is like. All of his emotions were dampened by the marijuana and he was just completely chilled out all the time because unlike me, his spliff was literally permanently attached to his mouth.

After Declan has finished taking down all of his cases I clamber up. Remembering Justin’s panic attack on the night of the after-party, before the madness that is Lyra Watson, I grab the three cases he is going to need for tonight’s show.

I then search around my tags, finding one of my beloved Fenders, a semi-acoustic and a Les Paul. I’ll need something to drop tune because you don’t do that on stage when people pay to come and see you.

Luckily, I listened to the planned set list for tonight. It means that I don’t grab more guitars, given that it seems we’re opening this tour with most of the songs in The Noise’s arsenal that don’t involve fucking around with your guitar tuning.