wb - a winged demon.

So right now I appear to be locked INTO my bus. AWESOME. Watching Dan In Real Life. Also, earlier today, I thought I had lost a $1000 money order and a scrap of paper with Andrew's handwritten SoCo lyrics on it for my new tattoo... guess which I was more freaked about losing? However, both were safe in my bunk. Sigh.

So long time no blog. I am currently eating my way through my newly-acquired stash of four Twix bars, a 100g block of Lindt 70% Intense Dark Chocolate, a 400g bag of M&Ms, Busy Bee Honey in a bear-shaped bottle, and a large packet of Wasabi Peas. Thank you very much Dan Lipski, for palming off Cobra's fan gifts on a hungry Australian. They seriously have a whole crate of candy under the bus that NO ONE is eating because of that stupid blog Gabe made about giving out his phone number. Anyway.

Today is the first off day we have had since Atlanta - that's a run of 12 days straight. Hence the no blogging... my brain has just been mushed up. I've checked emails etc, but I have not been able to actually sit down and think... however I have made notes about each day, and we'll have a bit of a photo post tomorrow.

Last time I wrote I was waiting to go to the TAI show at New Orleans House of Blues. We were 2nd row and it was pretty incredible, as a matter of fact it felt like the first time I had seen them all summer, despite watching their set sidestage every day. My little heart was about to explode and being there with my girls was just... perfect. Cobra and Gym Class were both great too. Amusing event of the day: Ziggy was unpacking the trailer and I asked if I could ride his bike around, as I often do at Warped, and he said yes and when I took it these girls in the line were like 'HEY SHE'S TAKEN YOUR BIKE' and he's all 'lol it's okay.' Oh deary me.

After the show, my girls drove through the night to get me back to the next Warped date - Atlanta. My girls, for the record, are: one of my best friends from England, Amy, a girl that Amy and I met over in the states last year called Lacey who is now also one of our best friends, and Megan.. Megan is someone I used to be super-close with, from England, Amy and her met through me and are now also very close. Megan and I were no longer close, you may call it the opposite. I thought it was going to either be awkward or bad having to spend time with her. Turns out we've remembered why we used to be best friends. No one expected it to happen but we're having a great time together and that's all that will be said about that - so I have 3 great friends over who are road-tripping along with Warped until Chicago. Amy and Lacey, however, have sunken down in the ranks as they have become obsessed with the Jonas Brothers. All that gets played in the car is Jonas Brothers, Camp Rock and Miley Cyrus... and they have a Jonas Brothers shrine on the dashboard of the car, ripped out of magazines. I think it's only half a joke. Megan and I just cringe in fear together. The only hilarious part is when Amy is pissy at Lacey, she calls her PaulKevin. Which is allegedly the proper name of the oldest one, like George Ryan Ross? "PaulKevin, what ARE you doing?"

Atlanta: Significant things were a Jack's Mannequin acoustic set where they played the Everley Brothers 'Dream', spending $40 on a cab to go get a pizza only to have the bus driver throw out the leftovers that I wanted to eat later so badly, and the arrival to the tour of two more friends!!! Both whom I met in the same place actually... when I was out on the Get A Life tour with The Used in April. Brian, who was doing merch for Army of Me and is ridiculously adorable, a complete affection whore, and the only straight guy I know who is as obsessed with Wentz as I am... he's here doing some sort of beer promotion til the 30th.. and the other is Will Noon, the drummer for Straylight Run who is just riding with The Color Fred for like 6 days to hang out. Will is the first person I have met in a really long time who challenges me... talking to him makes me think really, really hard. He's probably the smartest and most jaded person I know.

Orlando - Fran and Nettie, more English friends, are at the tour to go to the Florida/Canada dates. The Orlando venue was so lovely.. nothing special, just a field, but it was by a lake that had an old dock, a gazebo and a weird little cottage.. like a tiny picket fence with a rose garden and stuff.. but the little house was only about 5 feet by 5 feet. Bizarre. Hung out with Bill for a little while and Lacey was having this very emotional conversation with him and I was feeling so awkward because I was wearing only a bikini top and all I could think was I WISH I WAS WEARING A SHIRT RIGHT NOW. Some time in Florida I just gave up on actual clothes and all I wear every day is running shorts, bikini top and sometimes a teeshirt that I cut the sides out of. You would not believe how much cooler it keeps you when your under-arms are bare. Bus Call was realllllly late so I went and showered in the girls hotel and we got pizza and drove around.

St Pete - This was one of my fave days of tour so far. The venue was directly on this bay... and walking along the edge of it during the day, we saw DOLPHINS playing. Seriously. Lacey and I also fed a bunch of birds... gulls or something but for some reason we started calling them penguins and then couldn't stop. Raf and I built a giant sign to display set times. I mean giant, it was taller than me. Kevin Farewell rocked a Clan shirt onstage without knowing its Wentz connotations. Win. I spied on Jac Vanek. Let me say something about her - I am no fan of the idea of scene queens. I resent that she is 'famous' for... no reason except some internet buzz and I don't think she should try make a living off that. However, she's not trying to live it up on this tour. She looks as rough as most of us girls... she doesn't try dress up or anything, and goes to the parties in no makeup and what she was wearing that day. So for that, I say, good on you, Jac Vanek. I may actually buy one of your Punk Rock Summer Camp Shirts, though I would be more inclined if it didn't have your name visible in the middle of it. We The Kings, who play on our stage, had a million billion fans there who all crowded round the fence etc. Travis from WTK is very very good to fans, he'll go over like... as he walks offstage, no time to himself, and hang out til everyone is satisfied. We had a good show too, though Matt broke his guitar strap and accidentally swore onstage while explaining why they're not allowed to swear onstage (florida has some weird law about it.) He's like 'so we have to change the fucking words...' and his face was just PRICELESS, like a little kid. It wasn't even an 'accident' - it was genuinley automatic. I almost cried laughing. That night, as we were just in the middle of taking merch back to the van, it started raining and then pouring. Worse than the storm the night Steve kicked me on the bus... well, heavier rain.. the Kansas City storm was COLD and WINDY, this was just thick, warm, wet rain. It was pretty amazing actually... running back to my bus I recieved probably the most romantic, movie-moment kiss of my life (no, not going into it... but it's no one you know so who cares!) and then later I came back out into the rain in my swimsuit and showered. No joke, others were doing it and I grabbed a squirt of body wash and showered in the warm rain. It was truly amazing and there were dudes doing it butt-naked. I saw penises.. lucky it was raining so hard that I couldn't match faces to penises. Once it stopped raining... finally.. I ventured back outside in my rain boots and went for a wander. Discussed the newly released TAI album cover picture with Jack, Buddy Farewell and I broke down a fence, and eventually Kiss in the Rain boy, his friend, and I went in a cab to a grocery store to get some supplies for the next 10 days of tour. We were served by the most amazing girl who was wide-eyed at how 'cool' we were for working on Warped and gave us huge discounts - like took $15 off my small bill and $40 off the boys massive one. She couldnt attend Warped because she had to work and had a baby at home (she looked 17, emo and pierced) and she loved TAI and I just... wow. I was so amazed that she thought we were so awesome when she was clearly the awesome one.

Miami - I hated this day. It was humid and hot and then it rained during the day on and off which was just annoying. Though the bands had HUGE crowds - TAI had a giant crowd, the Spiders had a good one too. Oh, let me tell you though... I did my first bit of crowd control that day, these super-excited dudes were side stage and like trying to grab picks off the stage while the set was going on. I repeatedly moved them back and told them I'd get them something after the set. At one point, I had to jump offstage and get more water for my keyboardist. I come back and the two boys are WRESTLING ON THE GROUND grabbing at a pick and almost tripping up my guy and unplugging gear. I pretty much drag them up by the hair and my stage manager throws ALL the sidestage watchers off. When the guys are done, we're packing up and this pack of kids keeps edging closer and eventually I go over and say hey, guys, its just me and the band, im all the crew they have so we have to just get packed up and then they'll come over. Can you wait by the fence? And they just kept creeping up. It was very odd, we have people come to the signings but there aren't usually that many people at the stage. It happened on the main stages too... Cobra and TAI both had huge mobs waiting for them. Apparently it was all the Music Saves Lives people.. the blood donation? They had a LOT of people that day so there were hundreds of kids backstage. I also saw the most ridiculous thing happen... alright on this tour I have witnessed a lot of stupidity, a lot of it comes from venue security. So this woman had been told that after a certain point no pink wristbands (that was the MSL bands) were allowed through. This girl is at the gate being all 'my car is back there. I was working today. I just had this one as well.' - and it was true, she was wearing 3 wristbands - a VIP, a Vendor, and an MSL. and like.. seriously. All this security guard could process was 'no pink' and so even though the girl was wearing two ALL ACCESS bands, because she had this other wristband on, she wasnt allowed through. To take the stupidity one step further, she says 'okay what if i take the pink one off?' and the guard is all 'then you'll be allowed through. i was told no pink.' really. really! do some people just not have brain function? I wont even go into the rest of the night.. all I wanna say is that it was shitty and I got into a terrible, awful mood which did improve just before bus call but I was like a wreck for about 4 hours.

Elkton - This is apparently near Jacksonville. It was a field. With a covered sand horse arena in it, which was actually nice to sit under. It was also Amy's 21st!! I got really sick early in the day... I was carrying the sign and I got nauseous and almost passed out, had to go sit on the floor of the bathroom for like an hour. No idea why. Had a shower that day but the water smelled weird like sulpher... Amy said when she drunk some from the tap that it tasted like blood. Bizarre. Will's last day and I hate when people leave this tour. Sigh. Another fucking weird night.

Charlotte - Everyone was so stoked to leave Florida. No offence. It's just the worst part of Warped Tour, so sweaty. I loved North Carolina instantly on principle... it wasn't Florida! Venue was a bit of a clusterfuck, especially carrying the sign and wheeling my cart.. I beasted a lot of people, and by the end I wasn't even making an effort not to. TAI had a really, really amazing show that day in case you care... it was Farewell's hometown show which was so cool, Tori and I stood in front of the barrier and were all proud. 'I was beaming, truly, like someone's mum!' Haha. These kids had a sign saying Welcome Home and I actually teared up at that. That night we had a tour outing to the movies... we saw The Rocker and they gave us all this free stuff like bandanas, obviously the movie was free too. It's so, so much like camp, with these like, organized events and things to keep us sane. The movie was okay but would have been better if it had more of the funny lines and less of the slapstick... but Americans seem to need that, rather than wit. Mara, Tori and I were all swooning over Teddy Geiger, who plays the lead teenager in the band. There was a lot of arm squeezing going on and a few big jokes missed cause we were too busy gossiping about how fine he had just looked. Sigh. We are 14.

Virginia Beach - again, a fave of the tour so far. TAI were first so I watched them from the barricade which was kind of awkward but cool purely for the sound quality. Love. The venue was so weirdly cool, had this artificial lake in the private VIP bar area, toilet seats shaped like guitars, and a strange forest path that I got 'lost' in when I wanted to go off by myself for a while. I lined up a new job that day, for after the Spiders leave on the 20th... doing merch and running about for Four Year Strong. Should be cool. They share a bus with Kiss in the Rain boy and the people he works for, who are now my friends.. and while I won't be riding there, I am sure I will be hanging out there a lot. I actually rode with them that night because my bus wanted to leave early and there was a HUGE party going on that night - Gabe was dj-ing and the dudes from 30H!3 had about 150 people in a circle watching them dance. The bunks on the Four Year Strong bus are so much more comfortable than my own, sigh, I will have to crash with them as much as possible.

Columbia, MD - I HATED this day really badly. The venue was like... all over a bunch of hills, and the venue security were the worst yet. I don't mind being stopped to show my pass. That's just normal. What pisses me off is when they stop you when you're already 6 feet past you. They're not paying attention, you're on your way and they YANK you back. It sounds like not such a big deal but when it's 15 times a day... it's just irritating. While I was holding the sign some girls came up and took a picture with it... alright then. Discovered there was a mall close by! Very exciting! Went there for lunch and sorted out my phone. I also saw Bill get MOBBED by kids as he went through the park from their stage to the other main stage to go on with Jacks. Like, walking along and 25 kids run up behind him, one of whom grabs him around the waist from behind and almost knocks him over. Me and Megan were both just staring in shock when he turned around and was just lovely, told them he had to go but hugged a bunch of them and just.. wow. When I am touched unexpectedly I tend to lash out and I guess he's kinda used to it but I have never seen people treat him like that at TAI shows and it was kind of painful to watch. When we were onstage for Jacks I asked if he was okay and that I'd seen, and he made a squiggly face and shrugged. After the Jacks set, we found Amy and Lacey and the four of us and Bill talked for a while behind the stage, one of those long, ridiculous conversations filled with the most stupid quotes and everyone is trying not to crack up. Loves it. I flailed over Andrew really badly to Bill as well, because when I went to Andrew to try say bye (they only had a few days left and I figured he'd be busy) he was all 'STFU, sweetheart, it's not time to say bye, come hang with us, any time, at the bus any night.' and I'm just dead right there. me: 'that mannn. makes me die. this is me dying.' bill: 'isnt that a band on this tour?' me: 'no you just invented that. you should make that band as a joke' bill: 'i should make an joke emo band?.... *long pause later* i already have an emo band' - at which i proceeded to re-arrange his hair into an emo fringe.

Cleveland - I loved this day. Just a very good one. Got a visit from a long-time internet friend, good venue, got some free shirts, the TAI mainstage was actually inside a tent thing on a big permanent stage and Andrew came on with them, I had a really long shower during the day, and I ended up having a good night as well. There was an offsite party that I intended to go to and then I just got in this weird mood and didn't want to any more. I was talking to Tori on her bus as she was getting ready to go, we hung out in there for a while with Matt (one of Katy's band) and Suarez, and I was still being indecisive about the party. the Jacks bus was the next one along and a few people were hanging out beside it. Andrew spots me when I came out of the Katy Perry bus and waves his arms over his head, yelling come say hi! So, I did, and ended up staying there til midnight. He tried to get me stoned, ha, and it was just nice hanging out with good people and chatting. There was a beautiful moon rise which he rambled about and I nodded and said 'yeah' a lot as I was not stoned. Bill and Jack came around for a bit and, well, were Bill and Jack, except for Jack not wearing a shirt. I repeatedly told him to go put one on and my favorite quote of the night was Bill saying to him 'do it, man, she's not attracted to you.' Bill's such a bloody sweetheart, you may have noticed on this blog that I am the dude's biggest fan, but I don't care. He's the most sincere guy I've ever met and he's so awkward in social situations. Took my hand after this random stoned girl introduced herself to him, and whispered 'i dont like this..' and im like 'dont like what?' and he said 'random social.. things', asked why he'd come over and he said to smoke with Andrew but he didn't know there would be so many people around. Then.. 'YOU are always welcome wherever i am, in fact its quite refreshing to see you every day but i don't care for any of these other people.' Not going to lie, I died a little at that, but told him to leave if he felt uncomfortable. Eventually Andrew took him on the bus to smoke and he hung around a while longer, the group got smaller and we ended up inside the bus singing along to Fat-Bottomed Girls by Queen. My life, let me confusedly show you it.

Detroit: Was at a baseball stadium. Had many huge statues of growly cats. Met another internet friend, someone I adore who I've never met, and she brought me the most amazing brownies ever created. She's a fantastic cook. The Spiders played first but had a big crowd and while I was carrying the sign I had like so many people ask where they were at and so many people follow me over to the stage. It was probably the best show they'd done so far, even though it was 11:15am. They killed it. Afterwards, this fan who was backstage and knew them a bit gave them what I thought was bags of jellybeans and m and ms, all different pink and white sweets and I'm like awww cute. In cellophane bags wrapped up with ribbons. Ben and I finish packing up the guitars and we're like sweet, jellybeans and Matt is giggling like a child and says 'it's not jellybeans... it's Vicodin.' and sure enough, the sweets were just a cover for getting in drugs. There were pills mixed into the bags of sweets. I couldn't believe it, the girl was about 15 and no one in the band had asked her to do it. It was pretty smart, but seriously! I distributed brownies to my friends and favorites.. Ziggy, my fave tour security guard Chris, Wil and Buddy Farewell, Farewell's stage manager cause he got jealous, Casper, and a few others. The girls and I had a hilarious lunch at Johnny Rockets where the waiter flirted with me and I abused him. I got asked about 20 thousand times if the brownies had drugs in them... I'm not even going to write about what happened with Cobra that day except that I don't think I'm the only person on Warped who's not thrilled with Gabe.. whatever. That night I drove with Lacey and the girls into Canada and CAN I JUST SAY NO ONE TOLD ME THAT CANADA WAS LIKE, IN DETROIT? I thought that we'd have like... a 3 hour drive to the border. BUT NO. THE BORDER CROSSING WAS IN DETROIT. 10 MINS FROM THE VENUE. We were all extremely confused and a lot of people made fun of us.

CANADIA.

Toronto: woke up after sleeping in the car on the floor between the front and back seats. oh yes i travelled like this in a moving car. Toronto was just... horrible. Just awful. First of all the nearest business to the venue was a strip club that advertised '69 hot girls.. and one ugly one.' no joke. But it sucked mainly because it started insanely raining at about 5pm and all the stages got shut down. The only decent thing about the whole day was that Casper put me and mine in the 'special' part of the stage to watch Jacks - like the far side, usually all I can see is the back of Andrew's head as they don't spread people across the back for Jacks. It was lovely and we all cried including Megan who has never listened to Jacks, she's just been blown away by how people react to the music. Farewell, because they are brave, brave idiots, kept playing their acoustic set on a stage that was being flooded. Like they kept edging back til they were literally at the back of the stage and the whole stage floor was wet and the tent roof had loads of water building up and sporadically gushing off it. I thought they were going to be electrocuted and my dear Wil looked like he wanted to kill himself. I ended up bolting into the gear truck because the rain finally got too much, and finally they gave up on trying to play and cleared off too. Oh, not before Buddy, the idiot, who was still hopping around like he always does, slipped and fell flat on his back during the last song. I almost screamed, what with that and the cords all over the stage being soaked I thought someone would get hurt. All my lessons about Occupational Health and Safety at shows from when I was studying Music Business were going through my head. Another minor heart attack when they went back out to try take the stage down and Marshall was climbing up the thing in the pouring rain, balancing on a railing 8 feet in the air and not holding on to anything while dismantling their backdrop. Bloody idiots. We watched the Bouncing Souls from the back of the truck and then I ended up making a break for it back to the big hall where catering was and sitting there for hours. After I got changed and the rain died down a little, I went for a work, was given the aforementioned candy by Lipski, and went to see the art display that was going on in the Higher's trailer. It was really quite rad. I talked to Butcher for quite a while about one of his paintings that he's currently displaying at the TAI merch booth, and met a few new lovely people.

Montreal - was better than Toronto, another really good day despite rain at that one. It was quite a few people's last day on the tour though, which was so incredibly sad... my band for one, Jacks for another. Very close to saying bye to Farewell too. I ate two ice cream cones for lunch. Ha. Also the last day I was going to see my girl Fran, til god knows when. Last day hanging out with the Hurley stage guys, last day unloading the truck. They are carrying the Bouncing Souls gear on that truck right now and I unloaded all their guitars which was exciting for me. Watched TAI from barrier as they played first and afterwards William thanked me for doing it. Hearts. Watched Jacks from the crowd/photo pit. Photographed Farewell's set. Wandered to look at the weird-ass BioDome that was part of the park the venue was in. Tried to catch a ground hog for a pet... they were EVERYWHERE on the lawns near the buses, fat little things and I want to cuddle one. Was shocked at the kids who didn't speak english.. I know they speak French in Montreal but I assumed they all spoke english too. Clearly not. Matt was having fun as he actually speaks it. Learnt about the iPhone and I shall be getting one when I go home. Spiders played last. By the way, want to know what I actually did for a job? Right this is a day with the Pink Spiders:

Get up at 8. Go to catering. Go to the stage. All the gear is in a big truck. There is a truck manager, he's sweet as sugar and his name is Large. Get in a line inside the truck and recieve a piece of gear to wheel/carry out as he unpacks it. I am the only girl that does this. But no one treats me badly. I talk to the Pierce the Veil guys every morning. Vic is the sweetest ever and likes to hug me and the bass player with the hair always teases me about my accent but always does it English. I have told him I am not English but he now does it as English as possible to tease me even more. So we unload the truck, while this is happening at some point we recieve the running order so we know where to place the gear - everyone has a tent along the back of the stage. Stack the gear neatly, if we play early-ish set up the guitar boat and get out all the guitars. Once this is done, if we play early I go and carry the giant sign around, if not I go chill out/wash, and I go to production to get our daily allowance of beer and case of water. Catering is 12-2. I usually send Jeff our merch guy to lunch at midday and when he gets back I go get lunch for Matt and sometimes the others - Matt pretty much never comes out of the van and he's diabetic so I'm super super fussy about making him eat. When it's time to play, I go to the stage - get there when the previous band is still playing. They get their gear off, we get ours on. I always do mic stands first, plug in the mics - we use our own white mic stands, and Matt uses his own mic as well, so I have to change that all over.. get the drums up, Matt and Raf's fans, and put water out. Get Raf's guitar that he plays with and hold his spare. They play... Matt talks so fast I can never understand what he is saying onstage. Ben is a complete laugh, messing around, strutting around in circles and doing completely over the top moves and jumps. Raf always plays a little bit of a different Ben Folds song every day when the sound guy is checking his keyboard amp. Joe makes faces at me throughout the whole set and tries to make me laugh. I always get scared of Matt falling off the stage or off the drums because he seems unsteady on his feet all the time. They finish, I grab Raf and Ben's guitars, put them on the boat, get back onstage and take the gear off. Start packing it all up, once it is done, we load it back into the truck straight away with Large. During the day we do a signing too... before or after they play, depending on set time. I'm usually around for that, I get them dinner if they want me to and cover Jeff for dinner. I hang out in merch, sometimes I help break down or babysit the stuff while Jeff takes a load back to the van. Sometimes they leave early if they play early, to start driving, and I do merch for the afternoon, break down myself and put the gear on the big Cinderblock merch truck. That's... about it.

Anyway so they played last, we packed the gear back into their own van as they were leaving, hung around the stage crew for a while before I convinced them to come to the barbeque, as it was Sumo Sunday (yes, that is how it sounds... we have an ongoing sumo suit tournament) and Matt wanted me to introduce him to Andrew. So off we went and they were all THIS IS THE GREATEST EVER WE SHOULD HAVE COME EVERY NIGHT. Sigh. Anyway I introduced them to various people and Matt gave Andrew a bottle of Jager and the burnt copy of the newly completed new Pink Spiders record, as he really wants to support Jacks on their fall tour. He came away from the conversation being like 'that is the nicest dude i have ever met in my life' and babbling about how they had been on the same label at some point and hand mutual friends and im like YES THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THE VAN. Well, at least they did on their last night. Eventually they left me, and then a couple hours later Andrew and Casper left me, which was fucking painful. and then Tori and I went and sat on her bus and talked and giggled about things. Then back to the USA - this was border control - 'NAT GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR BUNK THEY NEED TO SEE YOUR FACE' *sticks head out* 'okay go back to sleep' - lol.

Well I have been writing this blog approximately all day and my hands hurt from typing. I am in Manchester, New Hampshire. I am very clean from my 90 minute shower. I am now very tired as it is 2am. Read this. I shall try post shorter, more frequent blogs from now on. We have another day off tomorrow, yippee. And then... a new era of Warped Tour. An Andrew-less, Spider-less, Farewell-less, Four Year Strong-filled era. It's half-way over now. Wow.