The Come Up { Dropped }

Sprawled across 3 seats with his head resting on top of his bag, was a sleeping Seamus. He was brought out of his dreams, due to the bus driver's shaking. " Hey, Kid wake up!, last stop, Leeds"

Seamus jumped up straight with a fright and started patting himself down and touching his face, only to notice, the bus driver was giving him a puzzled stare " bad dream.....Thank you for waking me "

"Aye" The driver shook his head and walked off the bus, followed by a fumbling half-asleep Seamus.

After getting his bearings and finding the taxi rink at the station, he could only see one taxi waiting. " Where you heading lad?" The driver looked back using his rear-view mirror, seeing a young man climb into the back, with a rucksack.

Seamus started rummaging through his bag, past endless amounts of papers and some notebooks. " ah!" He pulled out a printed PDF page with the venue details. " Can you get me to L52 1DG, St Bernard Street"

" Sure thing... You're here for the festival too? "

" Uh ...Yeah, I'm performing as a supporting act, How did you know?" Seamus replied as he was organising his backpack.

" I've taken quite a few people there today ... performer you say, any tunes I've heard before?...you got a little Scottish twang in your voice, you from Scotland? My miss's is Scottish"

'Damm, a talker ' Seamus slumped back into the seat and conversed with the driver along the way to the venue.

....

" Ah, lad there's a massive traffic jam,tch.. this must be one hell of a festival "

Seamus looked out the window, to see convoy of cars wrapping around a corner, that was hidden by bushes and set of chain linked fences. 'Is this a prison'

"Yeh…. I think so" Seamus could his heart beat pumping a bit faster 'My first performance in this world… I've got to make this good'

An orchestra of car horns accompanied Seamus and the driver, as the taxi nugged along for the next 20 minutes. Seamus could only watch the rate climb up to nearly £20, he could hear his wallet screaming.

" Sorry Kid, I'm gonna have to drop you off here, I've got bookings to hit .... "

'Thank god' The taxi driver dropped Seamus off, outside the chain linked fences. Strapping his rucksack over his shoulders, he watched the driver struggled to leave the convoy, as multiple RV looking buses were going the opposite way.

'I need to get one of those' Seamus started walking down the pathway, past rows of disused industrial site buildings, some had parts of the roof missing or were tagged with graffiti, ' Is this were I die... damm, all this for 15mins' he gingerly kept following the traffic jam around the windy road, whilst avoiding meeting the weird stares directed at him, from the people inside their cars.

'Who puts a festival in an area like this!' After 20 minutes of walking, Seamus finally came around the corner and was greeted by the site of black massive stand with the words 'WEMX' plastered on the side in purple, and a large row people lined up next to black gates getting their tickets checked.

Seamus walked around the rows of people, to the area where the RV's where leaving and parked. He walked to a black t-shirt man with an organizer tag plastered on his shirt. " Hey, my name is Seamus Meonch, I am a support act, under the name Moench" He pulled out the paper prints showing his performer details.

The man stepped away with the paper from Seamus whilst talking into a walkie-talkie before returning " That's all good, just walk past those barriers, turn left and you'll come up to the performer area, there's other guys already in there… we are bit understaffed, so I can't take you there myself"

Seamus followed the organizers instructions ' Where is everyone' as he walked he was unable to find any other 'Organizers' around this area, only a few security guards walking around. As he turned left and walked past black curtains, he came into a medium sized room that had a few artists walking around. It was filled with speakers boxers, audio equipment and all sorts, with stairs that signaled to staging area.

The other artists didn't pay any attention when he walked in, Seamus could only find a speaker box to sit on, after reading the set timings that was next to the stairs. He pulled out his laptop wanting to recheck his music list for his set.

As he let out a yawn before starting, his eyes caught a group of three guys dressed in leather studied outfits practicing away in a corner, with black and white face paint. His eyes opened wide and his jaw extended to the floor. ' Is that KISS?'

His puzzled face didn't change as he kept looking at the group and booting up his laptop ' Do I know any KISS songs?' Seamus started trying to hum a tune and pulled out a notebook from his rucksack and started a writing score.

….

More and more People had begun lining up to queue at the festival entry gates, the grass had become mud under the feet of the crowds, but smiles could be clearly seen on their faces as they chatted and waited to get their tickets checked.

Near the entrance was a group of four casually dressed waiting like the rest.

Group member 1: "Hey doesn't this place look understaffed compared to InTWO festival last year?"

Group member 2: " Yeah but who cares! TenCairo are playing!"

Group member 3: " Sorry to kill you man, but TenCairo have pulled out! Checked their BlueBird"

Group member 2, quickly pulled out his phone and scrolled to the TenCairo, BlueBird page and read aloud to his friends ' To all our fans, due to a dispute with the WEMX Festival organizers, we have had to cancel our act, we want to apologise to all our TEN's who travelled to LEEDS! We will look to make it up to all of you '

Group member 2 looked at his friends with a look of disbelif " What the fuck is shit! Na i'm going home!"