On the first day of eleventh grade, my Dad picked me and my friend, Alexandra, up from school and drove us to Atlanta to see 5 Seconds of Summer, live for the first time. I had been to concerts before, but none like this–the songs that I had listened to over and over, that I drove around wasting gas so I could hear through good quality speakers (because my cheap Walmart earbuds just didn’t do them justice), would be played before me, live and in person, by four young men that I deeply idolized. The concert was magical and loud, and I wailed through it the whole time, as one does. The effervescence in the amphitheater took me over, so much that the sticky nighttime August air didn’t bother me. I couldn’t tell if the moistness on my cheeks was sweat or tears, but because 5 Seconds of Summer was on the stage in front of me, it didn’t matter.
After the encore, we wandered through the parking lot looking for my Dad. I looked around the sea of teenage girls, whose cheeks were rosy with satisfaction, their hands strongly clenched around signed posters and rolled t-shirts. I felt an overwhelming melancholy fall over me as I watched the venue staff file in for set take-down. I had never felt more insignificant than I did in that moment–I was merely a small, forgotten blip in the livelihood of the band that I wrote about in lengthy threads on Tumblr. Seeing concert-goers be herded out of the venue like cattle made me realize that I was just a part of the machine–what felt like my moment with the band had ended as quickly as it started, and they were off to have another moment, with another twenty thousand screaming girls who probably felt the exact same way I did. I had never been so devastated by the prospect of being just like everyone else.
It’s not that I believed I would be spotted in the bloodiest of nosebleeds and invited to become part of their entourage, but I guess the definite elimination of that as a possibility was more detrimental to my self-esteem than I thought it would be. That night, as I lay in the crisp bed of an Atlanta Marriott, I wondered what it was like to be in their world. I wanted to shake the feeling off of me that I was destined to have a one-sided moment with every musician I would ever love.
In the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, when I was still just as much of a 5 Seconds of Summer fangirl (but had less time to exclaim it to strangers on the internet), my parents gave me a job. I was feeling a little lost at the time–while many of my friends were about to embark on study abroad journeys or had accepted exciting summer internships, I was panicking. I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to spend my summer, and the prospect of being left with no direction was terrifying. When nepotism saved the day, I immediately took the opportunity. It gave me a direction to run for the summer, one that bobbed and weaved across the East coast of the United States.
The job was simple. Ride along on a tour bus with an indie rock band, shoot photos and videos to document the tour, and run the merch table at every show. My initial response to the proposal was how painstakingly unqualified I was for the position. I am no photographer. I am no saleswoman. And perhaps the most obvious of all, I was nowhere near the level of cool required to be on tour with a band, one that’s been all over the world and rubs shoulders with people I read about on gossip websites and gush over with my friends.
But, according to my parents, who were managing the band and had been left with the task of putting said tour together, I liked music and Instagram, which meant I was perfect for the job.
Growing up with parents in the music business, I spent a lot of time fielding comments like I bet you have so much fun! or That sounds super interesting or How many famous people have you met? In reality, I spent most of my “star-studded childhood” being smuggled into the back of bars when my grandparents couldn’t babysit, munching on chicken strips and playing Tetris on my Dad’s Blackberry while he scouted talent, and sitting on the couch of his studio while he tuned the same fragment of a vocal for three hours straight, because there was an ooh that wasn’t quite right. The vision that most people got when they found out what my parents did for a living aligned more with the euphoria that comes with being in a packed venue, hearing all your favorite songs being shouted by everyone in the room. What I saw wasn’t that at all, but instead, something that was incredibly boring and, dare I say it, not glamorous.
However, there were lots of things about being on tour that I really liked. For the first time, I saw things the same way that my friends did when I told them what my parents did for work. I got a sense of overwhelming power from being part of a “crew”, and having a magic badge that granted me immunity from the obstacles of a regular audience member. I got to watch the people in line at the merch table, fluttering with excitement as they waited for their CDs to be signed. I was in a little bubble, soaking up the chatter and camaraderie of a bunch of strangers that were united solely by a band that they all happened to love. I got to witness all the mini moments happening in the audience, just like the same one I had in a sweaty Atlanta amphitheater, with four moppy haired Australians in skinny jeans and dirty Vans.
I loved the jolt I got from elbowing my way through the sea of people outside of the venue waiting for rides, whipping open the door to the bus, and stepping inside, before latching it closed and zipping off to the next city. I loved nestling into my bunk after a long night, and being rocked to sleep by the tandem work of the engine’s vibration and bends in the interstate. The same depression that came with wandering a venue parking lot after the encore, the one that dove almost as deeply as the concert soared, never came. It barely had the chance before I went to sleep, woke up, and did everything all over again.
In Columbus, Ohio, I overheard a group of girls talking as I walked past them, their words slurring from all the fruity cocktails they’d consumed through the night.
“I wonder where they’re going.”
Above all else, I loved being someone that was wondered about.
However, being on the bus, and spending time with the people I was being wondered about with, wasn’t something I loved as much. The band, who had millions of record sales and a few Grammy awards between them, spent the time they weren’t performing huddled together, puffing on Juul pens and comparing notes on which Hollywood mansion had the best view of the city. They were your typical “Avocado People”, LA transplants who exclusively wore a trade-off between black leather and black denim, regardless of the season, and would ramble on about how eliminating gluten “changed their life”, but minutes later go into a painfully long anecdote about how Jennifer Anniston’s private chef makes the best sourdough rolls.
They were in a constant state of preening their feathers, dealing stories that they thought would make them look more important like they were Uno cards. This specific quirk of said “Avocado” people, their name-dropping and imaginary allergies and non-climate-appropriate way of dress, was something I could look past, something that amused me, something I could sneak away from at a truck stop and laugh about with my friends over the phone.
The thing I couldn’t look past, however, was the way this quirk made them interact with the outside world. The way they treated servers at restaurants, our driver, or anybody who wasn’t in their Avocado club, made me recoil, the way you do when you swallow a shot of cheap Vodka and don’t want to look like a total loser, so you pass on the chaser.
I wanted so badly to see them the same way every audience did night after night. Starry eyes, enveloped in a thick layer of joy as they watched magic being made on stage. But I couldn’t see past the gluten-free leather facade, and the more time I spent with them, the more the glittery sheen wore off, and the harder it was for me to believe in their music. Whenever I would accompany them to radio stations and watch them chat with the DJs, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that the whole point of making appearances and taking interviews is for fans to get to know the person behind the music they’re listening to. Knowing an artist is supposed to make you appreciate the art more, which is why things like radio stops and social media are considered an investment. My whole job was centered around capturing moments that made them more likable and feeding it to the internet, where it would get likes and comments and, if all went as planned, more record sales.
Except, this phenomenon happened for me in reverse. The further back I pulled the curtain, the more disillusioned I became with the image I was being paid to portray on the internet. I started to wonder if this was the same story for every artist I had ever loved–if I were to pull the curtain on 5 Seconds of Summer, or anyone else that took up megabytes of my iTunes, would I like what I saw? Was everyone that had ever been touched by stardom an Avocado Person by proxy? The thought ate me up inside.
I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t happy, that I didn’t like what I was doing. I didn’t want to disappoint my friends, with whom I was sharing day-to-day updates, or my parents, whose livelihoods were tied to the project. After all, the magic wand of nepotism had granted me this opportunity, one that on paper looked like the adventure of a lifetime, one that I yearned for as a fifteen-year-old fangirl. I was scared of what would happen if I betrayed the story I was portraying on social media–was I a total sell-out for participating in something that made me this miserable?
In response to all these feelings, I ran. Every day off, every stop we made, every time the bus driver clicked on the brakes, I’d peel off from the group and go do my own thing. While they were getting açai bowls or playing pool, I would go to museums, sit in coffee shops, or find a local antique mall to explore. I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to feeling like the non-Avocado person, who had an ample amount of gluten in their diet and didn’t play any instruments. The truth of the matter was that these were the moments I cherished most on the whole tour, the time I had to be with myself, to do what I wanted, to be me, and not some version of me that I had to put on so that I would be well-liked.
My favorite stop on the tour was the day we got to spend in Rhode Island. I fell in love with the brisk salty air, and the way the houses looked like little pastel shoe boxes, each with its own unique landscaping and porch decor. Our driver took us on a mini-tour of the town, concentrating all the tourist hot spots into one day. We stopped at a beachfront inn that was a popular wedding location. Its appeal was no mystery, the back lawn opened up to a cliff that overlooked the grey ocean, waves crashing up against brown rocks and mingling with the yellow-green brush that grew in between them. For the first time in weeks, I had come face to face with something that felt real, not layered in filters or hashtags that conditioned me to see something that I knew it wasn’t.
Coming to terms with the fact that I had to quit was difficult, but it was a conversation that was necessary and relieving. Once again, I had broken off from the band and found a gift shop in Ann Arbor that had free wifi. I called my stepmom and explained to her the truth, which was that I was miserable, that this life wasn’t meant for me, and that I wanted to hop off at the show in Lexington, the one nearest to my hometown that would allow me to easily get back. The fear I had built up about saying no pleasantly surprised me by granting me power. I quit. For one of the first times in my life, the words that I had considered synonymous with failure came to mean something quite the opposite. They were magic, they were freedom, if you could see them spill out of my mouth, I can almost promise they’d sparkle with fairy dust.
Also a pleasant surprise, my parents weren’t disappointed in me, but glad I had given it a try, happy that I had said yes in the first place. They were understanding, and so were the Avocado People, although I’m sure they never gave me a second thought after I stepped off of that bus. Even if I didn’t end up taking to road life as I had hoped, I was still thankful I welcomed it with a yes. After all, it gave me the cradle of a rolling bunk, the awareness that I have the power to walk away, and the revelation that sometimes artists are best left in a shroud of mystery.
These days, I much prefer being in the audience. I like to be pushed, to wait in line, viewing the artists I admire as nothing more than artists, blissfully unaware of the quirks that make them asshole divas. I like to wonder where they’re going as they get onto their own bus after the show, and also appreciate the time I had with them, right where I was at.