Kitabı oku: «One Way or Another»

For J.A & J.O

Chapter One: Out of the frying pan, into the crowd

They say when you can’t find something, the first thing you should do is look for it in the last place you remember seeing it. Well, the last time I saw the thing I have misplaced, he was up on stage performing some of his greatest hits in front of 50,000 screaming fans. I am, of course, talking about super-famous rockstar Dylan King – best known for being the lead singer in The Burnouts, less known for being my best friend.

We first met when I was just starting out as a music journalist and he made it his mission to sleep with me. He pulled out all the stops to impress me, but the harder he tried, the harder I resisted and I’m so glad that I did because I’d rather have him as a friend than a famous notch on my bedpost. There are downsides to being his best friend, though. Dylan is what you’d call a liability, and despite his fame and his ability to sell records, his record label know that he can be unpredictable and they’re constantly telling him to watch his behaviour – this is like telling a bull to ignore the colour red because Dylan only views their warnings as a challenge to see just how far he can push them, and one day he will push them too far. That’s where I come in. I’m a Dylan wrangler. I’m the only one who is always there in the background, regulating his rebellious behaviour and making sure he doesn’t take things too far. I’m the one who makes sure he is on time for sound checks, the one who makes sure he carries condoms and the one who always tries to make sure there is at least a little blood in his alcohol stream. The reality is that Dylan, Dill as I call him, is almost always drunk, has little respect for women and thinks that he is God. Still, I love him to bits, and I’m happy to do all the things his tour manager is paid to do. It’s not that Claire doesn’t do her job well, it’s just that Dylan doesn’t listen to her.

Speaking of Claire, I spotted her in the press tent not too long ago, so I wander over to see if she has any idea where Dylan is.

‘Hey, Claire, how’s it going?’

‘Nicole, hello. Not bad, although your boy is drunk,’ she replies.

Why is it that he’s my boy when he does something wrong? I don’t get the credit or the big pay cheques when his sell-out tours go well.

‘When isn’t he?’ I joke. ‘Have you seen him since he came off stage?’

‘Oh yes. It was immediately after he came off stage, actually. He asked me if I had heard of his band and then he tried to kiss me.’

I burst out laughing, although Claire isn’t amused. All these years she’s worked for him, and he still doesn’t recognise her when he’s smashed. Then again, when Dylan is smashed he is capable (or not capable in some cases) of anything.

‘Mikey is just doing an interview, why don’t you ask him?’ Claire suggests. ‘And when you do find Dylan, tell him I need a word.’

I decide to hang around and wait for Mikey, Dylan’s younger brother/bandmate. Mikey is probably more talented than Dylan, but Dylan has the balls needed to be a front-man. Mikey isn’t quite as tall, dark or handsome as his brother ‒ and he doesn’t misbehave quite as spectacularly ‒ so he is often overshadowed by his older sibling. Mikey is happy, so long as he is strumming his guitar and writing incredible songs for Dylan to sing.

I have been working in the music industry for a long time now – and hanging around with musicians for even longer – which is probably what makes me the most qualified when it comes to looking after Dylan, more so than his tour manager or his own brother. I was a young, impressionable teen when I made friends with my first band, and if you hang around with rockstars for long enough, their bad behaviour is bound to rub off on you, which is why I am so savvy when it comes to bands, but so crap at living in the real world and being an adult. I can tame rockstars, interview the most difficult celebrities and make my face of make-up last for several days when I disappear on tour without warning. Real life though, I’m not great at that. Despite being in my twenties, my bedroom walls are still covered with posters of bands, my cooker is nothing but extra storage space for my clothes and relationships with normal guys are just not something I’m interested in. I like my relationships to be fleeting and newsworthy – not that I’d ever kiss and tell. That’s another reason Dylan relies on me, because he knows I’ll keep my mouth shut about everything that happens on the road. The bottom line is that even though I’m a disorganised drama-magnet who is always running late, I am an invaluable asset to a touring band, thanks to my years of experience.

‘Yo, Mike,’ I call out as soon as he is done taking questions.

‘Hey, Nic. Did you enjoy the show?’

‘I did,’ I tell him – and I mean it. I watched it from down in the photo pit, that’s the best seat in the house. Well, the best standing position in the field, this is the Rockin’ Radio Summer Roadshow after all – a one-day festival that takes place in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere, with only the best of the best from the music biz invited to perform.

‘You haven’t seen Dylan, have you?’ I ask.

‘Nope. He ran off stage as soon as we finished our set and that was the last I saw of him.’

I noticed that he ran off pretty sharp-ish too. One minute he was thanking the audience for being the best crowd ever (like he always does) and the next he was gone. Just like that.

A worried look spreads across my friend’s face – he knows Dylan, he knows what he’s like – he knows that finding him might not be that easy.

‘No worries, dude. I’ll have a look around, he’ll be here somewhere.’

Mikey doesn’t seem very comforted by my words, but that’s about as much reassurance as I can fake right now. I know that Dylan gets distracted by things (usually girls) and wanders off, and when he does he can be a nightmare to find. I won’t panic yet though, not until I’ve looked everywhere.

I flash my pass so that I can search all the different backstage areas, but Dylan is nowhere to be seen. Even more worryingly, no one but Claire can recall seeing him since he was on stage.

I run my hands through my long blonde hair and let out a sigh of exasperation, but then something catches my eye – a little door hidden behind a huge security bloke. That’s the door that goes out into the crowd. We drove straight into the backstage area, so there would be no need for Dylan to go through that door, in fact it would be quite stupid for Dylan to go through that door because he would be mobbed by adoring fans.

‘Excuse me, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Dylan King from The Burnouts since he came off stage, have you?’ I ask – it can’t hurt to ask, can it?

‘Are you kidding?’ he asks, his tough-guy expression melting into a huge grin. ‘He signed my abs!’

The big security guy pulls up his shirt and shows me his pen-marked stomach. The signature is all wiggly from where the pen has passed over the contours of his impressive eight-pack, but it’s definitely Dylan’s autograph.

‘Awesome, you can cover that back up now,’ I tell him, a little freaked out by all the muscle and the fact he wanted Dylan to put a pen to it. ‘So where did he go?’

‘Out there,’ he tells me, gesturing towards the little door behind him with his thumb.

‘Into the crowd?’ I ask, unable to hide my fear.

‘Yeah.’ He laughs manically. ‘I told him not to.’

So let me get this straight, a very drunk Dylan King has ventured out into the 50,000-strong crowd. The man can’t even go to Starbucks without getting mobbed, why would he think this was a good idea? What’s even more worrying is that, if we say half of the crowd are female, that’s 25,000 girls he could potentially… get distracted by.

Oh, Dylan, why do you make my job so difficult? This isn’t even my job, I’m a journalist. That’s the real reason I’m here today, to cover the event, not to hand-hold the elusive Mr King. Somehow I always end up doing both.

It’s 6 p.m. now. I’ll have a quick glance around the crowd for movement – any movement that looks like a rockstar being mobbed – and if I still haven’t found him… Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.