The Takeover

by Oli White

  ‘Austin, what is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet so far on this trip. It’s nothing to do with you guys, it’s … I’ve actually been getting really anxious about everything we’re doing here. It sounds stupid, but I’ve been, like, worrying about whether we can even pull it off, do you know what I mean?’

  I knew exactly what he meant, but it was a shock hearing it from Austin. He was the one who seemed to have the endless supply of confidence. He’d always been the one to deliver a shot of self-belief when I needed it.

  ‘We all go through moments like that, don’t we?’ I said. ‘I get nervous too, but at the end of the day I know we’ll pull it off because we’re a brilliant team.’

  Austin nodded. ‘Deep down I know that, but …’

  ‘And you’re the brains of that team, Austin, as scary as that sounds.’ I laughed, trying to lighten the moment. ‘You can’t let all this negative stuff with Jess cloud that, mate.’

  Austin looked down at his feet. ‘You know, Jess is my first real girlfriend. Most of the way through school I was, like, the nerdy one who none of the girls were interested in.’

  ‘I get that,’ I said. ‘But to be honest, it’s probably her making you feel crap about yourself all the time that’s causing a lot of this anxiety about the festival. So if you’re not happy with her, then maybe it’s time to call it a day.’

  ‘The problem is, I can’t bring myself to think about doing that at the moment, J. It does my head in even considering it.’

  ‘OK, fair enough,’ I said. ‘It’s hard, but maybe for the moment, the best thing would be to put all the Jess stuff out of your mind. Just focus on the task at hand.’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’m certainly gonna try.’

  ‘OK. Shall we get some drinks for everyone and head back?’ I said, glancing at my phone. ‘We’ve got just under three hours till we launch. How mad is that?’

  As I collected some bottled waters and turned to leave, Austin grabbed my arm and looked at me with a determined expression on his face. ‘Look, Jack, I’m not going to make this a miserable experience for you guys – no way! Whatever is going on in my head is going to stay there until we’ve done this. I promise.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ I said. ‘But I’d prefer it if you told me when you’re feeling crap, rather than bottling it all up for everyone else’s sake. You know I’m always here if you need me – we all are. You deserve to enjoy this Total Youth takeover as much as the rest of us, do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you, J,’ he said, breaking into a grin. ‘Now let’s go kick some festival ass!’

  As I followed Austin back towards the group, I wondered where all this might lead. I’d never known him to let stuff get on top of him like this, and I hated the thought that it was all happening while he was supposed to be having the time of his life and living the dream. I just hoped he could take his mind off it for the duration of Total, for all our sakes.

  The gang hung out with Jason Croft for an hour or so, laughing and joking with one another and soaking up the glamour of the VIP area for as long as we dared – a relaxed moment before the madness, I guess you’d call it. Pretty soon, though, as the sun was beginning to lower in the sky, a massive roar went up from the main stage as the first live act headed out to perform. That was when the butterflies started fluttering around in my stomach and I knew it was time. Time to make our way over to the Total Youth stage; time to launch our much-heralded GenNext takeover; time, as Austin had so succinctly put it, to go kick some festival ass.

  THE LAUNCH

  It’s hard to imagine the euphoria of walking onto a stage and addressing thousands of people. And that afternoon, fifteen minutes before the Total Youth stage was about to go live, imagining it was about all we could do – because our audience was barely scraping a hundred.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Sai hissed as we huddled around the stairs leading up to the back of the stage. ‘I thought it would be rammo?’

  Suki poked her head above the stage to get a better view of the audience. ‘OK, it is a little sparse, but it’s still early, and there are more people gathering as we speak. Don’t forget, Sia’s just done the main stage so everyone’s been over there for her.’

  AJ appeared behind us, grinning and rubbing his hands together. ‘OK, are we set? Where’s everyone supposed to be right now?’

  Lily was at his side, her arms full of bottled water. ‘Grab one each, guys,’ she said. ‘I’m going to put some on the stage for the first band.’

  ‘Everything is ready to go live from our end, AJ,’ Ava said. ‘Crew, cameras, audio. I’ve got a couple of Total’s cameramen out front with me and Austin is doing the onstage hand-held stuff.’

  By now, Sai had hit the ground for some pre-show push-ups at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’m going to be in the broadcast van directing the shots with Suki,’ he said, breathlessly. ‘Lily is going to get some of the live Tweets rolling across the screen during the performances. The sound guy knows his stuff so he doesn’t need me looking over his shoulder.’

  ‘Our crew is on it, AJ,’ Austin added. To anyone else he would have sounded totally confident, but after the conversation we’d had earlier, I could hear the nervous edge to his voice. He was doing an amazing job of keeping his anxiety under wraps, though; maybe just getting his worries off his chest earlier had done him some good. ‘It’s running pretty smoothly,’ he continued. ‘The second Jack and Ella go out on stage to kick things off, we’ll be streaming live on GenNext exclusively.’

  ‘Well, I’m really proud of you all,’ AJ said.

  ‘Thank you, AJ,’ I said. ‘If it weren’t for you …’

  AJ smiled and winked at me. ‘I know, Jack, I know.’

  The audience in front of the stage was waiting with a hushed expectancy that seemed unnervingly polite. Meanwhile, I could hear the thumps, beats and roars echoing from other stages and wondered if we could achieve the same kind of atmosphere at Total Youth. Could we? Would we? I felt slightly queasy, and the smell of popcorn and candyfloss drifting over from the audience fused with the deep tangy aroma of the backstage barbecue pit wasn’t helping. I slugged down half the bottle of water that Lily had given me and tried to breathe deeply.

  Ella squeezed my arm excitedly. ‘It’s bloody amazing, isn’t it? Can you actually believe we’re doing this?’

  I shook my head, fear rising in my throat. The truth was, I really couldn’t believe it. Not in the slightest. Ella was pretty much born to be in front of a camera and never seemed to get nervous no matter how big the potential audience. She didn’t seem fazed by the fact that we were about to broadcast our takeover all around the globe. I, on the other hand, had some stage fright that I needed to deal with. Sure, I knew that with Ella up there with me I could go a good job – that was why we’d ended up doing most of the on-screen stuff for GenNext, while the others preferred the behind-the-scenes action – but I still had to banish the niggling memory of my monumental screw-up in front of the entire world at last year’s interview with Harriet. I took a few deep breaths. You can do this, Penman.

  Austin slapped my shoulder as he and Ava moved to their camera positions for filming. ‘Break a leg, Jack and Ella!’

  I looked over at Suki, who blew me a kiss. ‘The crowds will come, Jack, trust me,’ she said as she headed off to the broadcast van with Sai and Lily.

  I wasn’t convinced that they would for our first band, it had to be said. The Revenants were a trio of New Yorkers who looked like they needed a good bath and played post-emo rock. They’d been booked by Jason and the festival organisers, but it was us who had to walk out onto the stage once our opening DJ had finished and announce them to their small army of young, tattooed fans.

  ‘So, are you ready to officially open our stage, Jack?’ AJ said, looking at his watch as The Revenants gathered behind us at the bottom of the stairs, all of them dressed in black and with chin-length tangled hair hanging over their faces. I wondered, momentarily, if
they’d even be able to see their way onto the stage.

  I grabbed the handrail tight, ready to ascend. ‘Can I wear my Aviators, AJ? Just something to hide the nervous twitch in my eye.’ I was bricking it.

  AJ laughed. ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘You’ll be fine, and I’ll be right beside you,’ Ella said. ‘You know how brilliant you are once you get into performance mode.’

  ‘I’m better in front of a camera with no crowd,’ I said with a smile. ‘But if I’m going to do this, I’m bloody glad you’re doing it with me.’

  In a flash, Ella and I were bounding out onto the stage to a surprisingly enthusiastic reception, gripping our mics tightly. The crowd, who only minutes before had seemed scarily subdued, suddenly lit up, and a small sea of happy, eager faces welcomed us. I moved cautiously through the amps and guitars, all set up and ready for the band, and came to a halt centre stage to a soundtrack of shouts and cheers. Then the lights hit my eyes and a rush of adrenalin shot through my body like forked lightning. Nervous and excited all at once, I looked to my left at a beaming but slightly shell-shocked Ella. I was certain she felt the same.

  ‘Hi, everyone, welcome to the Total Youth stage!’ Her voice boomed out across the crowd, which was growing by the second. ‘I’m Ella Foster, and this is …’

  ‘I’m Jack Penman and— Whoa!’ The deafening whistle of feedback from the mic threw me, but it was all under control in a matter of seconds. ‘I’m Jack Penman and we are GenNext’ – more cheers went up, stronger now, chasing some of my jangling nerves away – ‘and this is the first night of our takeover of the Total Youth stage. We’ll be here for the whole festival.’

  ‘OK! We reckon this is gonna be the biggest and best Total ever,’ Ella said, her spiel perfectly rehearsed. ‘What do you say?’

  The crowd called out a resounding ‘Yeah!’ so I moved further forward towards the front of the stage, slowly coming to terms with the idea that they didn’t actually want to kill me. ‘And the Total Youth stage is where it’s all happening, right?’

  Cue more cheering and a bit of light whooping. I looked over at Ella and she gave me a reassuring smile. This was all so different from the straight-to-camera stuff we’d done in the past. The reaction was so immediate, and even though I was starting to enjoy it, part of me still felt vulnerable and exposed. It was like the stress dream I’d had a few months back where I was stark naked, performing on The X Factor.

  ‘OK, we’ll be back out here later, and there’s loads more amazing stuff happening,’ Ella said. ‘But right now we’d like to introduce our first band. Please welcome, from New York …’

  And in unison we yelled, ‘The Revenants!’

  Suki was right. By the time The Revs were halfway through their third number, the crowd had almost tripled in size, much to our relief. When the second act hit the stage – a good-looking boy/girl duo called Pan, who sang fiercely catchy pop melodies over pulsing, funky electro beats – our audience was looking more than respectable and my nerves had completely disappeared. As soon as one act finished, they were whisked backstage to our fairy-lit tree house overlooking the hospitality area, where we’d set up to record the post-show interviews. Ella and I took it turns to conduct the interviews, while the other one handled the intros and anything that was happening on stage. It was crazily fast-paced, but really seemed to be working. Three acts in, and we were both having a great time. The show seemed to be running without a hitch and the audience were loving it. I just hoped the rest of the team were enjoying it as much as we were.

  ‘Jeez, The Revenants didn’t have much to say for themselves during the interview,’ Ella said as we crossed paths backstage in a brief lull in the proceedings.

  ‘Well, the people watching on GenNext seemed to like it,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you see Sai’s WhatsApps from the broadcast van? Apparently the Twitter and Facebook pages were going off and he’s had all the comments scrolling across the video screens either side of the stage.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief, because they were positively monosyllabic.’ Ella grabbed a tiny mirror out of her pocket and checked her make-up. ‘If the singer was any more laid-back, he’d be a corpse with a guitar welded to him.’

  ‘The trick is to get them all to drink some of those blue cocktails in the half-coconuts they’re dishing out at the VIP bar,’ I said. ‘They seem to contain some magical tongue-loosening drug. The girl from Pan was very forthcoming.’

  ‘Oh she was, was she?’ Ella raised an eyebrow, then grinned and gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. ‘I shall keep that in mind. Right, I’ve got to go; I’m about to give away some merchandise to the hottest kissing couple. They’ve been tweeting in photos of themselves.’

  ‘God, is that the best we could come up with for our first giveaway?’ I said.

  Ella giggled. ‘It was Sai’s idea, and …’

  ‘… and he’s a pervert,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly!’ And she was gone.

  Ava had the unenviable task of going into the crowd in between acts to get some feedback from the revellers. This seemed to start reasonably well, but as time went on and the crowd really got into the party spirit, her messages to the WhatsApp group became a little more frantic.

  An hour later, a very pissed-off Sai came storming towards Austin, Ella and me in the backstage area, just as Ella was getting ready to head on stage to introduce the final act of the evening.

  ‘Some drunk idiot was sick on my shoes,’ he said.

  Austin was halfway through a particularly messy chilli dog. ‘Oh man, that’s just gross.’

  ‘Your interview technique is enough to make anyone sick, Sai; I told you to let me do it,’ Ava laughed, sweeping towards us and handing Austin the camera. ‘Right, people, I’m going front-of-house to make sure my one uninjured camera operator is all set to shoot Laura Harris’s set. Who’s coming to watch?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ I said. ‘As soon as Ella’s done the intro we’ll follow you out – and then I’m ready to party.’

  ‘Er … you’ve still got to interview Laura afterwards, so keep a lid on it for a while, Penman,’ Ella said.

  ‘But they’re Nike special edition,’ Sai said miserably.

  I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, mate. We’ll get you some nice new free trainers from one of the festival sponsors tomorrow. Go back to the truck and see if Suki can come out and join us for some of Laura’s set.’

  ‘TOTAL FESTIVAL! TOTAL YOUTH STAGE! HOW YOU FEELING RIGHT NOW?’

  Laura Harris’s voice soared over the crowd, and after a moody, swelling synth overture, the beats of her first track cracked through the night air just as every one of the palm trees, hanging vines and jungle animals on our stage burst into their multicoloured, twinkling LED glory. Ella and I grabbed a cheeky kiss at the side of the stage and then made our way to the press pit at the front, where Ava, Suki, Sai and Austin were already jumping up and down. I looked out at the crowd, which had now swollen massively, transforming into a noisy, bobbing throng of excited revellers.

  Ella grabbed me, talking loudly into my ear over the music. ‘How many people do you think are here now?’

  ‘I dunno. A thousand maybe?’ I said.

  ‘I’d say more,’ Austin shouted, the other side of me. ‘Definitely more.’

  ‘And hundreds of thousands tuning in online,’ Suki added. ‘Plus Austin’s backstage live Facebook videos are going down a storm.’

  ‘I’ve been interviewing people coming out of the toilet,’ Austin said proudly.

  I nodded along to the beat, grinning like an idiot. ‘And we did this.’

  ‘We did,’ Ella said. ‘God knows how, but we did it. Let’s hope we can keep it up tomorrow.’

  But I didn’t want to think about tomorrow right then. I was on a natural high. We all were: riding on the sound of Laura’s blistering set and the love of the crowd, who were going nuts. All I wanted to do at that moment was enjoy myself … and dance with Ella.

  THE TROUBLE
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  It was well after midnight by the time we all came down off the ceiling and started bringing the post-show debriefing to a close. We were crammed into our allocated Portakabin-cum-changing-room: AJ, Suki, the whole GenNext team, the exhausted tech crew, and Lily, who was efficiently scribbling notes about anything we might need to rethink the following day. There wasn’t much. As far as I was concerned everything had gone pretty smoothly. Up till then, that is. The night wasn’t over yet.

  ‘I would call it a rousing success!’ AJ was in the middle of his third summing-up of the day, while we were all itching to get changed into our glad rags and hit the aftershow. I mean, it was our very first aftershow in our very own VIP area after all, and the various rumours about all sorts of big names dropping in and hanging out there had been filling my ears all afternoon. We didn’t want to miss any of that, did we?

  Still, AJ had a habit of saying everything in triplicate – just to make sure we’d all heard it. ‘As I said, the viewing numbers on the live feed were more than we could have imagined, and Jason said he’s never seen anything like the buzz that the Total Youth stage has created this year. Now, Lily is making a note of anything that needs looking at and can be improved upon tomorrow, but as I said, you all did just brilliantly.’

  There was an enthusiastic chorus of ‘Thanks, AJ!’ as the crew filed out while the rest of us shifted to various corners of the cabin and struggled into our party clothes: Ava and Suki totally owning the night, with Ava rocking a short, deep-red punky dress, black biker boots and a bowler hat, and Suki in a black leather strapless corset with metallic patterns, a black skirt slashed to the thigh and some very cool Roman-type sandals with criss-cross ties up her calves. It was funny, they weren’t a couple any more, but they still seemed to complement one another in so many ways – they just looked right together. And although they spent half the time acting all cool and businesslike with each other, sometimes they’d forget themselves and slip back into being all coupley again – just for a few seconds – before snapping out of it and hoping no one else had noticed.