Zac was not subtle. Not in any way, shape or form even if he tried really hard.

I was just reliving the moment we first met on the EuroStar those few months ago - Tay sat listening to a walkman and me acting the stereotypical, awe-struck fan, struggling for words and trying to get him to sign a napkin. I was just getting to the bit where I'd chucked my dad's cup of tea in his lap and he was pulling his jeans off when I felt a heavy weight land on my chest with extreme force.

"MOR... NIN'... DEAN..." yelled Zac as he bounced on my chest with each syllable. I couldn't believe how heavy 96lbs of Zac could feel at half past nine in the morning. However, I wasn't the only one to get the Zac Attack. "GET... UP... TAY... LOR...!!"

"Mmmmmph... Piss off, Zac..." mumbled Tay, pulling his pillow over his head. Zac was on a mission, though. Instead of sitting astride Tay, he pulled his knees together to create more pressure.

"GET...YOUR...LAZY...ASS...OUTA...BED!!!"

Seeing he wasn't going to get any more kip this morning, Tay decided to do something about his little brother ordering him about. In one fluid movement, Tay grabbed the pillow that he had over his head and moved it in a powerful arc, connecting quite successfully with the side of Zac's head.

This caught Zac so much by surprise he fell sideways on top of me and promptly rolled of the edge of the bed with a thump. A couple of seconds later, he reappeared brandishing the bean bag he'd been sleeping on last night and attempted a swing at Tay. However, the bag was heavier than he thought and as he swung, lost his balance and missed Tay completely. However he got me with 100% accuracy.

"Woah, shit - sorry. Dean..."

I didn't even wait for the explanation as I grabbed my own pillow and whacked him hard over the top of the head and then in his side as he crouched over. I jumped off the bed and "fought" him all the way down to his end of the trailer, eventually cornering him. Zac grinned and, grabbing my bollocks gently, scooted between my legs. Now it was my turn to be surprised. Thankfully I had backup:

"Hey, Zac! Catch!" Yelled Tay as he threw a bunch of keys towards him. Reflexes took over and Zac dropped the pillow he was holding to catch the keys. Big mistake. Tay charged at him with the bean bag Zac'd tried to use on Tay, knocking him backwards onto his bed. Tay immediately jumped on top of him and pinned his arms with his knees.

"Give up?"

"NEVER!"

In another slick move, Tay flipped Zac over and pulled one of his arms up tight against his back. "NOW d'you give up?"

"Hell no..."

Tay yanked his arm slightly higher.

"Arrgh! OK, OK I give up..."

He leapt of Zac straight away and proceeded to get dressed. I got the impression this was a daily routing that they'd obviously got down to a tee...

"Whaddya want for breakfast?" he asked me.

"Um, dunno - Where are we eating?"

"That little cafeteria up in the Foyer - the whole team eats there in the morning..."

We proceeded to have a shower and get dressed. Roller blades were attached to three pairs of feet and we headed off to breakfast. It was a sharp, crisp morning outside - a thin film of frost covered everything causing the sun to reflect off every surface possible. All I could see of Tay and Zac infront of me were two silhouettes, a pair of ponytails swinging from side as they skated.

We rolled into the cafe and a huge cheer went up - apparently news of my little abseil had spread somewhat. A guy in his mid forties came over to me and hugged me tight and then vigorously shook my hand, words of thanks flying from his mouth. Apparently, this was Jon Birkett, Andy's dad.

"I just wanna say thankyou for saving my son's life... He's all I have left after my wife died last year.. I... I... THANKYOU!" I didn't know what to say - I did what I had to...

"What the hell was all that about? And where's Ikeypooh - He's usually up by now..." asked Zac, a little confused.

Tay explained to him about my leaping off a gantry with nothing but a piece of string to support me, and how I managed to catch Andy just as the buckle on his harness broke...

"Wow, really?" asked Zac, wide eyed.

"'Course not really," grinned Tay. "But he did abseil down and bring Andy back to safety..."

"Why didn't you wake me up?!" asked Zac, disappointed to have missed all the action.

"We didn't want to disturb your beauty sleep," I replied. "You need it..."

Zac tried to kick my shin under the table, but instead hit his leg on the crossbar of the table, much to our amusement. Just then, the Range Rover puled up outside the caf and Ike got out the back. He then ran round to the opposite side, and helped Andy out. He still looked a little shaky on his feet and had a large bandage wrapped like a bandanna round his head, but otherwise seemed OK. As they walked in, Andy's dad hugged him and showered him with kisses, telling him how much he loved him. Wow - I'd never seen such a display of genuine father-son concern before...

Ike and Andy walked over to our table and sat down. He held out his hand and I shook it. "I take it you're Dean - thanks, man... I can't remember exactly what happened, but thanks..."

"Hey, no problem," I said, visibly blushing: I hated all this attention, it just wasn't me.

As a conversation got going, I began to notice Ike and Andy's body language: they were sitting a lot closer together than would normally be deemed "acceptable" for two teens (then again, so were Tay and myself) and they had no problems about casually touching each other, again a lot more that 'normal'. When Andy looked away for a moment, I raised an eyebrow at Ike. He smiled widely back and nodded his head. He was a completely different person to the guy I'd nearly castrated the day before; happy and glowing and enthusiastic again. Not at all the moody, depressed teenager with long greasy hair that had been the bane of Zac's and Tay's lives for the last few months.

They were noticing it also and seemed a lot more happier around him than they had previously, now laughing and joking, and not having to keep their guard up all the time. I felt slightly sorry for Zac, though. He didn't have a partner and seemed a little saddened by the fact that both of his older brothers had pulled and all he had was his left hand...

As the conversation continued, it turned out that Andy, as well as being one of the lighting riggers, was also a camera operator for the performance. Because the Arena was so large, video screens were required to allow people in the tiered seats around the edge and those on the floor at the back to get any sort of a decent view of their favourite group.

Also, as you probably already know, the Hanson brothers are video freaks - filming almost anything and everything they do. Well, the concerts over the next few days were going to be recorded for "library footage", and also for possible use in their next video. However, Andy didn't feel well enough to do his job properly and a replacement would need to be found.

"Dean's a bit handy with a camera, aren't you..." volunteered Tay. I was forced to admit that a film myself and a couple of friends made a few months back entitled "The Secret Life of the Badger" won an award from the BBC's Country File programme.

As it turned out, one evening when we were filming, a pair of badger baiters turned up and decided to have a go at our badgers. We were scared shitless in case they saw us, but carried on filming none the less and later submitted the film to the police as evidence. We were informed a few weeks later that our tape had helped convict the two men, and had been sentenced to a short time in prison...

"Well," said Andy, "looks as if I've found my replacement cameraman..."

"What do I have to do?" I asked, never actually having filmed a 'live' performance before.

"It's easy - just come to this morning's rehearsal and do whatever the director tells you to do through your headset. Just stay in focus, on time and out of the way and you'll be fine..."

Well, it sounded easy enough...

An hour or so later, everyone was in the Arena getting ready for this evening's performance. Since last night, two of those aerial cameras (you know, the ones on huge hydraulic lifts) had been set up along with four "microcams" - two on Zac's drums, one on Tay's keyboards and one clamped to the side of Ike's microphone stand.

I met the director with Andy as he explained what had happened. He seemed a fairly reasonable sort of bloke and after realising that there was no way he'd be able to get another cameraman in time, willingly agreed to let me do Andy's job.

I was given a medium-sized Sony DV camera with a cunning box of tricks on the back - as well as recording to its own tape, it used a tiny radio transmitter to send the pictures back to the vision mixer, as well as keeping me in contact with the director. As a consequence, my brief was to get where the other cameras couldn't go - the middle of the stage, behind the stage (to follow them as they walked on) in the roof and even out in the audience if one of the brothers decided to pick someone to come up on stage with them.

Things went well - the entire show was scripted, but in a way to allow Ike, Tay or Zac to modify it if they wanted during the evening. It was also a first in the sense that they had never performed "At Christmas" live before...

"OK - you ready, Zac?"

"Yeah - just get on with it!"

I couldn't believe how good Tay's opening piano piece sounded, so full and rich - the emotion simply oozed out of the speakers... The first verse went fine, but the chorus came tumbling down with their harmony bit

"ZAC! You're late again!"

"I'm not late! You were later than me..."

"Would you two quit arguing?" interrupted Tay. "Let's just play it through first, OK? We can nit pick later..."

Once they'd got going, I was very impressed by how good it sounded considering they were performing live.

          Can't you feel it changin'
          Sense the anticipation
          You can tell we're almost there
          Precious time we're takin'
          Memories we're makin'
          There's Christmas in the air...

Apparently, the computers'd been turned off as one of them had crashed, rendering itself unusable. This didn't seem to phase them at all and as far as my untrained ear could tell, they were doing damn well!

          At Christmas, Christmas
          No matter who you are
          Or how far you've come
          This is where you belong
          At Christmas, Christmas...

During this performance, the aerial cameras were floating around and I was getting assorted shots of both Tay and Ike, Zac being covered by one of the other guys. Whenever I glanced away from my viewfinder, Zac was permanently singing, mugging and generally performing to his camera, and not to where the audience would be, but I guess it was just his style.

I was then asked to get a head-on shot of Tay by the director, so I moved round and stood in front of him. Tay was too preoccupied playing his keyboard to notice I'd turned up, but when he did look up, he gave me a flash of his killer smile that I knew would've provoked a huge scream from the floor of lust-filled girls, had they been here. Thankfully they weren't and I got to enjoy it all by myself...

The rehearsal broke for lunch at about a quarter to three in the afternoon. I didn't realise how quickly the time'd gone I'd been so busy - I then realised how bloody hungry I was! A fried breakfast and a couple of rounds of toast can only last so long...

As we walked over to the stage door, Ike was conspicuous by his absence, and mentioned this to Tay. Looking around, we eventually spotted him: He was sat on the bottom step of the flight of stairs that ran up to the roof, Andy sat next to him. As my eyes got used to the darker back stage area, I could see they were holding hands. Suddenly, Ike leaned over and kissed Andy full on the lips. Andy was obviously not expecting this and it took him off guard slightly. Ike immediately looked worried, thinking he'd gone a bit too far, too fast. He needn't have worried, though - Andy just pulled him closer and they began snogging good and proper...

My heart froze as I looked at Zac. Leaping over to him, I clamped the palm of my hand down hard over his mouth, just managing to prevent whatever he was about to yell at the two lovebirds in. Keeping my hand over his mouth so I had him in a sort of head lock, I began walking towards the door. Tay grabbed my free hand and squeezed it, I just smiled back. I wasn't sure, but I think it was a 'than you' for sorting his brother out...

As we walked out into the cold December air, my mind wandered back to what I'd said to Ike earlier. I was pleased he'd 'bitten the bullet' so to speak and, thankfully, it'd worked. I couldn't have imagined what he'd be like now if Andy had refused him. But he hadn't, and Ike now had a very special friend he could talk to about anything and everything; and I'd guess the same would be true for Andy as well...

I released Zac from my headlock and mussed his hair a bit to show there was no hard feelings. He grinned back at me, but he seemed a bit subdued when compared to his 'normal' Psycho Boy state. I couldn't be sure, but he seemed a bit upset he hadn't had the chance to meet someone his own age yet. Little did he know that that would all change that very evening...


On to Chapter Thirteen

Back to Chapter Eleven

Chapter Index

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Touring with Hanson is © 1998 by Dean Lidster. This work may not be duplicated in any form (physical, electronic, audio, or otherwise) without the author's written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply. All individuals depicted are fictional with any resemblance to real persons being purely coincidental.

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