About four years ago, to celebrate mental health awareness week, I wrote and published a post about the storm that helped quieten part of the anxiety, Australian pop-punk band With Confidence. It was all about our origin story and the first three tours I followed in some way, shape, or form. The year is now 2021, they are about to release their third, self-titled, full-length record, and I have decided to write the follow-up to this, the next chapter, if you will. 

I re-read the original post, and I got struck by a line, somewhere in the middle: "Your anxiety wonders if you're not just infatuated, as if you were the cliché of a school girl with a crush on a pop star and would move on to the next one at the speed of sound." I genuinely had that thought, back in the day, as I was jumping on various night coaches and stupid planes across Europe after listening to a band for less than two months. But I knew it wasn't the case- a feeling, somewhere in my gut. If I could tell something to 2017 me, it would be this: don't trust the anxiety. Trust your instincts instead. (Also, don't mix spirits.)

Since these three original tours and the last night at the London Forum, complaining about security, missing my train home, and the Portugal-shaped bruise on my ribs instead of crying because I knew it would be a while before I saw With Confidence live again, things have changed a lot in my life and in the band's history. I'm not here to dwell on the less than shiny parts. There has been enough of it being done everywhere, and some things are best left in the past. But the one thing I'll say is this: by the time 2018 rolled around, I knew I would have given anything to see this stupid little lovely band again. (Alternatively, I feel robbed of the Tonight Alive tour.)

2018 in the scene marked the last Vans Warped Tour as a cross-country, summer-long, iconic and spirit-breaking event, and this alone was enough to make me want to go. By the time the festival started teasing line-up announcements, I was pondering everything, making wishlists all the time. "If With Confidence are on it, I'm going, no questions asked," I told myself more than once. March 1st came and went, With Confidence's name appeared in black block letters on a lovely shade of orange on the poster, and there I was, officially going to Warped Tour. It took organising, my biggest adventure this far, picking the dates I would be going to and, because California was clashing with Taylor Swift's reputation tour and Florida was expensive, little old me ended up in Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago.

I don't know if I truly have a best day of my life, like, ever, but if there was a shortlist, a top ten of sorts, the Toronto date of Warped Tour would be a contender. Being at the festival I had heard about and dreamt of ever since I was a shy little teenager who listened to Simple Plan in her bedroom was something close to an accomplishment, and so was watching them in their home country that day. I adored discovering new crowds, seeing how people did it on the other side of the Atlantic, and there are only good memories linked to that MTV Spring Break type of day. I remember sitting on some sort of wooden deck at the end of the day, watching Underoath, shiny dragonflies, and the sunset over Toronto all at once, and I thought, today was perfect. I remember turning up to that tiny stage around the back, the inflatable owly.FM stage, hearing Jayden say "What's up, we're With Confidence from Sydney, Australia, let's have some fun" and think shit, I'm home.

Detroit, Michigan, included a little bit of rain and a meet-and-greet situation, which was more about me wanting to drop by and say hello like a middle-aged lady who wants to stop at someone's house out of the blue for a cup of tea. Past the third tour, past 2017, there are a lot less stories of me drinking too much after a show. There are no Uprawr nights, and there is no me pouring a vodka miniature into a Starbucks iced latte at five in the afternoon, and, yes, it tasted as disgusting as it sounds, and I still don't know why I did it. I couldn't tell you if there was ever a train of thought behind me not drinking at any of these shows, if it was a conscious decision or not, though I do know work was involved a lot as well as the fact that I was on my own for the most part, and not missing the last train home. And I kinda have the sneaky feeling that, though through no fault of my own, being so close to losing one of my favourite bands made me want to appreciate every second of every show afterwards, warts and all, and maybe making sure I remembered it all was essential.

Following Warped Tour, two main things happened in the crossed wires of mine and With Confidence's lives.
A- I found myself in one of the darkest places I have ever been, again.
B- They released their second full-length record, Love And Loathing.
I listened to it for the first time on the shuttle bus to my old workplace, and I was sitting at one of these seats where you've got the glass panel in front, so you kind of have to stare at your own reflection for the whole journey. It was warm outside, sometime in August, the remains of the heatwave the UK experienced in the unforgettable summer of 2018. When I pressed play on That Something, the lead single and opening track, I smiled like an idiot and did so for the following thirty-eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds. I am not good at hiding my facial reactions to music, and I often find myself grinning like crazy or looking majorly emotional in public transport. Such is life.
There is always a nagging worry about listening to the follow-up to an album you have loved as deeply and unconditionally as I love Better Weather. As embarrassing and corny as it still sounds in 2021, there was a time when Voldemort, and then, Better Weather became my lifeline, and, as a fan, how do you learn to love what comes next? Where do you fit it in your heart? Unconsciously, your expectations are a lot higher than you want them to be. You know you love the band and the artist, you know this will not change, but how does it work if you don't connect to the next record as much?
I guess it's not a matter of quantity but corners of your life. Better Weather was a lifeline, ugly word and all. I don't know what big word Love And Loathing falls under, but it found a space in my life, in all its uniqueness, in all its emotion, in all its nuances, and in the way this band doesn't force itself into tiny boxes they don't belong in.

The main reason why I didn't attend as many shows of the Love And Loathing tour as I normally do when it comes to With Confidence is that I was, after a three-year-wait, following a large chunk of The Story So Far's tour across Europe, and I happen to only be a small human with a limited amount of annual leave, and not yet the ability to teleport. I ended up in Birmingham, at Mama Roux, which has grown to become one of my favourite venues in the country and a perfect setting for the Love And Loathing experience, and this night mostly meant bonding with other people over our love for this band and their music. You never know how things are going to go when you're on your own for things you used to have company and, again, I shouldn't have given in to the anxiety. I wish I could just remind myself all the time and make it work. Just don't give in to the anxiety. I wish it was that simple.
I can't help but remember how I, once again, kid myself into thinking I would stay nicely on the sidelines and take it all in, so I wore a pretty outfit, not-mosh-friendly skirt and all, and it didn't take long until I gave up and crowdsurfed. I also remember crying my little heart out during Tails, and someone hugging me. This time in my life was the end of the apocalypse and the start of something new all at once, and I didn't know what to make of this strange limbo.
Long story short, when I took days off from work for the aforementioned The Story So Far tour, my manager encouraged me to take the Monday off as well instead of having a long weekend off, coming back, and then having a further two days off. I thought I had enough annual leave left for it (which is a story for another day), so I did, and my first reflex was to check if there was any With Confidence show I could find my way to in between a stop in Stuttgart and a stop in Amsterdam. The Love And Loathing tour had its last stop in Cologne, I decided the six-hour-long coach journey was "not too far" because geography is the last thing on my mind when I'm being an idiot, and I ended up in Cologne. Fun fact, I have been here twice in my life and still haven't seen this place with a shred of daylight. It was dark and rainy when I got to the venue, I got emotional, it was the height of the moth memes, which were all over the setlist, and my first attempt at stage-diving was cut short when I saw the sheer terror on the face of the girl who stood closest to the stage.

I have spoken about this under completely different circumstances, about two years ago, but every once in a while, I look at American tours and talk myself out of attending every last one of them, and I'm pretty sure I have done this for over a decade now. It happened again sometime in the summer and early autumn of 2018, because, after attending Warped Tour in Canada and in the United States, now I had a taste of it, I couldn't get enough. Being kicked out of my house made me change my plans, but just so the world knows, I truly wanted to attend the Love And Loathing in Paradise tour. A With Confidence and Broadside double-headliner, if I'm not mistaken, would have been a fantastic line-up and walk down Memory Lane, but money had to go somewhere else instead. (Like saucepans and moving home.)
But after a conversation at the end of the Cologne show, because I grew to have conversations with the With Confidence boys instead of drunk babbling in their faces, I kept a piece of information in the back of my mind, and I stopped talking myself out of exciting things.

Somewhere in between November 2018 and March 2019, I stopped giving up on things I could do and could afford and stopped denying myself the adventures I so longed for. I hopped on a plane to Los Angeles, California, without really telling anyone, and I found myself on a sunnier side of the globe with three shows planned: Mat Kerekes at the Echo, With Confidence and Set It Off at the Roxy, and State Champs at the House of Blues. Full disclaimer, going to see State Champs in Anaheim was the true catalyst behind the journey, but Set It Off's tour, which With Confidence were a part of, was a picture-perfect things-falling-into-place moment.
What I mostly remember from this show was the before, waiting for doors to open and walking up and down the Sunset Strip, taking in the sights, seeing the hotel where they filmed the rehearsal dinner scene in Freaky Friday, and getting lost in the cutest bookstore. I remember going into the venue at twenty-past six and coming back out after eleven, and the two American people I spoke to were extremely confused when I explained that, back in the UK, at eleven in the evening after a show, people were on a train home, not in the venue. We drove to Denny's, and I made it back to my Airbnb at two or three in the morning, having had such a fun night. (And having met Jack Barakat from All Time Low, which was the cherry on the cake.) I also crowdsurfed and almost got kicked out of the venue, as I didn't know it wasn't allowed. Considering Josh correcting himself after asking for more crowdsurfing from behind his drumkit, I guess I wasn't the only one who was in the dark about crawling on top of strangers. I almost got kicked out of the venue, but the bridge to Dinner Bell is always going to be my time to badly angry fingerpoint, my time to shine, my moment, my fireworks, and my magic trick, and you always have to celebrate the things you love and take risks, and I hadn't flown halfway across the world not to.

September rolled around quickly, and I guess it's the thing when you grow up and you notice the passing of time in ways you didn't when you were a kid. You remember New Year's Eve more or less vividly, depending on alcohol consumption, like it was yesterday, but when you look at the calendar, it's September, the leaves are orange again, and you wonder where time has gone. I can still see myself in the basement of Sticky Mike's Frog Bar, in Brighton, on the closing night I wouldn't have missed for the world, celebrating the new year as Andrew W.K's Party Hard was playing loud underneath the sticky, low ceiling, and, next thing I knew, I was planning an autumn tour. Six shows, four countries. Back to basics, back on my bullshit- as if I ever left.
The first show for me was held in London, and it was surprisingly warm for a mid-September night. It was also a comeback to Islington Academy, where the 2017 Set It Off tour had ended with a bang (and where I apparently knew everyone without being aware of it.) The Roam and With Confidence co-headliner also started with a bang, and with a stupid cut on my spine as someone dug their fingernails down my back as I crowdsurfed. I remember it stinging, but I wasn't expecting the bloody red marks on my skin when I got out of the shower later that night. There was, as always, this coming home feeling.
I headed to Bristol, where I hadn't been in a very long time. I struggle to even remember the last time. With Confidence were playing last, and I mostly remember this family standing next to me during Roam, where I was on the edges of the moshpit for the most part, and they all looked positively terrified. It was on a boat, which felt like home, Paris home, and it was a lovely time. I wasn't aware I knew the words to Drops Of Jupiter off by heart, but, surprise surprise, I did.
I ran out of work like a cannonball with last night's glitter on my face to make Birmingham. I couldn't find stage times anywhere online, which also felt like home, Paris home, so it was a case of jumping on a train and hoping for the best. I prepared everything to be as quick as possible, ran down the road to the Travelodge, basically threw my things over the counter, and ran back to the venue, only to arrive sometime during Woes- crisis averted. I think I know Birmingham like the back of my hand until I get there, and I remember following a group of guys who "looked like they were going to the show" down the road, only for these people to be the members of Roam. Oh, well.

Mainland Europe started the following Sunday in Antwerp, where I had not been in years and where I had never attended a show. Being part-Belgian, I have a special attachment to all things Belgium, which made the experience even more remarkable to me. Just a different kind of home. I loved walking around the city during the day and having fries, despite the sad weather and how I smacked myself in the face with my own umbrella more times than I care to count. The show was on the quieter side of energy, but I still had a brilliant time, singing every word and dancing by myself like your average white dad at his neighbour's barbecue after three beers and a cheeky glass of bourbon. I remember Jayden asking the crowd if anyone knew the meaning of the word pâquerette, and I cheered, expecting everyone to follow suit as Belgium is, in parts, a French-speaking country. I didn't think that much attention was going to end up on my little person, the girl in the crowd who knew that a pâquerette was a daisy, and shouting "I'm French" to justify the knowledge when Jayden looked confused that someone knew. Giving an accidental French lesson to scene Belgium was not part of the plan, but it is a fond memory of mine. Just as were all the conversations that happened afterwards, the guy from Woes who was so kind to me he almost made me cry, and me shouting that wine was gross in a corridor. I changed my tune since. Wine is alright.
Paris happened the next Saturday, at the end of the day from hell. My flight out of Gatwick Airport was delayed for no reason I remember and, by the time my brother picked me up, traffic out of Charles De Gaulle Airport into Paris was a nightmare. It took so long that he had to abandon me at some random metro station so I would have the hope of making it on time in a venue where I'd never been before. I thought it would finally be my chance to share my love of With Confidence with my brother, but every Parisian car got in the way, and he only made it to the 1999 for Roam. (He did see me stagedive to Head Rush, so he's a winner regardless.) By the time I arrived, two songs had already been played, and everything felt so urgent and fast-paced that I remember throwing my things on an undefined pile of bags on the side of the room and running into the moshpit. This was going to be my night, with my friends, whether every bloody car in the city of love wanted it or not. There is always going to be something emotional about that one thing we do in Paris, the way we kiss each other on the cheek to say hello, moshpit or not. I rarely care for anything patriotic, and I don't even like la bise that much, but I don't mind it when it's like that.
The tour ended for everyone and myself in Eindhoven, at the Dynamo, one of my favourite places and venues on Earth. The Netherlands, I found, does live music, among other things, better than everyone else. Lockers, anyone? The show was a lot bigger than most of the European Union ones, and the atmosphere was simply perfect. There is nothing I can fault Eindhoven for, not even the weather. My feet were frozen by the end of the night, waiting at the back of the venue for a goodbye, the middle-aged lady in me making a comeback, a see you later, an "enjoy the next few tours without me" joke that partially was understood, partially wasn't, but I didn't care one bit, because for three weekends and the odd Monday nights, I had had the time of my life, and I can't ever be mad when a perfect evening ends with a square of vegan Tony's Chocolonely chocolate. For six nights, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged, like I knew my place in the world, and I couldn't have asked for more.

I didn't want the Love And Loathing era to end, because I was deeply attached to the memories, and it turned out to be an instrumental part of my life, bringing me the lovely and the quiet I needed, taking me back home, and showing me where what mattered most is. Things have been quiet in the With Confidence camp ever since, save for the release of their cover of Train's Drops Of Jupiter in November 2019, as part of the Songs That Saved My Life project. I first listened to the studio version in Melbourne Tullamarine Airport, waiting for my flight to Hobart, and no matter how hard I tried to listen to other things, other songs, other artists, the only soundtrack to that plane journey to one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, to the silent morning airport and the view over the stunning Tasmanian coast, all rugged edges and turquoise waters, was Drops Of Jupiter. I also played it on loop a stupid amount of times as I was walking to Dee Why Beach, in Sydney, in an op shop, and down the tree-lined street, on my way to have a picnic by the seaside, and, if I tried hard enough, I could probably tell you what I bought from the shop and what I had for lunch. This song, whatever course my life takes, will always take me back to the three weeks I spent traipsing around Australia, feeling unbelievably quiet inside and free, like the world was my oyster and nothing could stop me, like I didn't have to constantly be plagued by my anxieties and my insecurities. This song, though originally dealing with a heavy subject that hits close to home, sounds like everything I want to be feeling, all the time. It is pure joy, warmth, serotonin, an iced vegan latte and the sunshine warming up your shoulders and the back of your legs, the deep blue of the ocean and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.

Waiting for new music felt like forever, but never once doubting it would happen. With Confidence, the self-titled third full-length record, lands on planet Earth tomorrow, and it's been, roughly, give or take a few weeks, three years since Love And Loathing. It took its sweet time, but there was never any fear. There have been a few songs released already, some changes to the band line-up, but my story has not changed much since 2017, it just expanded. Part of me, underneath the clutter anxiety tends to leave, knew I was in for the long haul basically after the first time I ever listened to Voldemort, and now, all of me knows this is not going anywhere any time soon. I embarrassingly called their music my lifeline at the start of this story, four years ago, and now, I'll just name it something that's there, unfailingly present, happy memories and quiet feelings at the click of a finger or at the touch of the needle on the record, but I don't have a pretty word to summarise it. It's there. Simple as.
There could be a nagging worry about listening to the follow-up to something you have loved as much as I adore Love And Loathing. How is it going to fit into the puzzle of my life and this story I have told everyone, many times over, sounding like a broken record, for the past four years? I won't know until tomorrow morning, and it's absolutely fine. It will be the soundtrack to something special, whatever that something is, however that is. It will just be.