Brighton, 28th April 2013.

On the way to Brighton we noticed a van alongside us on the motorway and we knew instinctively that the lads in it were a band. I don’t really even know how we knew but they just…clearly were. I ended up holding up a sign I’d written that said “ARE YOU A BAND?” at the window and they saw it and got very excited and nodded vigorously. I flipped the sign over and wrote “WHO?” and they made us a sign saying ‘BLACK DOGS’. 

And that was how we made friends with Black Dogs.

Louise and Sarah actually met them because they were playing at a different venue in Brighton that was close to the car park (we’d been dropped off outside the venue already).

The wait for the show was the longest and coldest wait EVER. Because we were by the sea (unlike when we were in Stoke *cough Pill cough*) it was really REALLY windy, and the venue was down a side street, so it was essentially like standing in a wind tunnel for several hours. The main redeeming feature of the venue (The Haunt, I think it closed for a while but I think it’s come back now) was that it was REALLY close to Brighton Pier, so we took it in turns to go there at regular intervals. We were actually walking up the pier to head back to the venue at one point when we bumped into the lads, and we decided to go back down the pier with them. We followed them further into the arcade than we’d actually already explored, and Drew and Pill found House of the Dead 4.

Let me break off here and go on a slight tangent. I am not a massive video game fan. I never had a console as a kid, and it wasn’t until I was about 15 that I even got a PS1, and even then the only games I owned were Dance Dance Revolution and the sequels. However, when I went to uni I met Andy, who was (and still is, he didn’t stop playing when we broke up or anything) a big video game fan and he slowly but surely got me more into them. The first thing I ever really started playing was House of the Dead. There was one of the arcade games in our student union, and between morning and evening lectures (or you know, most afternoons really) Andy and I would just… take control of it and play it for hours on end. It even had handy little things at the side to put your pint on to swig from during the cut scenes where you don’t have to be ready to shoot a giant zombie sloth in the face. Actually you didn’t shoot the zombie sloth in the face, you shot the giant security guard in the face, you shot the giant zombie sloth in the claws to try and make it let go of the stairs and fall down but that’s a whole other tangent.
BASICALLY, WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY, WITHOUT BOASTING, IS I’M REALLY FUCKING GOOD AT HOUSE OF THE DEAD AND ALL OF THE SEQUELS, OKAY..

Where was I? Oh yeah Drew and Pill found House of the Dead 4 and I am very good at it. Anyway, I spent about half an hour watching them, twitching and shouting ‘RELOAD. NO, SHOOT AWAY FROM THE SCREEN.’ and other helpful hints before Pill died and left Drew on his own. I was really tempted to run in and tag myself in but I refrained, and about 20 seconds later Drew died. They got to the second level.
I could have beaten that…

Oh man I’ve just realised that I meant to put in something about when the lads were loading in. Basically, Pill’s arse is always hanging out. Not like bare, I mean his jeans are always sitting below his arse and you can see his pants CONSTANTLY. As they were loading into the venue I told Pill to pull his trousers up (which by this point was a fairly regular thing) and he actually stopped and looked at  the floor as though his trousers had fallen ALL THE WAY DOWN AND WERE AROUND HIS ANKLES. God bless that boy.

The main thing that I remember about this show is that it was the first time I saw DEAD! play. I think it was anyway, I don’t remember ever seeing them before this date but I have seen a LOT of support acts. I’d heard of DEAD! cos Louise and Annabel had mentioned them before, but I don’t remember having actually seen them myself. They played their first song blindfolded, which totally threw me until I found out it related to the name of the song (it might actually have been called ‘Blindfold’?). I really liked them (which was lucky actually when you consider in a year’s time I was following them with FVK on the Cabin Fever tour but that comes up much later) but I was so wound up about the fact that it was the last night of tour and the last night I’d see Fort Hope/the lads that I didn’t really pay an awful lot of attention to them, as bad as that sounds.

I think I cried during Fort Hope and FVK this night, cos I’m really not very good at last night of tour. At War With The Thirst almost always gets to me.  (Current me laughs loudly in the distance.)

Drew smashed his bass up at the end of the set and I screamed.

As I walked out of the venue that night I stole a poster. Just outside I bumped into Andé and he asked what it was. I showed him and he told me off for stealing it, at which point I informed him that if anyone asked I’d just tell them he took it.

There was someone wandering around outside who wanted to talk to Beveridge but seemed to be crying whenever she got near him, so I went over to her and tried to get her to talk to him but as soon as he said ‘hello’ she burst into tears and ran away again. I don’t think she ever did talk to him, but at least I tried. If you’re reading this, whoever you are, I hope I’m wrong and you did talk to him.

I took a photo for a fan I didn’t know this night cos she didn’t have a camera, which I’ve done quite a few times (I just get their twitter name and send it to them), and when I offered, Beveridge went “YEAH! Meg’ll do it! Meg…” and then he trailed off. After I’d taken the photo I asked him what he’d been going to say, and he answered with “…bees knees…I was going to say ‘Meg’s the bees knees’…” I almost cried.
I also told Beveridge he had Irish hair this night, because the wind made him look like Dylan Moran. OH and I kept offering him my hoodie because he kept saying he was really cold.

Andé walked us back to the car when we finally left, because he’d ended up parking Fort Hope’s van really close by. He and I walked side by side and chatted all the way, I was horribly aware that I was probably going to cry when I said bye to him, cos a bit like me and Pill in FVK, Andé was the member of Fort Hope I’d immediately hit it off with, and we’d gotten pretty close. As we walked, I asked him if he had a spare pick I could have to put on a necklace. He’d given a few picks out right at the end of the set and I didn’t really think he’d have one, but he dug around in his pocket and gave me one he’d been using on his acoustic guitar earlier in the day to film a video for a YouTube interview. When we finally got to the car and said goodbye for the last time I managed to pretty much hold it together until I got in  and we started to move, then I started to sob. I messaged Andé and apologised for being so quiet but I’d known I was going to be upset. He told me it wasn’t a problem and he was sad too.
When I got home I made a hole in the pick he’d given me.
I’ve worn it around my neck every day since then.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

London, 24th April 2013.

Getting to London was ridiculous. As I mentioned in the last post, Manchester was the day before London, and I had to work the day of London so I had to leave Manchester at about 5am. I got up at about 4, I think, had my shower and went and got on my train. I then worked for four hours and then went and got on my train to London. I was so fucking tired. I actually had the intention of napping in the hotel, but I ended up being so excited I couldn’t sleep so that didn’t work. I went and sat outside the venue instead with Louise, Annabel, Paige and the Bales and we spent the day waving at people on buses who were fascinated by us.  To be fair everyone except Maz and I were in pyjamas because Drew had said if everyone turned up in pyjamas he’d do the encore in his or something… I don’t really remember but in the end I kind of dismissed the idea, cos I'd forgotten to wear them and couldn't be bothered to go back and get changed.

I cried during Earthquake this night. I was stood right in front of Andé during Fort Hope’s set and he seemed to keep glancing at me while he played. I suddenly became horribly aware that I knew I wouldn’t be hearing this set many more times (I only had this show and Brighton left of the tour) and after Bristol I was very aware of what the song was about, and I got very emotional when they played it. I remember telling Andé afterwards and he said he’d noticed and it had made him emotional because his brother had in fact come to the show that night and they were starting to talk stuff through and then I almost cried again because I was so happy for him.

Anyway. Back to the gig.
I got talking to a photographer when we were in the gig (Rupert… something) and he was a really nice guy. I actually ended up in a lot of his photos by accident.
…Actually I don’t really remember anything else. Except for the fact that I remember getting really angry because when Beveridge reached into the crowd like he always does someone tried to steal his S.O.P.H.I.E. wristband. I mean who does that? Why would you fucking steal a band member’s stuff? I wish I’d seen who it was, but on second thoughts it’s probably for the best that I didn’t cos I would have gotten very angry.

OH I’VE JUST REMEMBERED THAT UGLY LOVE SUPPORTED THIS NIGHT OH MAN GOOD TIMES. I’d totally forgotten that they were support until I literally just thought about Tom in that fucking flamingo hat he got from somewhere. And a gold medal that I don’t know why he had it. Tom was on fire that night.
As I’m writing this I’m trying really hard to work out whether this was the first time I actually properly saw Ugly Love play cos that time they supported Ashes at Surya totally doesn’t count cos they were all wearing dresses and I didn’t know who they were or what was happening and all of my attention was fixed on trying to say hello to Beveridge at that time I’m not even gonna lie. I know I met Tom at Brixton K! tour but I don’t remember seeing them play before this night. I may have done, but I don’t think so…

We hung out for a very long time after this gig too. It was much fun. My favourite moment was when Beveridge was stood drinking from a 1.5 litre Diet Coke bottle whilst talking to some young fans. They asked him for some of his drink and he asked how old they were. They replied with “15 & 16” and he went “Ah, I can’t give you this then sorry, it’s not only got coke in it…” and I just sidled up to him and said “…You can give it to me though, Beveridge...” and he just said “Yeah, I can give it to Meg.” and handed it to me.
We also invited Beveridge to our “pizza and vodka party” in the hotel because he said he wanted to party but he didn’t know if they were going out. He thought about it for a second but then declined.

There were so many bizarre photos taken this night. At one point Shane drew a smiley face on his palm that he decided was me and he kept putting his hand up to show it off in photos. If you look closely you'll see he's even written "MEG" in the mouth.

Maz and I walked six million miles for pizza after the gig. Andé appeared from somewhere just before we left with what looked like the most delicious slice of it and we decided we couldn’t last the night without it, so we walked back towards the hotel cos we knew there was a Dominos around the corner from it. As we got closer we realised it was really actually quite late and we had no idea what time it closed but amazingly when we got there all the lights were still on.
We tried the door.
It was locked.
We ended up walking all the way back to the place around the corner from the venue where Andé had gotten his pizza from. (On the way there a group of people stopped us and asked if we had a lighter and while we waited for them to finish with it one of the girls started stroking Maz’s head. No, I don’t know why either.)
When we got back to the pizza place the pizza guy tried to convince me to sit with him to eat it.
I politely declined.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Manchester, 23rd April 2013.

Manchester was… ridiculous. Well. Getting to/from Manchester was ridiculous. Because I wasn’t actually planning on doing it I hadn’t shift swapped around it, so I had to work the morning of the gig before I ran and got on a train. I was also due at work at 7.45 the next day so I had to get on a train at about 5am to be home in time but I’ll probably write about that in the next entry cos the next day was the day of the London gig.

I don’t think much really happened in Manchester other than the fact that I was totally crushed on the front row and in a lot of pain most of the night haha. OH and the guy next to me was wearing a huge puffa jacket during the entire show which was the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever seen at a gig. I mean he was sweating so hard and he didn’t even unzip it.

My other memory was Shane stepping forwards up onto the weird box things that were between the band and the crowd and shouting “HI MEG” at me because he was really close to me and his guitar was RIGHT IN MY FACE. He came up to me later and apologised for “guitaring in my face”. Bless his heart.

Manchester was the first time I had photos with all of Fort Hope, which was really cool. I mean it was pretty far into the tour and I’d fallen in love with the guys but I’d only ever had a photo with Andé so I thought I’d better actually get photos with the rest of the band. The photo of Gaskin and I is still one of my favourite photos ever, I think.

The only other thing I remember happening in Manchester was standing next to Kemp and asking for a photo but he was stood on the curb and looked ridiculously taller than me, so I asked him to step down. He just stared at me. I asked him again. He stared at me some more. I said it again. He leaned forwards.
What a knob.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Bristol, 20th April 2013. (30th show)

Bristol was odd cos even though it was in the middle of the tour, it wasn’t actually an FVK headline show. Fort Hope and the lads were both playing, but the thing they were playing was Hit the Deck, which is a one day festival. I can’t actually remember who was headlining it. I think it was Don Broco, but I might be wrong on that.

Anyway. We got to Bristol really early cos Fort Hope were on at about 2, and then FVK were on (luckily in the same venue) about 5 hours later. I didn’t actually bother going to any of the other venues I just stayed upstairs in the O2 waiting for the bands I was there to see. I think it was after Fort Hope had played that FVK arrived, and I don’t really remember seeing any of them except Drew. I don’t remember how it came about but we ended up swapping sunglasses. ACTUALLY I think what really happened was that I stole his sunglasses and then offered him mine as an exchange. I remember Drew saying that I’d ‘Megged’ him which was the best pun I think I’ve ever heard him come out with and I was really proud of him.  We saw Andé before the show too and he almost gave me a heart-attack by announcing that Fort Hope had been “talking about me in the van earlier”. As it transpired he meant they’d been talking about the fact that I like Queen but for the 30 seconds in between him saying that and the full explanation I thought I was going to die.

Just before the lads were about to come on stage Nico appeared , and I turned around to give him a hug and stupidly let go of the barrier. The woman who had been stood next to me for the past ten minutes took this as her cue to open her arms as wide as she possibly could so that when I turned back around to the barrier there was no room left for me to lean on it. I asked her to move because I’d been waiting for like 6 hours to see the lads and she said no, I shouldn’t have left the barrier. I told her that I’d literally turned around to hug my friend and I hadn’t gone anywhere, and I’d been waiting hours for this. She still wouldn’t move. I just leaned on her until she moved over slightly and I could get back on, but she was such a massive dick honestly.

There are actually two things I remember about the actual music part of the gig which is unusual for me.
Beveridge nearly knocked his brain out on a speaker and it scared the shit out of me. Like Kemp had spent the entire set stepping up on the monitors at the front of the stage and singing out to the crowd, and as soon as Beveridge took the mic he tried to step up onto them and cracked his head on a speaker mounted on the wall. I would actually make a pretty certain bet that he saw stars. How it didn’t knock him out I’ll never know, he actually moved the speaker with his damn skull. Anyway. The only other thing I remember is when Beveridge was singing Fetish for the Finite he stepped forwards to the barrier and grabbed my hand. He put his forehead against mine and sang “no justice here” in my face with me. Pete managed to get that on video, actually.

After this gig was one of my fave times, because the lads all wanted to see the headline act (which I have just Googled and was definitely Don Broco) so we hung around with them for ages outside while they loaded out and shit and Maz drew a cock on the barrier which she was really smug about and was hilarious. This small act of vandalism led us into pressuring Shane to write “#1 FAN” on the fan they used to use to keep Pill from overheating. (Some time later, I think at comicon, Shane had to confess to us that they no longer had #1 FAN and he looked genuinely sad about it. We told him he had to write #2 FAN on the new one but he said it was a proper posh one that was basically just a cylinder and there wasn’t really anywhere he could write it. Sad times man.) I wonder if any of the lads actually ever noticed that had been written on it.

We ended up going back in to watch Don Broco even though none of us really knew who they were, cos the lads wanted to watch them and there was no point standing outside when we could be inside with them. Kemp was absolutely wasted at this point, and my main memory of interacting with him was asking him for a photo, and then after it had been taken he took my arm and tried to lead me off somewhere. I asked him where we were going and he told me he had no idea. I don’t think that he knew what his name was at that point, bless his heart. (His fucking eyes.)

Andé was also really drunk. He took a photo of me with his sunglasses on for some reason and then sent me it the next day telling me he didn’t have any recollection of taking it hahahaha. He also stole MY sunglasses at one point when we went back outside and was running around shouting “HEY, IT’S A-ME, MARIO!” for reasons that I never knew and he can’t remember. Bless him. I miss him.
Andé chose this night, while he was very drunk, to tell me that he’d written one of Fort Hope’s songs, Earthquake, about his brother who he used to be really close to but they’d grown apart over the last few years. The song clearly meant a lot to him and hearing him talk so frankly to me was lovely, and I haven’t listened to that song in the same way since that night.

It was after Don Broco had finished that I said something to Jon and Andé about wanting to do an extra show (or something) and I happened to mention that Manchester was the only one I could possibly do. They both told me that gig was almost sold out, but for reasons best known to themselves they both said that if I turned up and it was sold out they’d get me in. That was me totally sold. I mean, if a band tells you they can get you into a sold out gig if you turn up, you’re gonna fucking turn up, right? (I also mentioned this to Kemp before they left and he also said if I struggled getting in they’d find a way to get me in, which just like doubly sold me on the idea to be honest.) Maz was doing Manchester, and she offered me the floor in her room (I think we ended up in a family room anyway in the end, oddly) and that was that. I was suddenly down to do Manchester.

(EDIT: I’ve just remembered that this was the night I found out about FVK supporting Madina Lake on the September/October tour, because I found a flyer that had the tour on and FVK were listed as support. I picked it up and went over to Beveridge going “IS THIS RIGHT?” and he got really angry saying that it wasn’t supposed to have been announced yet but yes, it was right and they were on the tour.)

Just before we went to leave, I managed to hug Maz and knock her flat on her arse. I still don’t know how that happened, I just went to hug her and then looked down and she was sat on the floor. I must have been stronger than I thought or something but whatever happened it was fucking hilarious. Speaking of hilarious, I’m 99% sure it was in Bristol that Andé showed me the video of Jammers shaving his initials into Kemp’s chest hair which was hysterical and disturbing in equal measure.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Stoke, 17th April 2013.

Stoke was fabulous cos I met Paula for the first time. I don’t even know how we got talking, I think it was in the lobby of the hotel after I’d run back to get something but I don’t really remember… Was it pens maybe? Something anyway. More on that later.

I can’t remember what time we got to the venue but it must have been pretty early cos I know I wanted to be front row and Maz agreed to be on front row with me, which is really unusual. Spending time at the venue before the show is always a bonus cos you normally get to see the band before they actually go in to soundcheck.
At one point I ended up taking Gaskin to Tesco cos he wanted someone to show him where it was and everyone else who offered sort of screamed when he asked them, so he asked me to go with him. I bought a little purple hippo while I was there cos I’d forgotten my cuddly penguin who accompanies me on tour and I can’t sleep without cuddling something. The reason I’ve mentioned this hippo is because when I got back, for reasons I don’t fully recall at the moment, I asked Shane to draw a beard on it and turn it into Pill for me. He did without question, bless him.

 In fact, this was the day that I asked him to draw “Thomas the Tank Penguin” which was the brainchild of Maz and I. Again I don’t really recall how that came into being but I gave Shane a piece of paper that I’d been writing a Spike Milligan poem I wanted to learn on and asked him to draw this creation for me. He took the piece of paper and disappeared into the venue. When he came back he handed me the drawing and uttered the amazing sentence “I couldn’t remember what ears penguins had, so I gave it pointy ones.”

For some reason Drew and Shane went to Tesco and came back with some ceramic garden ornaments. I can’t remember who had what but one of them had a mushroom and one of them had some dogs. I’ve never known why that was or what happened to them. The ornaments. Not Drew and Shane.

Actually in the gig, Kemp let me sing. Like actually held the mic in my face and let me sing the line “…and be loved” in Bite Down on my Winchester. That’s actually how I found Paula on Facebook, I think, I asked if anyone had filmed it and she had (sadly for me and luckily for you guys the video has since been lost). Poor Paula. Her introduction to me was my awful voice. And the poor lads being able to hear me in their earpieces.
Anyway, it’s Kemp’s fault.

I thanked him afterwards for letting me sing with him, and he responded with “Thank YOU.” When I asked him what for he paused for a second and then said “…For knowing the words.”
Kemp it hardly my first gig was it mate.

We stuck around for AGES after the gig. I can’t remember whether the lads were off the next day or something, but we were hanging out for a ridiculously long time. It was windy as FUCK though, and at one point Pill (God bless you Pill I do adore you) piped up “Why is it so windy? Are we by the sea?” YES PILL WE’RE IN STOKE ON SEA, BLESS YOUR BEARDY FACE.

Oh, the bad thing about this night was that I broke my camera. I knew something shit had happened in Stoke. I was stood talking to Maz and Shane about something and somehow my camera slipped out of my hand and hit the curb. I picked it up and turned it on, and realised the screen was cracked to shit. Shane saw what had happened and asked me if it was the screen or the lens, so I snapped a photo of him and was really relieved to find it was just the screen. It also resulted in a really hilarious photo, but you know, that was kind of just a handy bonus.

At some point I ran back to the hotel to get some pens or something and bumped into Paula in the lobby of the hotel. I can’t even remember how we started talking but I think it was Tash she was with, and FVK had signed her arms. I don’t even really remember what we talked about but I think we swapped names or I told her my Twitter name or something and we found each other not long after, and then I was treated to the wonderful video of me singing. Again, apologies to anyone who was there. I hope your ears have recovered now.

When the lads left Maz and I decided to go and get food. We walked around the corner from the venue to look for a takeaway and found one with ease, but then we realised the lads were in there. We hovered outside for a bit not knowing whether to go in or not cos we didn’t want it to look like we were following them, but then we realised that hanging around outside probably didn’t look that great either, so we gave up and went in. We weren’t sure to start with whether to acknowledge the lads or not so we just stood awkwardly after we’d ordered until Drew and Shane started talking to us. At one point Dave had challenged Kemp to eat something with some form of really hot sauce on it (I think he filmed it, and in fact I think I saw the video at some later point) and Kemp let out the most amazing sad whine of “I don’t want my food to hurt me!” which was so pathetic I laughed until I cried. What a baby. My only other proper memory of being in the takeaway was Shane asking me If I was vegetarian because I was eating cheesy chips (I wasn’t at that point, so I said ‘no I’m just broke’) and when he commented that our food was taking a long time I told him it was because Maz had ordered pizza, and he tutted at her and said “Maz!” in a very disapproving voice. 

OH! OH AND PILL APPEARING!
When we’d been outside, before the lads had gone to the takeaway, Pill had asked if anyone wanted anything from Tesco cos he was heading down there for something, so I asked him for Red Bull substitute cos we’d run out. I didn’t really think any more of it until he appeared in the takeaway. I remembered what I’d asked him for and asked if he’d got it. He told me he couldn’t find Tesco. Now I know Pill is one of the most easily confused creatures in the universe, but Tesco is in a straight line down from the venue. In fact, I think you can probably even see it from the venue if you stand at the right angle, so something here didn’t add up. As I got closer to him I realised where he’d actually been (I dare not explain further because he'd be in trouble if I did). I laughed at him and said “It’s okay, Pill, I know where you’ve really been.” at which point he burst out laughing and hugged my head.
I know I say it a lot but I really do love that boy.

When we walked back past the venue to get back to our hotel, Maz and I realised Fort Hope were still standing outside. We stopped and asked them if everything was okay. It turned out Gaskin had left his phone in the dressing room, and the people who worked at the venue had locked up for the night. The lads were banging on the door trying to get someone’s attention but it wasn’t working. I pointed out that there was a phone number on the top of the ‘upcoming gigs’ poster and said it might be worth trying that. Simon did. There was no answer. I told Gaskin that if he had to leave really early in the morning I could pick his phone up for him if he liked and give it back to him in Bristol, but he said he didn’t have to rush off so he’d try again in the morning. I tweeted him the next day to ask if he’d got it back and he had.
Bless him.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Liverpool, 15th April 2013.

I’m pretty sure Liverpool was the first time Maz and I stayed in a hotel together. I have a vague recollection of telling Drew after the gig that our hotel was next door to the venue and he looked incredibly shocked and said “You’re sharing a ROOM?!” I don’t know why he was so surprised but it was actually pretty adorable bless him.

By Liverpool I knew Fort Hope slightly better, and when Andé walked up the queue to say hello to people I stopped him for a quick chat. He ended up asking where I was from and when I said Shrewsbury I quickly added “but no-one knows where that is”. He totally threw me off by saying he knew where it was because he’d had a friend move there, and he knew it was the birthplace of Charles Darwin. I added that it was also the birthplace of Wilfred Owen and then Andé started talking about how much he loved Wilfred Owen’s poetry and then I think I quoted some or something and then I ended up saying “HIGH FIVE FOR WILFRED OWEN!” which became like some sort of weird catchphrase for us. (Writing this is making me really miss Andé he was such a babe.)

It was in Liverpool that I totally threw Jon Gaskin off during the song Control. He tried to say something about the crowds in Birmingham and Oxford not being very good at the crowd participation bit that he got the audience to do and I shouted “HEY!” and swore at him. He pointed at me and said something that sounded suspiciously like “Yeah, hubbalubalere!” He informed me afterwards that what he was trying to say was “You were there!” but I’d thrown him so much by being there that he’d forgotten how to speak. Oops.

The only thing I remember REALLY distinctly about FVK’s set is that at the guy next to me (who had announced loudly several times that he was only there because he was chaperoning his little sister) called Drew a wanker and I totally lost my shit. I mean fair enough if you’ve met him and he’s treated you badly but how the fuck you can judge whether someone is a wanker or not when all you’ve done is watch them on a stage I’ll never know. In fact I think I ended up saying “YOU CAN’T SAY THAT IF YOU HAVEN’T MET HIM.” and then refused to pay any attention to him for the rest of the night. What an asshole.

After the gig was pretty hilarious.
Maz gave Beveridge a bag of Vocalzone throat treatment pastilles which he got VERY excited about and refused to let Drew share, which was pretty great. Digging around in the bag he found one of Maz’s old train tickets, which he also seemed to get excited about for reasons best known to himself.
In fact Beveridge was on form this night, he’d walked out of the venue about half an hour before holding a pair of shoes in the air above his head and shouting “WHOSE SHOES ARE THESE?”
I never did find out whose shoes they were. I’ve always hoped that they didn’t actually belong to anyone in the band and Beveridge essentially stole someone’s shoes.

Also I have to throw this picture in because everything about it makes me laugh. Fucking Pill in the background like Sasquatch. Love it.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Oxford, 14th April 2013.

We had the most amazing time before the gig in Oxford cos there were so many of us that knew each other waiting outside the venue. When we arrived Zoey was already there, then Sarah and Ellie arrived, and as we waited Kazza, Mel and Beth all turned up and we just spent the day being total dicks. Our favourite thing to do was  peer around the corner of the doorway we were stood in with our heads all at different heights like in Scooby Doo. At one point we got Drew to join in, so it became known as Scooby Drew. The photo of it is one of my favourite things.

While we were waiting outside Maz arrived and she ran across the road to give us all a hug. Shane had been around when Maz arrived but he’d been on the phone but then all of a sudden he was there with his arms around us. I said “I thought you were on the phone, Shane?” and he replied with “I hung up to join in the hug.” which was just so adorable.

This was also the day Shane came over to me and asked me if I had a ruler. Why I would have a ruler at a gig I will never fucking know but basically they’d forgotten the backdrop they’d made and Shane had the ingenious idea of making a stencil to put over a light to project the logo onto the plain black backdrop, but he needed a ruler to do so. I didn’t have a ruler (obviously) but I did mention that there was a shop over the road that sold pretty much everything by the looks of it, so why didn’t he go and look there. He told me he had no money, so basically I ended up going with him with the intention of buying him whatever I could find that he could use as a ruler. 

The shop was one of the weirdest shops I’ve ever been in in my entire life. If from the outside it looked like it sold everything, the inside just hammered the point home. There was stuff EVERYWHERE. Hula hoops, towels, heaters, buckets, flip flops, I think there was a radiator propped up against one wall… After about five minutes of wandering round we ended up asking where we could find stationery and we were pointed towards a pile of copper pipes, which when pushed back revealed a small collection of pens and notebooks. We dug around a bit and found one of those geometry sets that you used to buy every year for school and then never used (you know, the ones with the protractors and rulers and a compass and shit). We decided that’d have to do and I bought it for Shane as he thanked me repeatedly and promised to pay me back.
He never did.
He still owes me £2.

I remember fuck all of the gig and also of afterwards, except that at one point (and including in my photo with Drew) all the lads were eating carrots. I don’t know why. I think they were the only food they had…

EDIT: Thanks to Timehop my memory was jogged a few days ago by a post that simply said “Don’t squish me, I’ve got Babybels in my pocket!” which was an amazing line that Pill came out with when I first saw him that day and ran to gave him a hug. He’d been to what I think was a Sainsbury’s (it was a Tesco. Thanks Mel!) over the road and had a net of those yoghurt things that are in those plastic fruit shapes in one pocket and a net of Babybels in the other. I remember this because I remember commenting on the fact that he clearly only ate food in nets now. 

I also remembered going up to Pill at one point after the show and telling him the price was still on the back of his braces. It was in fact a sticker with the size on, and as it turned out they weren’t even his braces, they belonged to Beveridge.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Birmingham, 13th April 2013.

It was so cold outside the venue waiting to go in. It wasn’t a patch on Glasgow in February  but it was still fucking freezing. At one point I walked into town and bought a really hideous jumper with a handprint on it just to keep me vaguely warm. That jumper ended up being christened ‘Ugly Jumper’ and I think almost everyone wore it at some point that day, it just got passed around everyone in our little group whenever anyone said they were particularly cold.

OH WAIT I FORGOT this was the day I gave Beveridge the shirt I’d asked him about in Bicester, the one that said “WARNING: I say cunt a lot”. I’d wrapped it really neatly in Nightmare Before Christmas wrapping paper that I haven’t used since cos I love it too much to use it, and his face when he opened it was an absolute picture. I’d tweeted him about what it said so he was prepared but I don’t think he thought I’d actually do it. I told him I wanted a picture of him in it, and when he’d finished loading in he came back past us to go into town and showed me that he’d got it on already. I was so proud. Especially when I realised he’d walked around Selfridges with it on. (Sadly he told me he’d had his hoodie zipped up but still. It said that UNDER the hoodie. Amazing.) 

This was the first night of the Diamonds and Disgrace tour with Fort Hope. Unlike TKID, where I’d heard of The Dead Lay Waiting, I’d never actually heard of Fort Hope, so had no idea who they were never mind what they sounded like. (In fact, I don’t think it was until during the day when we were waiting for doors that I even discovered that they were ex members of My Passion. ) The first support act on were Obscure Pleasures, who I knew and loved anyway, and then it was a case of standing thinking “Okay, what’s going to happen now…”
Andé (not that I knew it was Andé at the time obviously) came over to my side of the stage and stuck a setlist to the floor, and I remember turning to Louise and saying “Oh well, if they’re shit then we’ve only got 8 songs to get through”. Oh me. Oh stupid naïve little me. By the end of their first song (Plans, which is now what they close with) I had totally, completely and utterly fallen in love with them. This wasn’t like TDLW, I didn’t grow to love them by the end of the tour, I completely fell in love with this band on that first night. Having thought that I’d only gotten 8 songs to ‘get through’ I found myself totally gutted when their set was over. (Bonus fact: The night before the last FVK gig I was talking to Jon Gaskin (Fort Hope’s vocalist and general all-round angel) told me that I was the only person who ever made an effort to talk to them at every gig on this tour and I cried.)

I remember absolutely nothing of FVK’s set. Literally absolutely nothing. I’m assuming it was excellent though cos like the lads are always great.

I remember being really excited at one point cos I walked into the merch room (I think this was when we first got in actually, before Obscure Pleasures came on) and Will South was stood behind FVK’s merch desk. I’d wanted to meet Will for like a year and I had no idea he was there and I was over the damn moon. I ended up getting the most hideous photo with him photobombed by Lucy and Kate. It’s great.

Pill was really angry afterwards because he wanted to go out and get drunk but the lads were playing in Oxford the next day and no-one would let him. That’s my resounding memory of after the gig, which is pretty sad. Well, that and when I tried to get a photo with Drew Will walked over and put his arm around Drew and held his hand which made me look like someone photobombing a really cute gay couple’s photo. Cheers Will.

We went to get a pizza when we left, and we walked into the takeaway to be faced with Kemp and Dave (who unfortunately was still their tour manager at this point) who were getting food. I didn’t actually want anything to eat, so I just hovered around. Louise, Annabel and Paige sat down when they’d got their food, but when I went to sit on the last chair I quickly realised it wasn’t actually bolted down properly and it tipped me off onto the floor. I ended up sat at a table on my own until Beveridge appeared. He ended up sitting at the table with me, which was really sweet of him cos by this time Kemp was actually sat at a table on the other side of the takeaway so he didn’t really have to stay with me. As we went back to go back past the venue to go to the car (the lads were going to the van, obviously, not our car) Beveridge decided he couldn’t be bothered to go under the underpass and he wanted to run across the road. I got really angry with him and told him it wasn’t safe and shouted at him until he came with us instead. You know, because I’m nice and caring like that.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Cardiff, 17th March 2013 (25th show!)

Cardiff was my 25^th show, and to celebrate, I took a scrapbook with me to get the lads to write something nice in it for me.
The messages I got were as follows:

“Anything. Happy 25^th anniverrerree! Love Lorance”

“Happy 2twenty poopth gig.  YOU SMELL…great! Drew”

“HAPPY! 25^th We really do appreciate the love. Despite the physical abuse!  Love, Kier.”

“Lovely Meg. Hope you had a lovely 25^th gig! Zhane (with a backwards ‘e’)”

“Happy 25^th gig!! From your homeboy Nahn! Xx”

…..Some of them were nicer/made more sense than others, I will admit.

The gig was…rammed. I remember bailing pretty fast because we were stood on the end of the stage and there were people everywhere and it just really wasn’t comfortable. It was another Taking Hayley/FVK/Yashin show so luckily we didn’t have to be uncomfortable for long. I’m not a huge fan of Yashin (which I’ll mention more when I get to a slightly later gig) so I never had a problem with bailing when they hit the stage. I did used to quite like Taking Hayley though, it’s a shame they’re not a band any more.

Anyway. Cardiff was the first time I was ever aware of being in the presence of drunk Kemp. (Apart from like…. Yeneville, but I didn’t spend much time with him then.) I don’t know how I knew he was drunk, he wasn’t falling over or slurring or anything, but I was very aware that he was tipsy, and it was hilarious. 

A girl had fainted during Yashin’s set and had to be carried out and was lying on the floor by the bar. Her friend was sat with her and as she came round Kemp crouched next to her and then leaned over and asked if she was okay. She cried for all of about three seconds and then passed out again. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Kemp ran away so fucking fast.

I asked for two photos with each of them at this gig with the intention of having an ‘odd photo’ and a nice photo. My odd photo with Kemp actually made me cry with laughter when I looked at it. Other than Drew, I don’t think I’ve ever met a man capable of pulling the faces he pulls. As I went in for my nice photo about 5 minutes later cos I’d forgotten to ask immediately after my ‘odd’ one, and as Kemp and I went to rest our heads against each other we misjudged HORRIBLY, and ended up headbutting each other so fucking hard. Like I think I actually saw stars. I apologised profusely and he just laughed. I swear that boy doesn’t have a brain, you know.

I’d bought Beveridge a present to this gig, and I couldn’t wait to give him it cos I really thought he’d love it. I knew he was a huge Green Day fan and in about… 2005, I think, as charity called Whatever It Takes signed up a load of rockers to make charity wristbands and stuff. I’d bought myself a HIM one and a Green Day one, but I’d never really worn the Green Day one, so I decided to give it to Beveridge as a lovely gift. I gave him it and he put it on immediately, (which I thought was just cos I was standing there but it turned out he really liked it) and I remember him asking if I was sure he could have it. I told him I’d never worn it and he’d get more use out of it than me so, yes, I was sure. Bless him. I went on to get him another three, including the last one ever which ended up getting lost in the post. I was gutted about that.

One of my favourite things about this night was my ‘odd photo’ with Beveridge, cos we had to take it outside as I’d forgotten inside and then we’d been kicked out. He lunged forward into a very odd position and stuck his tongue out. The photo is amazing, cos it was so cold that you could see his breath, and in the haze was the figure of a tiny man. I showed it to Beveridge and he was really freaked out, he took my camera off me to squint at it to make sure he was seeing it right and everything. I wound him up over it for about 10 minutes before I caved and told him it was actually a painting of a rugby player on the wall behind us and it was just a well-timed and well positioned photo. I wish I’d kept him going longer really but I started to feel mean…

When we were stood by the van I apologised to Beveridge for what I’d told him in Birmingham on the K! tour because I didn’t want him to think I was offloading my problems on him and he very sweetly informed me that he heard so many people saying things like that that it went “in one ear and out the other”.
…I don’t think he meant that as harshly as it comes across... 

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo