Download Festival, 9th & 10th June 2012.

Download was the second and third time I saw FVK, which was pretty amazing because I was with two of my friends who had flown over from America to go to the festival with me. 

Download ’12 was, I think, the wettest Download I have known (edit: Download 2016 is now a strong contender for that title). I’ve done at least a day of the festival every year since 2005, and 2012 was just… a whole other league of soggy. Knowing that June was in our summer, John and Jewels had brought all warm weather clothing and had absolutely nothing even vaguely waterproof. I’d bought them disposable ponchos as what I thought as the time was a funny joke, and they ended up sleeping on them to stop the wet seeping through the groundsheet of their tent and getting all their stuff wet. They’d got air beds to sleep on (I didn’t bother and never have, go big or go home) but when you’re in a tent, if the ground is wet, EVERYTHING is wet. I ended up sleeping in a bin bag. Well. Not actually just in a bin bag, in a sleeping bag in a bin bag. In fact everything I owned was in bin bags. And our tents leaked. Mine wasn’t QUITE as bad as John and Jewels’, but it wasn’t great. Luckily Mum and Kev were staying on a campsite nearby in the caravan, so we ended up taking John and Jewels to Tesco’s to buy them wellies and a bunch of warm clothes in a vague attempt to keep them alive and pneumonia free. Oh the times.

I’d spoken to Beveridge at the gig in May about potentially trying to meet FVK at Download because Jewels was a fan, but I was under no illusion that it was a very slim chance what we’d bump into them.
However, as we were stood watching Black Veil Brides on the main stage, I looked up at the gap in the wall in front of me and saw Beveridge and Drew wandering around backstage. What even are the odds. I waved like a madman to get their attention, and they recognised me (to this day I still suspect they probably thought ‘shit’ when they saw me) and came over. I introduced them to Jewels and then talked a load of bollocks at them. My main memory of the exchange is me moaning to them about my tent leaking everywhere and that I had in fact been sleeping in my sleeping bag in a bin bag to try and keep it/myself dry. Drew’s response, God bless him, was “You don’t look like you’ve been sleeping in a bin bag…” (Black Veil Brides had been playing on the main stage while all this was happening, and I remember saying later something like “Oh I wish they’d played such-and-such, that’s my favourite song” and Jewels just turned to me and went “…Meg they did, you were just too busy talking to Laurence.” Oops.)

Download was also, accidentally, the first place I saw LostAlone. I insisted that I wanted to be front row for FVK playing so I dragged John and Jewels to the Red Bull (?) stage about an hour and a half before they were due on and made them wait. In fact, I think John actually literally just sat on the floor the entire time… I couldn’t tell you who was up before LostAlone (that’s a lie, I could quite easily go upstairs and get my Download ’12 lanyard from my lanyard cascade but I’m not gonna) and I don’t even know what LostAlone played, but I do recall looking up halfway through their set and thinking “I know that fringe.”
It was Kemp with Drew and Beveridge, who were stood side stage watching God bless them.

I actually really enjoyed LostAlone, but sadly forgot about them pretty much until the following year when they supported The Darkness. They toured with FVK the following year but heartbreakingly that was the only tour in almost 3 years I was unable to do any dates of. I say heartbreakingly because as I’m sure you’re aware, LostAlone are no longer a band. (EDIT: Neither are FVK! HAHAHAHAHA oh I made myself sad.)

FVK opened with Bow Ties. That’s… That’s as helpful I can be with their set. And they closed with At War With the Thirst. OH AND BEVERIDGE PUNCHED A CUP THAT WAS THROWN AT HIM OUT OF THE FUCKING AIR WHICH WAS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. I think there’s a video of it somewhere?  I’ll try and find it and edit it in if I do.

After they played they came out to meet people (in fact I’ve got a funny feeling I called Pill off the stage you know) and I introduced the guys to John and Jewels. Somehow we ended up following Shane and Pill (who had found a Nerf sword from somewhere?) to go and watch Metallica. Shane tried to help me as I struggled through the mud and I remember apologising for cursing so much and telling him I’m not normally that sweary. I don’t know why I told him that cos I swear pretty much fucking constantly, I think I was just worried about him being offended at the time. Pill disappeared into the crowd just before Metallica started, he was so excited I almost cried for him. Shane… disappeared halfway through their set I think. John, Jewels and I were left alone with one of my favourite random Download people EVER. He was so drunk I don’t think he knew where he was, but he was singing EVERY LINE with James Hetfield and getting it bang on. He couldn’t, however, stand upright and kept staggering around in the mud, occasionally shaking his fist at the ground which was something I thought only happened in cartoons. He was perfect. He left after us but we bumped into him as we walked back to our tent. He was walking the opposite way, back into the village, with a fresh can in his hand. I think he was magic.

Download was pretty excellent really cos FVK got to do two sets, on the Sunday they did a full acoustic set on the Jagermeister  stage. Once again they opened with Bow Ties, but I have very little idea what came after it other than Bite Down on my Winchester (video here) and I only remember that because that morning I’d gone to the t-shirt printing stall and had a shirt made that said “Bite Down on my Winchester” and after they’d finished the song I shouted “KIER!” to try and show my t-shirt to Kemp. It didn’t work. It just resulted in him shouting “What?” repeatedly because he didn’t know what was happening. Cheers Kemp. OH AND THEY PLAYED  MASCARA TEARS! That was the first time I’d heard it live (I’ve still only heard it twice) and I squeezed my own arm so hard while it was happening that I gave myself bruises. (This narrative is the most disjointed thing ever holy shit God help my editor oh wait that’s me.) The guys came out to chat after that set too. I have a wonderful picture of Pill looking like he’s grinding against the metal fence barrier thing cos he still had the "I heart sharks" badge pinned to his crotch and I asked to take a photo. 

I remember asking Drew which one of the sets he’d preferred, and he said “Oh yesterday, without a doubt” and proceeded to tell me he’d absolutely hated the last hour, and had worn his sunglasses the whole time so that he couldn’t really see. Oh well. I own those sunglasses now, so who had the last laugh there. ...Me, I guess. 

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Birmingham, 27th May 2012.

Shall we start at the beginning? That makes sense, right?

Going back to the first show is weird for me, because it simultaneously seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago. I remember quite a bit about it, which is something I’m very grateful for because I hope that in years to some when I look back on this period of my life I’ll be able to go “Oh hey remember where it all began”.

I should start by saying I have very few friends. I know that sounds really sad, but it’s true. I mean the friends I do have are amazing and I love them to the moon and back but I really don’t have many of them, and so consequently I ended up going to my first show with my ex. We’d split up almost a year before and were (well, are) still really close, but we have very, VERY varied music tastes. He turned up to meet me at the train station in a Cannibal Corpse shirt. FVK are definitely not on anywhere near the same level as Cannibal Corpse. I’m pretty sure Andy knew this, and was therefore wearing the shirt as a kind of protest. I couldn’t really argue too much though, seeing as he had at least still turned up.

FVK only had a support slot on the show we were going to, and I’m a little ashamed to say that I had never heard of the main act, who was the singer from a band called Aiden who appeared to have taken to wearing a suit and calling himself William Control. I’d listened to Aiden a couple of times but had never been a  particularly huge fan, although I did meet Wil (for in Aiden he was Wil Francis, not William Control) at Download in 2006 when we was a skinny little emo boy wearing a little too much eyeliner.  Now he was wearing a posh suit and going under a different name and I didn’t get it. I didn’t pretend to. (I still kind of don’t, but please don’t tell Wil that, he frightens me.)

Anyway, I’d made Laurence (henceforth to be known as Beveridge) a scarf. It was the first thing I had ever knitted and was wonky as fuck, but I was insanely proud of it and couldn’t wait to give it to him so about ten minutes after checking into the hotel I managed to get Andy to leave again to go down to the venue. I think it might have been at this point that we got into the lift with someone with a deathbat tattoo on their back. I commented on it, and the lady turned around and smiled. This lady was Maz, my now partner in crime/gig buddy/all round BFF. Isn't it bizarre how life works. Becky and I met each other this day too. Bizarre. Anyway.

I remember being vaguely surprised by how many people were there already because it can only have been about two in the afternoon, but pretty quickly I realised that it was because bands were flitting about all over the place. I didn’t actually know who any of them were apart from FVK, but for the people who did then obviously this was a good time for signing and selfies. I had a bunch of other stuff for Beveridge too, including a copy I’d made him of Matt Berry’s album (Beveridge is one of literally only about 6 people I know who is aware that Matt Berry is a musician as well as a comedian and when I found this out I almost wept with joy) and a Spike Milligan book I was ‘lending’ him (‘lending’ in inverted commas because I didn’t actually ever get it back). At this point I didn’t even know if the band I wanted to get hold of was in the venue, and I remember getting my phone out and going to tweet Beveridge to tell him I was outside with the scarf I’d been wittering on to him about for the past couple of months, before realising he had in fact replied to a tweet I’d sent him the day before asking him to let me know when he was in Birmingham so I could give him his scarf. In a weird twist, the reply simply said ‘Now!’ and as I looked up from my phone I could see him walking down the corridor to come and say hello. I have a horrible feeling, looking back now, that I actually squealed at him. (Aw man, I didn’t realise looking back at the first time was going to be so mortifying. Jesus.) I don’t really remember much of what happened next, other than I think he gave me a hug and I waffled on about bollocks without really stopping for breath in between. I remember thinking “shit if I don’t start talking now I’m not going to talk” and then having the major problem of not actually being able to stop talking once I’d started. Andy told me afterwards that he didn’t think I’d actually drawn breath. Beveridge, if you’re reading this, I am so so sorry. I gave him the book and the CD, and I don’t really remember giving him the scarf but in my photo with him he’s got it on, so I suppose at some point I must have taken it from around my neck and put it around his. (Please remember that this was May. MAY. And he kept a scarf on. What an angel.) I vaguely remember asking him to sign my Kindle. There was logic in this, honestly, you see I’d ordered a copy of Ruple and Evelyn (his book) but I didn’t think it was going to arrive in time for me to get it signed, so I downloaded it onto my Kindle and read it that way. Also I really hated the person who had in fact given me the Kindle, so as I explained to Beveridge at the time “it’ll do two jobs because it’ll piss him off too”. I am a delight. My physical copy actually had arrived the day before the gig in the end, so I got that signed too.

I actually don’t remember him signing the book. Or signing my ticket after the gig. In fact, I don’t really remember any of them signing my ticket, but it’s been signed by all of them, so I guess I must have asked them to do it at some point…

Back to before the gig, I also met Drew and Luke (who shall henceforth be known as ‘Pill’ because I think this gig was potentially the first/last/only time I have ever called him ‘Luke’) and had photos, but don’t recall much of what happened when talking to them, other than Pill suddenly pointing at my bag and asking “Is that true?” I had literally zero idea what he was on about until I clicked that he was pointing at a badge I had that said “I ‘HEART’ SHARKS”. I replied with something like “Yeah! Sharks are great!” and he proceeded to roll up his sleeve and show me his tattoo… of a shark. I immediately took the badge off my bag and gave it to him, telling him he’d ‘earned’ it.

He pinned it to his crotch.

The actual music part of the gig I remember very little of, except for the fact that Militia of the Lost had only come out just under two weeks before, so I’d listened to nothing else in that two weeks so that I knew the words to the songs because I hate going to see a band and not knowing the words, (especially if I’m on the front row, it just feels so bizarrely rude for some reason). I do remember Beveridge jumping off the stage at the end and coming to give me a hug and me saying something like “I’m too short to hug you over the barrier” and him saying something along the lines of “No you’re not” and then my face was being pressed into a very sweaty chest. The next thing I remember is Shane (Barrone) playing with some toy soldiers on the merch table…

Everything after that is really mixed up in my brain but the highlights were standing behind Shane and Drew as they watched William Control and thinking they looked adorable (oh how times change), and Pill coming over to me and saying “There you are, I’ve been looking for you!” and when I asked why he responded with “You’re my pencil case.” (I had a load of permanent markers in my back pocket.) Later that night he turned to me and said “Do you want to see a picture of Kier naked up a mountain?” Confused and thinking he meant someone had drawn it, I replied with “Er.. yeah?” He whipped his phone out and scrolled through it, before eventually turning it for me to see a shot of Kemp from behind. He was indeed naked, and he was indeed up a mountain. I could definitely have lived without that picture, but you know. Thanks Pill.

Speaking of Kier, I feel he and I started as we meant to go on with regards to photos, and I ended up with this beauty.

When we got kicked out of the venue I made Andy wait around until the lads had gone, and my memories of this bit are really hazy, although I have just remembered something I had forgotten until literally just now, which was Beveridge asking Kier (known from now on as ‘Kemp’) to help him lift a massive.. something into the van, and Kemp saying he’d help in a minute, and Beveridge being so impatient he hefted it into the van on his own. I called across “…Did you just lift that into there on your own?” and his response was “Of course, I’m a fearless vampire killer.”
Oh Beveridge.
You knob.

I can’t remember whether it was before or after this that Beveridge pointed at my chest and blurted out “Oh, you’ve got a The Darkness thing! They’re from where we’re from.” (Which technically isn’t even true but you know, they’re close, I’ll give him that.) I reciprocated by pointing at his belt buckle and asking if it was a Queen one, because it was a crest. It wasn’t, it was actually in his words a “THE Queen belt buckle”. This turned into a massive conversation about Queen, and it was at this point he mentioned that he’d once met Brian May.

Other than those few bits the only thing I remember with any clarity is Beveridge walking past with the scarf I’d made him round his neck and me turning to Andy and saying “I’m so glad he likes his scarf.” Drew happened to be walking past and overheard and said “He LOVES that scarf.” (He can’t really have loved it that much cos when I asked about it about 2 weeks later he’d lost it but you know, he tried.) I wish I could remember even more than that but I really can’t. My next vivid memory is going back to the weirdest twin hotel room ever, which had two beds in two rooms separated by a locking door, and my ex waking me up in the middle of the night asking if he could get into bed with me because he was frightened.

No, really, that actually happened.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Hi. I’m Meg. You probably follow me on Twitter (at least I’m assuming that’s how you found this). I’m 28 years old and for fun, I follow a band around the country.
I should probably state in this introduction that I never set out to do this, and to be honest to this day I don’t know how I ended up doing this. When I saw FVK for the first time on the 27th of May 2012 I didn’t ever imagine that I’d go to 50 shows, never mind my current total of 102. My original intention was to go and see the band, have a few drinks, have a bit of a laugh, maybe get my ticket signed if I was lucky, and hopefully see them again on another tour. That… was kind of what happened. I just got sort of carried away.
I’ve been following FVK for four years now, and I’ve been writing this shit down since September 2014, so be prepared to read a lot of “I don’t remember what happened next” and “I think this is what happened” moments. I’ve put in everything I can remember and I’ve gone back and added things that I’ve forgotten but I have been blind fucking drunk at some of these gigs and so it’s a miracle I’ve been able to remember my own face at the end of the night.
If you want to know anything about me, don’t be afraid to ask. I’m on Twitter pretty much 24 hours a day, and my direct messages are open to anyone, so you don’t even have to follow me if you just fancy being nosey without commitment. I hope you enjoy my ramblings.
See you at a gig soon.

Meg Mercury xoxo

EDIT: Obviously I wrote this before the news broke that the band were no more. I’m not changing this intro because I fully intend to continue to follow wherever the remaining members of FVK go from here, it just won’t count towards my FVK gig total. Starting over it is.

Show one - Show one hundred and three
May 27th 2012 - July 17th 2016