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