Rugby, 6th October 2012.

Rugby was the unofficial start of The Killing Is Dead Tour. Looking back now, I suppose it was a warm up show of sorts, but I still class it as the first date of the tour, cos it was in the right month and like 6 days before the first official date. I mean The Dead Lay Waiting weren’t even playing but that’s hardly the point.

Rugby was, in my memory, at least, vaguely uneventful. It was the first time the guys ever played All Hallows Evil (which at the time I don’t think even had a name and was what they opened with every night on TKID) and the first time they played Exploding Heart Disorder (which was their single at the time) live. There's a video of that here if you're interested.

Oh actually, Rugby was the night that FVK became the band I had seen the most. Up until then, it had been Trivium, who I’d seen 7 times, but Rugby was my 8^th FVK gig, which meant they’d overtaken by one show. I’d been following Trivium since 2005, FVK since May. I often look back and think this should have rung a warning bell and I should have had at least a vague idea of what was going to happen with my life at this point, and yet I really didn’t.

I wish I had more stories about Rugby, but the only memory I can conjure up is talking to Shane about merch, and him telling me that their flat was just full of boxes of it. He ended up drawing a little diagram of their flat, telling Annabel and I where everyone slept (he and Drew shared a room, Kemp and Beveridge shared a room, and Pill slept on the sofa) and even drew little mice around the boxes because apparently they have a problem with mice.

Oh, I’ve just remembered that Beveridge came to me this night and told me that he still had the Spike Milligan book that I’d loaned him back in May.
I told him it didn’t matter, he could keep it.

EDIT: I made a note in the book I’ve been drafting in to come back and add something I’d forgotten to this date. I’m so glad I remembered to note it down because it was one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me and I can’t believe I didn’t think to put it in before.
While Louise, Annabel and I were waiting outside the venue we saw Kemp, Drew and Pill walking up with giant pizzas. We went over (I tried to steal Pill’s pizza but he hit me with it) and chatted to them for a bit cos we hadn’t seen them for a while before they said ‘see you later’ and carried on into the venue. They’d been gone all of about three minutes when some young girls came up to us and one of them said in the most excited-but-trying-to-be-calm voice “Excuse me, can I ask you something?” We told her ‘yes’, knowing damn well what was coming next.
“Do you like… KNOW Fearless Vampire Killers?!” God bless her. We said yes and she flapped her hands and squealed ‘OH MY GOD’ in an incredibly high pitch before asking us about six questions in twelve seconds. God bless her. She was great.

DOUBLE EDIT: While writing about the second time I went to Rugby I remembered that when Kemp left this night he simply announced “Right. Well. I’m going to go and do that thing now where I get in the van and everyone has to follow me.” And that was his goodbye. Thanks Kemp.

I'll end this with one of the most adorable photos of Pillnahn I have ever taken. 

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo