Cardiff, 3rd February 2013.

We accidentally knew about K! tour before it was announced, because Louise and Annabel went to see Dave when he was working with another band, and he told them that there was a BVB/FVK tour coming up. I was a BVB fan at the time (I was starting to go off them but I still think they’re okay to be honest) and I knew they were due to play K! so we kind of put two and two together and worked it out.

Cardiff, like the Birmingham Ashes date, fell on a shit day for me, because the third of February was my Dad's birthday. Once again, I decided to ignore it and go anyway.

Louise and Annabel stayed at my house the night before Cardiff so we could get up really early and go. The headline act on the K! Tour was Black Veil Brides, so we knew this tour was going to be huge and also full of fangirls. This made us even more determined to be front row. We wanted the lads to know that they weren't going from playing to a room full of friends to a room full of strangers. I think it was something like 4am when my alarm went off, and we left at 5. We must have been outside by about 7, and we were the second lot of people there, guaranteeing us front row. Frick yeah. The day was spent fucking about, singing the Spongebob theme tune and trying to get away with peeing in Costa as many times as possible before they told us we had to buy something. The only exciting thing that happened that day that I can recall was trying to find a toilet in the university building next door to the venue and accidentally walking into Andy Biersack. Literally. Like I almost knocked him flat.

Oh wait I’ve just remembered another thing! I’d made Pill and I matching t-shirts. I can’t remember how it came about but for some reason on Twitter I’d referred to Pill as my ‘home boy’, and at the January Ashes show I’d threatened to make us matching t-shirts. He told me that if I did he’d wear it, and so I did. Mine said “Pillnahn is my homeboy” and his said “I’m Meg’s homeboy”. I’d brought them with me with the intention of giving it to him before the show, but I’d forgotten and left it in the car, so I couldn’t give it to him when I saw him. At some point during the day someone walked up the queue handing out flyers, and we dismissed them without a second glance until we realised the person was wearing FVK merch and called them back. It turned out to be Pill’s brother, Lee, so I legged it over to the car (we’d moved it closer at this point) and got the shirt, asking Lee to take it in for me and give it to Pill. He told me Pill had said something about the shirt so he’d make sure he got it, and God bless him he did. About 15 minutes later Pill tweeted me a picture of himself in it and I burst into tears. I love that boy more than I can explain.

When we finally got into the venue we ran to the front row and ended up on the very end, towards Shane's side. Shane was in fact still on the stage setting up, as was Drew. We shouted to Shane that he was too far away and it was weird and we didn't like it, and he reached his arms out to us and pulled a sad face which was pretty much the most heartbreaking thing ever. In fact I think I cried during the set because I remember thinking that this was the beginning of the end regarding gigs. I honestly thought (in all my music/band related ignorance) that K! would like skyrocket the lads into stardom and that'd be it, I wouldn't be able to follow them any more and I wouldn't be able to meet them before/after gigs and just...it'd all be over.  Part of the crying was pride due to this thought because I've never met 5 lads more worthy of achieving their dream in my life than FVK but mostly I was crying selfishly for what I thought was going to be my loss.

Anyway... It was the shortest set I think I'd ever seen them play and it seemed to be over very quickly. The main thing about it that sticks in my mind is the fact that during At War With The Thirst Beveridge got really carried away and decided he wanted to interact with the crowd. He stepped off the stage and to the barrier, doing his usual thing of grabbing people's hands and singing with them. The problem came when he turned around to get back on stage and realised he couldn't get up there. It was a huge drop, and whilst going down hadn't cause a problem, trying to get back up did. He ended up half lying on the stage trying to scramble up and it was simultaneously the funniest and most mortifying thing I've ever seen in my life. In fact, I think he sang the wrong words because he got lost and couldn’t remember what point he was at in the song.

We bailed after FVK had played cos none of us cared about Tonight Alive, Chiodos or BVB and we didn't want to take front row space from someone who did, so we went to look at the merch. FVK to the best of my knowledge had done all their own merch sales to this point so we were partly being nosey about who was doing merch to be honest. We didn't recognise the guy instantly but when we got talking to him I clicked that he was probably Steve (not Stevie D,  a different Steve whose last name eludes me at this precise moment), their manager at the time, and when he asked if we knew who he was I told him so. I was right. He also told us that he knew who we were because the lads had talked about us, which made me 50% proud 50% incredibly embarrassed.

Outside after the gig was odd because a lot of the people waiting to talk to FVK didn't really know who they were, having seen them for the first time that night. I was determined to talk to Pill because this was the first time I'd felt confident enough to talk to him about the whole wanting to end myself thing and I wanted him to know that he'd...helped me, I suppose, in the oddest way possible. I made my way over to him and waited to have a word with him. (He'd also been a total babe and on the 10th of January when I was super low during the daytime I'd tweeted him saying I needed a hug and he replied with "I'm pushing my face against my phone xxx" which I had totally needed. When I thanked him for doing that he laughed, and went “I actually did that!”) I eventually like sidled closer and gave him a huge squish and told him I had something to tell him. I started by saying something like "Last November I almost killed myself." to which he responded with "I didn't know that!" My reply was brutally honest and even I wasn't expecting it to come out of my mouth: "I know, Pill, no-one did, because I was actually going to do it." I might be completely wrong here but by the time I'd finished talking Pill looked genuinely quite emotional and he ended up just hugging my head and telling me he was really glad I was still here. He also showed me his new tattoo, which was a shark fin on the inside of his wrist and informed me that it was the most painful one he’d ever gotten and that “if you ever get a tattoo there…don’t.” 

 I was going to tell Beveridge the same thing I’d told Pill this night but I decided against it because by the time I got to talk to him there were very few people around and I didn't want to make a huge thing of it.

I asked Pill for a drumstick just before the guys left, and he ended up getting told off for scrabbling around in the back of the van trying to find me one when all the lads wanted to leave. I informed him we'd be in Liverpool and to give me one then and he eventually gave up and got in the van.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo