Liverpool, 9th February 2013.

Liverpool was mental.
Well. Let me rephrase that. Getting to Liverpool was mental. 

Again, we’d decided that we wanted to be front row (I think Kemp had actually said something about it being nice seeing ‘familiar faces’ on the front row in Cardiff) so we left really early in the morning again. In fact, I’ll give you an actual breakdown of what happened so that you’re fully aware of how long I was awake because that’ll give you an idea as to why shit that happened later came to pass. Basically, I had to work the day before Liverpool, so I got up at 6.30am, worked a full day, went and got on a train, went to Louise’s house, she went to work at 10pm, came home at 2am, and we left her house about 2.30am. We got to Liverpool for about 4.30am, so I’d been awake about 22 hours. There were still people in the venue, who were still there after a club night that had started THE NIGHT BEFORE. That’s how early we were. We parked in a multi-storey car park opposite the venue and everyone except me took it in turns sleeping in the car. I essentially sat outside a venue, bar a few toilet/food breaks, for 13 hours that day to be on the motherfucking front row. In February. 13 hours outside a venue in FEBRUARY. I am aware that this was my own choice but if I’m ever to be awarded a medal for anything in my life I think it should be that.

Louise and I left Annabel in the car and went to queue at about 6, by which time BVB’s tour bus had arrived. We must have looked a really sad and pathetic sight because their driver took pity on us and invited us onto the bus for a coffee. The band were upstairs asleep and we stood awkwardly by the door while he made us our drinks and handed us them and then had a ten minute long whispered conversation about the fact we weren’t even there for the headline act. He thought we were insane. At that point so did I.

Liverpool was the place I met Maz ‘properly’ for the first time. Our mutual friend Kat had told us to follow each other on Twitter cos we both liked FVK but it wasn’t really until we started talking that we realised we’d spoken a few times before but not much had ever really come of it. I can’t remember how it came about but I remember offering my help in Liverpool because she was going to be wearing a corset and didn’t know if she could lace herself into it, and I suddenly got a text at some point in the afternoon saying “Room 208. Help. Xx” I went and laced her right up. In return, I got a cup of vodka and coke. With a saucer. Cos we’m classy to a fault.

I think it was after this that Kemp got arrested, but I might be wrong.

 …I’ll explain. Essentially, we saw the lads arrive and as we went down to say hello we noticed blue flashing lights. Not wanting to interrupt anything important we hung back and just left them to it. When we went back about twenty minutes later the police had gone and Dave told us there’d been a mix up and the van wasn’t registered as road legal or something, and he and Kemp had actually been put under arrest for all of about 5 minutes. I didn’t even know Kemp could be that rock and roll.

This is a really trivial thing but it makes me smile. After the arrests (lol), I was stood talking to Beveridge about nothing in particular (not that that’s unusual) and someone came and stood by us. I shut up to let her talk to Beveridge, and as she was talking to him she turned to me and said “This is a weird question, but are you Megan Mercury?” I opened my mouth to answer but before I could Beveridge replied with “Yes she is” and just grinned at me. I’ll never forget that.

We eventually went in and got as warm as possible and settled down on the front row. I don’t remember much of the set but I filmed Fetish For The Finite (click here to watch) and I think Beveridge gives us some sort of nod or something that essentially acknowledges us and so basically all the hours outside the venue were forgotten in that moment so that’s okay. At the end of the set, God bless him and true to his word, Pill threw me his drumstick. I missed it. I had to wave my arms around like a mentalist to get the security guy to notice and give it to me. I was so worried about someone else asking for it and I don’t know why, cos as it turned out no-one else wanted it or gave a shit. But anyway. It was mine. Is mine, even. That drumstick became like a fucking talisman to me over the next few days.

Trying to get off of the front row was quite a thing this night, cos no-one wanted to let us move. No-one seemed to understand that we were trying to move OFF the front row, not further into the middle, and we were just fucking trapped. I took an elbow to the mouth and split the inside of my lip right open, and two seconds later I was on the floor cos I’d tripped over someone. I was a beautiful sight, I’m sure.

Afterwards, outside, I made Pill  ‘write a note’ on the drumstick. He wrote “I’m your home boy”.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo