Stoke, 17th April 2013.

Stoke was fabulous cos I met Paula for the first time. I don’t even know how we got talking, I think it was in the lobby of the hotel after I’d run back to get something but I don’t really remember… Was it pens maybe? Something anyway. More on that later.

I can’t remember what time we got to the venue but it must have been pretty early cos I know I wanted to be front row and Maz agreed to be on front row with me, which is really unusual. Spending time at the venue before the show is always a bonus cos you normally get to see the band before they actually go in to soundcheck.
At one point I ended up taking Gaskin to Tesco cos he wanted someone to show him where it was and everyone else who offered sort of screamed when he asked them, so he asked me to go with him. I bought a little purple hippo while I was there cos I’d forgotten my cuddly penguin who accompanies me on tour and I can’t sleep without cuddling something. The reason I’ve mentioned this hippo is because when I got back, for reasons I don’t fully recall at the moment, I asked Shane to draw a beard on it and turn it into Pill for me. He did without question, bless him.

 In fact, this was the day that I asked him to draw “Thomas the Tank Penguin” which was the brainchild of Maz and I. Again I don’t really recall how that came into being but I gave Shane a piece of paper that I’d been writing a Spike Milligan poem I wanted to learn on and asked him to draw this creation for me. He took the piece of paper and disappeared into the venue. When he came back he handed me the drawing and uttered the amazing sentence “I couldn’t remember what ears penguins had, so I gave it pointy ones.”

For some reason Drew and Shane went to Tesco and came back with some ceramic garden ornaments. I can’t remember who had what but one of them had a mushroom and one of them had some dogs. I’ve never known why that was or what happened to them. The ornaments. Not Drew and Shane.

Actually in the gig, Kemp let me sing. Like actually held the mic in my face and let me sing the line “…and be loved” in Bite Down on my Winchester. That’s actually how I found Paula on Facebook, I think, I asked if anyone had filmed it and she had (sadly for me and luckily for you guys the video has since been lost). Poor Paula. Her introduction to me was my awful voice. And the poor lads being able to hear me in their earpieces.
Anyway, it’s Kemp’s fault.

I thanked him afterwards for letting me sing with him, and he responded with “Thank YOU.” When I asked him what for he paused for a second and then said “…For knowing the words.”
Kemp it hardly my first gig was it mate.

We stuck around for AGES after the gig. I can’t remember whether the lads were off the next day or something, but we were hanging out for a ridiculously long time. It was windy as FUCK though, and at one point Pill (God bless you Pill I do adore you) piped up “Why is it so windy? Are we by the sea?” YES PILL WE’RE IN STOKE ON SEA, BLESS YOUR BEARDY FACE.

Oh, the bad thing about this night was that I broke my camera. I knew something shit had happened in Stoke. I was stood talking to Maz and Shane about something and somehow my camera slipped out of my hand and hit the curb. I picked it up and turned it on, and realised the screen was cracked to shit. Shane saw what had happened and asked me if it was the screen or the lens, so I snapped a photo of him and was really relieved to find it was just the screen. It also resulted in a really hilarious photo, but you know, that was kind of just a handy bonus.

At some point I ran back to the hotel to get some pens or something and bumped into Paula in the lobby of the hotel. I can’t even remember how we started talking but I think it was Tash she was with, and FVK had signed her arms. I don’t even really remember what we talked about but I think we swapped names or I told her my Twitter name or something and we found each other not long after, and then I was treated to the wonderful video of me singing. Again, apologies to anyone who was there. I hope your ears have recovered now.

When the lads left Maz and I decided to go and get food. We walked around the corner from the venue to look for a takeaway and found one with ease, but then we realised the lads were in there. We hovered outside for a bit not knowing whether to go in or not cos we didn’t want it to look like we were following them, but then we realised that hanging around outside probably didn’t look that great either, so we gave up and went in. We weren’t sure to start with whether to acknowledge the lads or not so we just stood awkwardly after we’d ordered until Drew and Shane started talking to us. At one point Dave had challenged Kemp to eat something with some form of really hot sauce on it (I think he filmed it, and in fact I think I saw the video at some later point) and Kemp let out the most amazing sad whine of “I don’t want my food to hurt me!” which was so pathetic I laughed until I cried. What a baby. My only other proper memory of being in the takeaway was Shane asking me If I was vegetarian because I was eating cheesy chips (I wasn’t at that point, so I said ‘no I’m just broke’) and when he commented that our food was taking a long time I told him it was because Maz had ordered pizza, and he tutted at her and said “Maz!” in a very disapproving voice. 

OH! OH AND PILL APPEARING!
When we’d been outside, before the lads had gone to the takeaway, Pill had asked if anyone wanted anything from Tesco cos he was heading down there for something, so I asked him for Red Bull substitute cos we’d run out. I didn’t really think any more of it until he appeared in the takeaway. I remembered what I’d asked him for and asked if he’d got it. He told me he couldn’t find Tesco. Now I know Pill is one of the most easily confused creatures in the universe, but Tesco is in a straight line down from the venue. In fact, I think you can probably even see it from the venue if you stand at the right angle, so something here didn’t add up. As I got closer to him I realised where he’d actually been (I dare not explain further because he'd be in trouble if I did). I laughed at him and said “It’s okay, Pill, I know where you’ve really been.” at which point he burst out laughing and hugged my head.
I know I say it a lot but I really do love that boy.

When we walked back past the venue to get back to our hotel, Maz and I realised Fort Hope were still standing outside. We stopped and asked them if everything was okay. It turned out Gaskin had left his phone in the dressing room, and the people who worked at the venue had locked up for the night. The lads were banging on the door trying to get someone’s attention but it wasn’t working. I pointed out that there was a phone number on the top of the ‘upcoming gigs’ poster and said it might be worth trying that. Simon did. There was no answer. I told Gaskin that if he had to leave really early in the morning I could pick his phone up for him if he liked and give it back to him in Bristol, but he said he didn’t have to rush off so he’d try again in the morning. I tweeted him the next day to ask if he’d got it back and he had.
Bless him.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Liverpool, 15th April 2013.

I’m pretty sure Liverpool was the first time Maz and I stayed in a hotel together. I have a vague recollection of telling Drew after the gig that our hotel was next door to the venue and he looked incredibly shocked and said “You’re sharing a ROOM?!” I don’t know why he was so surprised but it was actually pretty adorable bless him.

By Liverpool I knew Fort Hope slightly better, and when Andé walked up the queue to say hello to people I stopped him for a quick chat. He ended up asking where I was from and when I said Shrewsbury I quickly added “but no-one knows where that is”. He totally threw me off by saying he knew where it was because he’d had a friend move there, and he knew it was the birthplace of Charles Darwin. I added that it was also the birthplace of Wilfred Owen and then Andé started talking about how much he loved Wilfred Owen’s poetry and then I think I quoted some or something and then I ended up saying “HIGH FIVE FOR WILFRED OWEN!” which became like some sort of weird catchphrase for us. (Writing this is making me really miss Andé he was such a babe.)

It was in Liverpool that I totally threw Jon Gaskin off during the song Control. He tried to say something about the crowds in Birmingham and Oxford not being very good at the crowd participation bit that he got the audience to do and I shouted “HEY!” and swore at him. He pointed at me and said something that sounded suspiciously like “Yeah, hubbalubalere!” He informed me afterwards that what he was trying to say was “You were there!” but I’d thrown him so much by being there that he’d forgotten how to speak. Oops.

The only thing I remember REALLY distinctly about FVK’s set is that at the guy next to me (who had announced loudly several times that he was only there because he was chaperoning his little sister) called Drew a wanker and I totally lost my shit. I mean fair enough if you’ve met him and he’s treated you badly but how the fuck you can judge whether someone is a wanker or not when all you’ve done is watch them on a stage I’ll never know. In fact I think I ended up saying “YOU CAN’T SAY THAT IF YOU HAVEN’T MET HIM.” and then refused to pay any attention to him for the rest of the night. What an asshole.

After the gig was pretty hilarious.
Maz gave Beveridge a bag of Vocalzone throat treatment pastilles which he got VERY excited about and refused to let Drew share, which was pretty great. Digging around in the bag he found one of Maz’s old train tickets, which he also seemed to get excited about for reasons best known to himself.
In fact Beveridge was on form this night, he’d walked out of the venue about half an hour before holding a pair of shoes in the air above his head and shouting “WHOSE SHOES ARE THESE?”
I never did find out whose shoes they were. I’ve always hoped that they didn’t actually belong to anyone in the band and Beveridge essentially stole someone’s shoes.

Also I have to throw this picture in because everything about it makes me laugh. Fucking Pill in the background like Sasquatch. Love it.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Oxford, 14th April 2013.

We had the most amazing time before the gig in Oxford cos there were so many of us that knew each other waiting outside the venue. When we arrived Zoey was already there, then Sarah and Ellie arrived, and as we waited Kazza, Mel and Beth all turned up and we just spent the day being total dicks. Our favourite thing to do was  peer around the corner of the doorway we were stood in with our heads all at different heights like in Scooby Doo. At one point we got Drew to join in, so it became known as Scooby Drew. The photo of it is one of my favourite things.

While we were waiting outside Maz arrived and she ran across the road to give us all a hug. Shane had been around when Maz arrived but he’d been on the phone but then all of a sudden he was there with his arms around us. I said “I thought you were on the phone, Shane?” and he replied with “I hung up to join in the hug.” which was just so adorable.

This was also the day Shane came over to me and asked me if I had a ruler. Why I would have a ruler at a gig I will never fucking know but basically they’d forgotten the backdrop they’d made and Shane had the ingenious idea of making a stencil to put over a light to project the logo onto the plain black backdrop, but he needed a ruler to do so. I didn’t have a ruler (obviously) but I did mention that there was a shop over the road that sold pretty much everything by the looks of it, so why didn’t he go and look there. He told me he had no money, so basically I ended up going with him with the intention of buying him whatever I could find that he could use as a ruler. 

The shop was one of the weirdest shops I’ve ever been in in my entire life. If from the outside it looked like it sold everything, the inside just hammered the point home. There was stuff EVERYWHERE. Hula hoops, towels, heaters, buckets, flip flops, I think there was a radiator propped up against one wall… After about five minutes of wandering round we ended up asking where we could find stationery and we were pointed towards a pile of copper pipes, which when pushed back revealed a small collection of pens and notebooks. We dug around a bit and found one of those geometry sets that you used to buy every year for school and then never used (you know, the ones with the protractors and rulers and a compass and shit). We decided that’d have to do and I bought it for Shane as he thanked me repeatedly and promised to pay me back.
He never did.
He still owes me £2.

I remember fuck all of the gig and also of afterwards, except that at one point (and including in my photo with Drew) all the lads were eating carrots. I don’t know why. I think they were the only food they had…

EDIT: Thanks to Timehop my memory was jogged a few days ago by a post that simply said “Don’t squish me, I’ve got Babybels in my pocket!” which was an amazing line that Pill came out with when I first saw him that day and ran to gave him a hug. He’d been to what I think was a Sainsbury’s (it was a Tesco. Thanks Mel!) over the road and had a net of those yoghurt things that are in those plastic fruit shapes in one pocket and a net of Babybels in the other. I remember this because I remember commenting on the fact that he clearly only ate food in nets now. 

I also remembered going up to Pill at one point after the show and telling him the price was still on the back of his braces. It was in fact a sticker with the size on, and as it turned out they weren’t even his braces, they belonged to Beveridge.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Birmingham, 13th April 2013.

It was so cold outside the venue waiting to go in. It wasn’t a patch on Glasgow in February  but it was still fucking freezing. At one point I walked into town and bought a really hideous jumper with a handprint on it just to keep me vaguely warm. That jumper ended up being christened ‘Ugly Jumper’ and I think almost everyone wore it at some point that day, it just got passed around everyone in our little group whenever anyone said they were particularly cold.

OH WAIT I FORGOT this was the day I gave Beveridge the shirt I’d asked him about in Bicester, the one that said “WARNING: I say cunt a lot”. I’d wrapped it really neatly in Nightmare Before Christmas wrapping paper that I haven’t used since cos I love it too much to use it, and his face when he opened it was an absolute picture. I’d tweeted him about what it said so he was prepared but I don’t think he thought I’d actually do it. I told him I wanted a picture of him in it, and when he’d finished loading in he came back past us to go into town and showed me that he’d got it on already. I was so proud. Especially when I realised he’d walked around Selfridges with it on. (Sadly he told me he’d had his hoodie zipped up but still. It said that UNDER the hoodie. Amazing.) 

This was the first night of the Diamonds and Disgrace tour with Fort Hope. Unlike TKID, where I’d heard of The Dead Lay Waiting, I’d never actually heard of Fort Hope, so had no idea who they were never mind what they sounded like. (In fact, I don’t think it was until during the day when we were waiting for doors that I even discovered that they were ex members of My Passion. ) The first support act on were Obscure Pleasures, who I knew and loved anyway, and then it was a case of standing thinking “Okay, what’s going to happen now…”
Andé (not that I knew it was Andé at the time obviously) came over to my side of the stage and stuck a setlist to the floor, and I remember turning to Louise and saying “Oh well, if they’re shit then we’ve only got 8 songs to get through”. Oh me. Oh stupid naïve little me. By the end of their first song (Plans, which is now what they close with) I had totally, completely and utterly fallen in love with them. This wasn’t like TDLW, I didn’t grow to love them by the end of the tour, I completely fell in love with this band on that first night. Having thought that I’d only gotten 8 songs to ‘get through’ I found myself totally gutted when their set was over. (Bonus fact: The night before the last FVK gig I was talking to Jon Gaskin (Fort Hope’s vocalist and general all-round angel) told me that I was the only person who ever made an effort to talk to them at every gig on this tour and I cried.)

I remember absolutely nothing of FVK’s set. Literally absolutely nothing. I’m assuming it was excellent though cos like the lads are always great.

I remember being really excited at one point cos I walked into the merch room (I think this was when we first got in actually, before Obscure Pleasures came on) and Will South was stood behind FVK’s merch desk. I’d wanted to meet Will for like a year and I had no idea he was there and I was over the damn moon. I ended up getting the most hideous photo with him photobombed by Lucy and Kate. It’s great.

Pill was really angry afterwards because he wanted to go out and get drunk but the lads were playing in Oxford the next day and no-one would let him. That’s my resounding memory of after the gig, which is pretty sad. Well, that and when I tried to get a photo with Drew Will walked over and put his arm around Drew and held his hand which made me look like someone photobombing a really cute gay couple’s photo. Cheers Will.

We went to get a pizza when we left, and we walked into the takeaway to be faced with Kemp and Dave (who unfortunately was still their tour manager at this point) who were getting food. I didn’t actually want anything to eat, so I just hovered around. Louise, Annabel and Paige sat down when they’d got their food, but when I went to sit on the last chair I quickly realised it wasn’t actually bolted down properly and it tipped me off onto the floor. I ended up sat at a table on my own until Beveridge appeared. He ended up sitting at the table with me, which was really sweet of him cos by this time Kemp was actually sat at a table on the other side of the takeaway so he didn’t really have to stay with me. As we went back to go back past the venue to go to the car (the lads were going to the van, obviously, not our car) Beveridge decided he couldn’t be bothered to go under the underpass and he wanted to run across the road. I got really angry with him and told him it wasn’t safe and shouted at him until he came with us instead. You know, because I’m nice and caring like that.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Cardiff, 17th March 2013 (25th show!)

Cardiff was my 25^th show, and to celebrate, I took a scrapbook with me to get the lads to write something nice in it for me.
The messages I got were as follows:

“Anything. Happy 25^th anniverrerree! Love Lorance”

“Happy 2twenty poopth gig.  YOU SMELL…great! Drew”

“HAPPY! 25^th We really do appreciate the love. Despite the physical abuse!  Love, Kier.”

“Lovely Meg. Hope you had a lovely 25^th gig! Zhane (with a backwards ‘e’)”

“Happy 25^th gig!! From your homeboy Nahn! Xx”

…..Some of them were nicer/made more sense than others, I will admit.

The gig was…rammed. I remember bailing pretty fast because we were stood on the end of the stage and there were people everywhere and it just really wasn’t comfortable. It was another Taking Hayley/FVK/Yashin show so luckily we didn’t have to be uncomfortable for long. I’m not a huge fan of Yashin (which I’ll mention more when I get to a slightly later gig) so I never had a problem with bailing when they hit the stage. I did used to quite like Taking Hayley though, it’s a shame they’re not a band any more.

Anyway. Cardiff was the first time I was ever aware of being in the presence of drunk Kemp. (Apart from like…. Yeneville, but I didn’t spend much time with him then.) I don’t know how I knew he was drunk, he wasn’t falling over or slurring or anything, but I was very aware that he was tipsy, and it was hilarious. 

A girl had fainted during Yashin’s set and had to be carried out and was lying on the floor by the bar. Her friend was sat with her and as she came round Kemp crouched next to her and then leaned over and asked if she was okay. She cried for all of about three seconds and then passed out again. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Kemp ran away so fucking fast.

I asked for two photos with each of them at this gig with the intention of having an ‘odd photo’ and a nice photo. My odd photo with Kemp actually made me cry with laughter when I looked at it. Other than Drew, I don’t think I’ve ever met a man capable of pulling the faces he pulls. As I went in for my nice photo about 5 minutes later cos I’d forgotten to ask immediately after my ‘odd’ one, and as Kemp and I went to rest our heads against each other we misjudged HORRIBLY, and ended up headbutting each other so fucking hard. Like I think I actually saw stars. I apologised profusely and he just laughed. I swear that boy doesn’t have a brain, you know.

I’d bought Beveridge a present to this gig, and I couldn’t wait to give him it cos I really thought he’d love it. I knew he was a huge Green Day fan and in about… 2005, I think, as charity called Whatever It Takes signed up a load of rockers to make charity wristbands and stuff. I’d bought myself a HIM one and a Green Day one, but I’d never really worn the Green Day one, so I decided to give it to Beveridge as a lovely gift. I gave him it and he put it on immediately, (which I thought was just cos I was standing there but it turned out he really liked it) and I remember him asking if I was sure he could have it. I told him I’d never worn it and he’d get more use out of it than me so, yes, I was sure. Bless him. I went on to get him another three, including the last one ever which ended up getting lost in the post. I was gutted about that.

One of my favourite things about this night was my ‘odd photo’ with Beveridge, cos we had to take it outside as I’d forgotten inside and then we’d been kicked out. He lunged forward into a very odd position and stuck his tongue out. The photo is amazing, cos it was so cold that you could see his breath, and in the haze was the figure of a tiny man. I showed it to Beveridge and he was really freaked out, he took my camera off me to squint at it to make sure he was seeing it right and everything. I wound him up over it for about 10 minutes before I caved and told him it was actually a painting of a rugby player on the wall behind us and it was just a well-timed and well positioned photo. I wish I’d kept him going longer really but I started to feel mean…

When we were stood by the van I apologised to Beveridge for what I’d told him in Birmingham on the K! tour because I didn’t want him to think I was offloading my problems on him and he very sweetly informed me that he heard so many people saying things like that that it went “in one ear and out the other”.
…I don’t think he meant that as harshly as it comes across... 

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Bicester, 15th March 2013.

Bicester was in one of the oddest venues I think I’ve ever been to. It was in like a kids youth club centre with pamphlets about saying no to drugs and drink everywhere and there was a tuck shop selling Freddos and Twixes and cans of pop. Basically it was a bit like a gig in a primary school.

The guys were preparing for the release of Exposition and so Beveridge and Kemp had like little nods to the album artwork on their faces which lasted all of about 3 songs, I think before they melted. (It wasn’t their gig, it was a Yashin headline show and Taking Hayley (I think) and FVK were support.) Like all the gigs that were a very long time ago I don’t remember the setlist (other than Diamond Dust and Crimson Reign cos Beveridge grabbed my hand during it), but I do remember it being Becky’s 18^th and them bursting in wasted halfway through FVK’s set with a huge helium balloon and Beveridge wishing them a happy birthday.

It was at this gig that I ended up running back to the car to get my GIANT ASS POSTER wrapped in like six million carrier bags so it didn’t get wet and making Beveridge sit at one of the tiny tables and sign it ‘nicely’. When we got back to Louise’s the night of the convention I’d gotten my poster out to marvel at it and realised there was a flaw with it, in that for some reason (probably being distracted by the card) Beveridge hadn’t in fact signed it. He’d tried to sign it resting on his hand but because it was such a special thing and because the other guys had signed it whilst sat at a table at the convention I didn’t want Beveridge’s signature to look different so I made him sit on the smallest chair in the world and lean on the table. I am a delight.

At one point for some reason I insisted on giving Drew a pretty wild hairdo. I genuinely don’t know why I did that, but I’m glad I did because the results were pretty hilarious.

My only other real memory is that I wanted to buy Beveridge a t-shirt that I’d found that said “WARNING: I say cunt a lot” (relating to the thing that happened in Doncaster shh) and I needed to know what size to buy him, so I asked him what size he’d need if I were to buy him a t-shirt. He thought for a second and then responded “…Large. Lovely and large.” I replied to this with “No-one’s denying that.” and I don’t know why.

EDIT: As I was looking through my photos to decide which ones to drop in this blog I came across this beauty, which I just can't leave out.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Dear FVK...

Dearest Beveridge, Drew, Pill, Shane and Kemp (formerly known collectively as Fearless Vampire Killers),

I cannot begin to make you understand how much you’ve done for me over the last four years. I could (and probably will) spend the rest of my life trying, but I truly don’t think I could possibly make you grasp the impact you’ve had on my life.

Back in 2011 when I first saw that Introducing page in Kerrang! I was a 23 year old cardigan salesperson, working a job she hated, too shy and scared to answer back to her own boss or change anything about her pretty shitty and lonely life. Back then I had no idea what that single page in a shit magazine would lead to, and in a way I’m glad I didn’t, because the surprises and spontaneous decisions I’ve made along this mental journey have all added something to this whole experience.

In the four years that I’ve known you, my confidence has grown tenfold, I’ve changed jobs, I’ve travelled more miles than I can count and been to places I still couldn’t point out on a map, I’ve renewed my passport and journeyed outside of the UK for the first time in 13 years, and possibly most importantly I’ve found the most wonderful network of friends I could ever have wished for. None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for you.
My desire to talk to you drove me to push myself out of my comfort zone and approach you even though my heart was pounding and I was scared I was going to make a tit out of myself (I know I DID make a tit out of myself but shh, let me have this).
Wanting to follow you to as many gigs as possible meant that when my boss gave me the ridiculous ultimatum of ‘my job or the band’ I had the guts to turn around and tell her that she’d better advertise my job because I was sick of her treating me like crap. (She later went back on this, let me keep my job and gave me the holiday I’d been asking for at the time, but that didn’t last very long and long story short I’m better off out of there.)

I know I’ve told you all at various points that you gave me a reason to live, and I truly hope you don’t think that’s an exaggeration. You gave me the desire to carry on when I couldn’t find it anywhere else, and that’s not something I will ever be able to thank you enough for. If you hadn’t been in my life at my lowest ebb I don’t know if I’d still be here now, and I’ll be grateful for the fact that you were there for the rest of my life.

Please know the end of this band doesn’t mean you’ve gotten rid of me. I can’t wait to see where you all go from here, and I hope it won’t be too long until I get to see where that is.

"From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring, 
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

All my love always, until the very end,

Meg Mercury xoxo