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