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