Brighton, 28th April 2013.

On the way to Brighton we noticed a van alongside us on the motorway and we knew instinctively that the lads in it were a band. I don’t really even know how we knew but they just…clearly were. I ended up holding up a sign I’d written that said “ARE YOU A BAND?” at the window and they saw it and got very excited and nodded vigorously. I flipped the sign over and wrote “WHO?” and they made us a sign saying ‘BLACK DOGS’. 

And that was how we made friends with Black Dogs.

Louise and Sarah actually met them because they were playing at a different venue in Brighton that was close to the car park (we’d been dropped off outside the venue already).

The wait for the show was the longest and coldest wait EVER. Because we were by the sea (unlike when we were in Stoke *cough Pill cough*) it was really REALLY windy, and the venue was down a side street, so it was essentially like standing in a wind tunnel for several hours. The main redeeming feature of the venue (The Haunt, I think it closed for a while but I think it’s come back now) was that it was REALLY close to Brighton Pier, so we took it in turns to go there at regular intervals. We were actually walking up the pier to head back to the venue at one point when we bumped into the lads, and we decided to go back down the pier with them. We followed them further into the arcade than we’d actually already explored, and Drew and Pill found House of the Dead 4.

Let me break off here and go on a slight tangent. I am not a massive video game fan. I never had a console as a kid, and it wasn’t until I was about 15 that I even got a PS1, and even then the only games I owned were Dance Dance Revolution and the sequels. However, when I went to uni I met Andy, who was (and still is, he didn’t stop playing when we broke up or anything) a big video game fan and he slowly but surely got me more into them. The first thing I ever really started playing was House of the Dead. There was one of the arcade games in our student union, and between morning and evening lectures (or you know, most afternoons really) Andy and I would just… take control of it and play it for hours on end. It even had handy little things at the side to put your pint on to swig from during the cut scenes where you don’t have to be ready to shoot a giant zombie sloth in the face. Actually you didn’t shoot the zombie sloth in the face, you shot the giant security guard in the face, you shot the giant zombie sloth in the claws to try and make it let go of the stairs and fall down but that’s a whole other tangent.
BASICALLY, WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY, WITHOUT BOASTING, IS I’M REALLY FUCKING GOOD AT HOUSE OF THE DEAD AND ALL OF THE SEQUELS, OKAY..

Where was I? Oh yeah Drew and Pill found House of the Dead 4 and I am very good at it. Anyway, I spent about half an hour watching them, twitching and shouting ‘RELOAD. NO, SHOOT AWAY FROM THE SCREEN.’ and other helpful hints before Pill died and left Drew on his own. I was really tempted to run in and tag myself in but I refrained, and about 20 seconds later Drew died. They got to the second level.
I could have beaten that…

Oh man I’ve just realised that I meant to put in something about when the lads were loading in. Basically, Pill’s arse is always hanging out. Not like bare, I mean his jeans are always sitting below his arse and you can see his pants CONSTANTLY. As they were loading into the venue I told Pill to pull his trousers up (which by this point was a fairly regular thing) and he actually stopped and looked at  the floor as though his trousers had fallen ALL THE WAY DOWN AND WERE AROUND HIS ANKLES. God bless that boy.

The main thing that I remember about this show is that it was the first time I saw DEAD! play. I think it was anyway, I don’t remember ever seeing them before this date but I have seen a LOT of support acts. I’d heard of DEAD! cos Louise and Annabel had mentioned them before, but I don’t remember having actually seen them myself. They played their first song blindfolded, which totally threw me until I found out it related to the name of the song (it might actually have been called ‘Blindfold’?). I really liked them (which was lucky actually when you consider in a year’s time I was following them with FVK on the Cabin Fever tour but that comes up much later) but I was so wound up about the fact that it was the last night of tour and the last night I’d see Fort Hope/the lads that I didn’t really pay an awful lot of attention to them, as bad as that sounds.

I think I cried during Fort Hope and FVK this night, cos I’m really not very good at last night of tour. At War With The Thirst almost always gets to me.  (Current me laughs loudly in the distance.)

Drew smashed his bass up at the end of the set and I screamed.

As I walked out of the venue that night I stole a poster. Just outside I bumped into Andé and he asked what it was. I showed him and he told me off for stealing it, at which point I informed him that if anyone asked I’d just tell them he took it.

There was someone wandering around outside who wanted to talk to Beveridge but seemed to be crying whenever she got near him, so I went over to her and tried to get her to talk to him but as soon as he said ‘hello’ she burst into tears and ran away again. I don’t think she ever did talk to him, but at least I tried. If you’re reading this, whoever you are, I hope I’m wrong and you did talk to him.

I took a photo for a fan I didn’t know this night cos she didn’t have a camera, which I’ve done quite a few times (I just get their twitter name and send it to them), and when I offered, Beveridge went “YEAH! Meg’ll do it! Meg…” and then he trailed off. After I’d taken the photo I asked him what he’d been going to say, and he answered with “…bees knees…I was going to say ‘Meg’s the bees knees’…” I almost cried.
I also told Beveridge he had Irish hair this night, because the wind made him look like Dylan Moran. OH and I kept offering him my hoodie because he kept saying he was really cold.

Andé walked us back to the car when we finally left, because he’d ended up parking Fort Hope’s van really close by. He and I walked side by side and chatted all the way, I was horribly aware that I was probably going to cry when I said bye to him, cos a bit like me and Pill in FVK, Andé was the member of Fort Hope I’d immediately hit it off with, and we’d gotten pretty close. As we walked, I asked him if he had a spare pick I could have to put on a necklace. He’d given a few picks out right at the end of the set and I didn’t really think he’d have one, but he dug around in his pocket and gave me one he’d been using on his acoustic guitar earlier in the day to film a video for a YouTube interview. When we finally got to the car and said goodbye for the last time I managed to pretty much hold it together until I got in  and we started to move, then I started to sob. I messaged Andé and apologised for being so quiet but I’d known I was going to be upset. He told me it wasn’t a problem and he was sad too.
When I got home I made a hole in the pick he’d given me.
I’ve worn it around my neck every day since then.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

London, 24th April 2013.

Getting to London was ridiculous. As I mentioned in the last post, Manchester was the day before London, and I had to work the day of London so I had to leave Manchester at about 5am. I got up at about 4, I think, had my shower and went and got on my train. I then worked for four hours and then went and got on my train to London. I was so fucking tired. I actually had the intention of napping in the hotel, but I ended up being so excited I couldn’t sleep so that didn’t work. I went and sat outside the venue instead with Louise, Annabel, Paige and the Bales and we spent the day waving at people on buses who were fascinated by us.  To be fair everyone except Maz and I were in pyjamas because Drew had said if everyone turned up in pyjamas he’d do the encore in his or something… I don’t really remember but in the end I kind of dismissed the idea, cos I'd forgotten to wear them and couldn't be bothered to go back and get changed.

I cried during Earthquake this night. I was stood right in front of Andé during Fort Hope’s set and he seemed to keep glancing at me while he played. I suddenly became horribly aware that I knew I wouldn’t be hearing this set many more times (I only had this show and Brighton left of the tour) and after Bristol I was very aware of what the song was about, and I got very emotional when they played it. I remember telling Andé afterwards and he said he’d noticed and it had made him emotional because his brother had in fact come to the show that night and they were starting to talk stuff through and then I almost cried again because I was so happy for him.

Anyway. Back to the gig.
I got talking to a photographer when we were in the gig (Rupert… something) and he was a really nice guy. I actually ended up in a lot of his photos by accident.
…Actually I don’t really remember anything else. Except for the fact that I remember getting really angry because when Beveridge reached into the crowd like he always does someone tried to steal his S.O.P.H.I.E. wristband. I mean who does that? Why would you fucking steal a band member’s stuff? I wish I’d seen who it was, but on second thoughts it’s probably for the best that I didn’t cos I would have gotten very angry.

OH I’VE JUST REMEMBERED THAT UGLY LOVE SUPPORTED THIS NIGHT OH MAN GOOD TIMES. I’d totally forgotten that they were support until I literally just thought about Tom in that fucking flamingo hat he got from somewhere. And a gold medal that I don’t know why he had it. Tom was on fire that night.
As I’m writing this I’m trying really hard to work out whether this was the first time I actually properly saw Ugly Love play cos that time they supported Ashes at Surya totally doesn’t count cos they were all wearing dresses and I didn’t know who they were or what was happening and all of my attention was fixed on trying to say hello to Beveridge at that time I’m not even gonna lie. I know I met Tom at Brixton K! tour but I don’t remember seeing them play before this night. I may have done, but I don’t think so…

We hung out for a very long time after this gig too. It was much fun. My favourite moment was when Beveridge was stood drinking from a 1.5 litre Diet Coke bottle whilst talking to some young fans. They asked him for some of his drink and he asked how old they were. They replied with “15 & 16” and he went “Ah, I can’t give you this then sorry, it’s not only got coke in it…” and I just sidled up to him and said “…You can give it to me though, Beveridge...” and he just said “Yeah, I can give it to Meg.” and handed it to me.
We also invited Beveridge to our “pizza and vodka party” in the hotel because he said he wanted to party but he didn’t know if they were going out. He thought about it for a second but then declined.

There were so many bizarre photos taken this night. At one point Shane drew a smiley face on his palm that he decided was me and he kept putting his hand up to show it off in photos. If you look closely you'll see he's even written "MEG" in the mouth.

Maz and I walked six million miles for pizza after the gig. Andé appeared from somewhere just before we left with what looked like the most delicious slice of it and we decided we couldn’t last the night without it, so we walked back towards the hotel cos we knew there was a Dominos around the corner from it. As we got closer we realised it was really actually quite late and we had no idea what time it closed but amazingly when we got there all the lights were still on.
We tried the door.
It was locked.
We ended up walking all the way back to the place around the corner from the venue where Andé had gotten his pizza from. (On the way there a group of people stopped us and asked if we had a lighter and while we waited for them to finish with it one of the girls started stroking Maz’s head. No, I don’t know why either.)
When we got back to the pizza place the pizza guy tried to convince me to sit with him to eat it.
I politely declined.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo

Manchester, 23rd April 2013.

Manchester was… ridiculous. Well. Getting to/from Manchester was ridiculous. Because I wasn’t actually planning on doing it I hadn’t shift swapped around it, so I had to work the morning of the gig before I ran and got on a train. I was also due at work at 7.45 the next day so I had to get on a train at about 5am to be home in time but I’ll probably write about that in the next entry cos the next day was the day of the London gig.

I don’t think much really happened in Manchester other than the fact that I was totally crushed on the front row and in a lot of pain most of the night haha. OH and the guy next to me was wearing a huge puffa jacket during the entire show which was the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever seen at a gig. I mean he was sweating so hard and he didn’t even unzip it.

My other memory was Shane stepping forwards up onto the weird box things that were between the band and the crowd and shouting “HI MEG” at me because he was really close to me and his guitar was RIGHT IN MY FACE. He came up to me later and apologised for “guitaring in my face”. Bless his heart.

Manchester was the first time I had photos with all of Fort Hope, which was really cool. I mean it was pretty far into the tour and I’d fallen in love with the guys but I’d only ever had a photo with Andé so I thought I’d better actually get photos with the rest of the band. The photo of Gaskin and I is still one of my favourite photos ever, I think.

The only other thing I remember happening in Manchester was standing next to Kemp and asking for a photo but he was stood on the curb and looked ridiculously taller than me, so I asked him to step down. He just stared at me. I asked him again. He stared at me some more. I said it again. He leaned forwards.
What a knob.

Until next time, 

Meg Mercury xoxo

Bristol, 20th April 2013. (30th show)

Bristol was odd cos even though it was in the middle of the tour, it wasn’t actually an FVK headline show. Fort Hope and the lads were both playing, but the thing they were playing was Hit the Deck, which is a one day festival. I can’t actually remember who was headlining it. I think it was Don Broco, but I might be wrong on that.

Anyway. We got to Bristol really early cos Fort Hope were on at about 2, and then FVK were on (luckily in the same venue) about 5 hours later. I didn’t actually bother going to any of the other venues I just stayed upstairs in the O2 waiting for the bands I was there to see. I think it was after Fort Hope had played that FVK arrived, and I don’t really remember seeing any of them except Drew. I don’t remember how it came about but we ended up swapping sunglasses. ACTUALLY I think what really happened was that I stole his sunglasses and then offered him mine as an exchange. I remember Drew saying that I’d ‘Megged’ him which was the best pun I think I’ve ever heard him come out with and I was really proud of him.  We saw Andé before the show too and he almost gave me a heart-attack by announcing that Fort Hope had been “talking about me in the van earlier”. As it transpired he meant they’d been talking about the fact that I like Queen but for the 30 seconds in between him saying that and the full explanation I thought I was going to die.

Just before the lads were about to come on stage Nico appeared , and I turned around to give him a hug and stupidly let go of the barrier. The woman who had been stood next to me for the past ten minutes took this as her cue to open her arms as wide as she possibly could so that when I turned back around to the barrier there was no room left for me to lean on it. I asked her to move because I’d been waiting for like 6 hours to see the lads and she said no, I shouldn’t have left the barrier. I told her that I’d literally turned around to hug my friend and I hadn’t gone anywhere, and I’d been waiting hours for this. She still wouldn’t move. I just leaned on her until she moved over slightly and I could get back on, but she was such a massive dick honestly.

There are actually two things I remember about the actual music part of the gig which is unusual for me.
Beveridge nearly knocked his brain out on a speaker and it scared the shit out of me. Like Kemp had spent the entire set stepping up on the monitors at the front of the stage and singing out to the crowd, and as soon as Beveridge took the mic he tried to step up onto them and cracked his head on a speaker mounted on the wall. I would actually make a pretty certain bet that he saw stars. How it didn’t knock him out I’ll never know, he actually moved the speaker with his damn skull. Anyway. The only other thing I remember is when Beveridge was singing Fetish for the Finite he stepped forwards to the barrier and grabbed my hand. He put his forehead against mine and sang “no justice here” in my face with me. Pete managed to get that on video, actually.

After this gig was one of my fave times, because the lads all wanted to see the headline act (which I have just Googled and was definitely Don Broco) so we hung around with them for ages outside while they loaded out and shit and Maz drew a cock on the barrier which she was really smug about and was hilarious. This small act of vandalism led us into pressuring Shane to write “#1 FAN” on the fan they used to use to keep Pill from overheating. (Some time later, I think at comicon, Shane had to confess to us that they no longer had #1 FAN and he looked genuinely sad about it. We told him he had to write #2 FAN on the new one but he said it was a proper posh one that was basically just a cylinder and there wasn’t really anywhere he could write it. Sad times man.) I wonder if any of the lads actually ever noticed that had been written on it.

We ended up going back in to watch Don Broco even though none of us really knew who they were, cos the lads wanted to watch them and there was no point standing outside when we could be inside with them. Kemp was absolutely wasted at this point, and my main memory of interacting with him was asking him for a photo, and then after it had been taken he took my arm and tried to lead me off somewhere. I asked him where we were going and he told me he had no idea. I don’t think that he knew what his name was at that point, bless his heart. (His fucking eyes.)

Andé was also really drunk. He took a photo of me with his sunglasses on for some reason and then sent me it the next day telling me he didn’t have any recollection of taking it hahahaha. He also stole MY sunglasses at one point when we went back outside and was running around shouting “HEY, IT’S A-ME, MARIO!” for reasons that I never knew and he can’t remember. Bless him. I miss him.
Andé chose this night, while he was very drunk, to tell me that he’d written one of Fort Hope’s songs, Earthquake, about his brother who he used to be really close to but they’d grown apart over the last few years. The song clearly meant a lot to him and hearing him talk so frankly to me was lovely, and I haven’t listened to that song in the same way since that night.

It was after Don Broco had finished that I said something to Jon and Andé about wanting to do an extra show (or something) and I happened to mention that Manchester was the only one I could possibly do. They both told me that gig was almost sold out, but for reasons best known to themselves they both said that if I turned up and it was sold out they’d get me in. That was me totally sold. I mean, if a band tells you they can get you into a sold out gig if you turn up, you’re gonna fucking turn up, right? (I also mentioned this to Kemp before they left and he also said if I struggled getting in they’d find a way to get me in, which just like doubly sold me on the idea to be honest.) Maz was doing Manchester, and she offered me the floor in her room (I think we ended up in a family room anyway in the end, oddly) and that was that. I was suddenly down to do Manchester.

(EDIT: I’ve just remembered that this was the night I found out about FVK supporting Madina Lake on the September/October tour, because I found a flyer that had the tour on and FVK were listed as support. I picked it up and went over to Beveridge going “IS THIS RIGHT?” and he got really angry saying that it wasn’t supposed to have been announced yet but yes, it was right and they were on the tour.)

Just before we went to leave, I managed to hug Maz and knock her flat on her arse. I still don’t know how that happened, I just went to hug her and then looked down and she was sat on the floor. I must have been stronger than I thought or something but whatever happened it was fucking hilarious. Speaking of hilarious, I’m 99% sure it was in Bristol that Andé showed me the video of Jammers shaving his initials into Kemp’s chest hair which was hysterical and disturbing in equal measure.

Until next time,

Meg Mercury xoxo