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