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FSM, Manchester Roadhouse
15th November, 2002

Friday was the slowest day I've ever had to sit through. I was so excited, I was practically bouncing - "I'm going to see FSM tonight!" All of my friends were pretty sick of my by about lunchtime - apart from one. Enter Quinn, my one friend with good enough musical taste that she was coming with me, and just as excited as me!

After bouncing down to the bus stop, chatting to Selina and being pretty calm and collected, not really mentioning FSM that much, we got on the bus. Then we had a huge argument with the bus driver, who wasn't making any sense (no change there), and finally got home, having stopped at the chemist and the bank for a camera and some money.

The hour we spent at home whizzed by, getting changed, listening to the new album, and making sure we had everything. So when we left, we were so excited we would have been on the ceiling, had there been one outside.

Halfway to Manchester, I got a text from Gail, who we were hoping to meet there.

"Are you here yet?"

"No, we're about twenty minutes away, as long as the traffic isn't too bad."

"I'm in the queue."

So we sat back, making random comments about things we could see - 'look at that Volvo' - 'that's the shortest abbreviation of Manchester ever!' until we finally turned off the motorway.

"Dad, do you know where you're going?"

"Sort of."

A little bit further down, we realised that we were definitely somewhere we shouldn't be. So Dad turned off the wrong way down a one-way street, and stopped to look at his map. When we finally drove past the place about twenty to eight, the queue was huge. By the time we parked, and walked down to The Roadhouse, the queue was gone.

The guys on the door searched our bags, and confiscated Quinn's red marker - in case she wrote on the walls. The cheek of it! Has he even seen the ceiling in there lately, it's almost non-existent! One of Audiogene kept putting the neck of his guitar through it, so don't even talk to me about the state of that place! He didn't nick off with my silver pen, though, which is good!

I checked my mobile as we went downstairs, read a text from Gail saying "I'm near the stage" and spotted her straight away. After introductions and re-introductions, Quinn and I decided it was time to check out the merch. I wanted all of it.

I managed to restrain myself until after FSM had been on, so that nobody had to carry whatever I bought around with them (*cough* Dad!).

"Girls, I'm going to the toilet, then I'm going to get some drinks. What do you want?" I'm paraphrasing here.

"Coke, please Dad."

"A pint of Guinness, if you're offering!"

"Yeah, okay!"

Quinn's mouth dropped to the floor! "Really?!"

"If you want a pint of Guinness, I'll get you a pint of Guinness, yeah!"

Me: Something unintelligible. Whining, mostly.

"What, so now you don't want Coke?"

"No! I want … I want …" after umming and ahh-ing for ages, I finally decided on something Blue flavoured. Dad returned a few minutes later with a blue WKD and a pint of Guinness …

What was I talking about again? Oh, right, the gig! Four Star Mary etc! I remember now!

Well, Audiogene came on not long after that, while I was still drinking m'drink, They were quite good - in fact, Dad bought their EP after they'd finished - and they did a wicked version of 'Walking on Sunshine'. They also had a song which finished with the line 'I'll stay alive until I die' … or something to that effect … to which Quinn and I looked at each other and said 'well, duh.' Because that's the kind of people we are.

While they were setting up for FSM, Quinn and I edged forwards, nicking into gaps silly people had left in the crowd. We ended up with quite a decent view, until we realised that a guy a little in front was plotting helping a friend push through … and he did, almost knocking about five of us over. He then stood throughout the entire gig like a total lemon, just generally being in the way. So cheers, mate. Hope you enjoyed yourself.

So Quinn and I found places where we could see pretty well, near the front, and right next to a speaker, so some of what they said in between songs came out as "buzz buzz buzz" unless I concentrated really hard and thought about it afterwards.

They finally came out about 9:15, and kicked the set off with Darker Days … I was so excited - I don't tend to really believe things are gonna happen until I'm there ... which I was! Darker Days was followed by She Knows, which is my total fave FSM song, so I was already one happy bunny! At some point, Tad started apologising for throwing sweat everywhere, and he did that a few times throughout the night, bless him! A couple of songs in, something white whizzed over my head. My initial reaction was "argh!", and that was followed by a "get the camera!" I got a nice pic of Tad staring in bewilderment at the giant pair of pants that had landed on stage - and I've since seen a picture of them in all their glory, with their 'play Rio!' and picture of Tad.

"We're playing this song anyway, you really didn't have to do this …!" he laughed, with a bit of a groan, too!

The rest of the set was pretty much a blur - I remember some random comments they made, along with pretty much which songs they sang. I remember Zu complaining that he hadn't been able to buy himself a copy of Welcome Home. I remember Tad calling Mad a teddy bear, and I remember Steve saying, "Okay, see if you can notice anything different about this song," just before the drum machine kicked in for Hold Me.

After She Knows they played Violent, and then came All I See. I was ecstatic by this point, because they'd played my favourite songs from each album, and they were only four songs in! It could only get better, with them playing Stars Come Down, Dilate, Marlene, Hold Me, Bleed On, Empty, and Pain after that. Quinn's face totally lit up when Pain started - it's the very first FSM song she knew, and still her fave!

Then the went off stage. I heard some grumbling from behind me, which it turns out belonged to Yvonne. "Come back and play Rio, you bastards! We threw pants!"

After a minute or so of chanting "Rio, Rio, Rio," from our section of the crowd, they came back on, and obliged. And it rocked, big time. "Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand …!" They then followed that up with Strangled, and then Audiogene came and sat beside the stage.

FSM did their thankyou's, thanking pretty much everyone for the whole tour, and then invited Audiogene on stage for the last song.

"We're gonna do Sway. You must know the words by now."

"Erm … no …"

"Well, you pretty much just say 'Sway'!"

And that was it - the last song of the tour. They left the stage, and I waited for Quinn to retrieve her jacket - and then hotfooted it to the merch table, which Barb had split into two lines - one for buying, one for signing. Quinn sidled into the signing line, while I bought a hoodie - which is gorgeous and warm - and all three available posters. I then dumped it all onto Dad, got into the queue, and pulled out everything I wanted signing, while we waited for the guys. About ten minutes later, they showed up, Franko having put some fans up to cool everyone down, which was definitely appreciated!

It seemed like about two minutes to reach the front of the queue, and I was face to face with Chris. "Your hair thingys are really cool … I love those!"

I grinned. "Thank you!"

I handed him my Thrown To The Wolves sleeve. "What's your name?"

"Rachael."

"Is that R-a-c-h-e-l?"

"umm … just put Rach."

"I can spell it however you want!"

"No, I mean, it's okay, most people call me Rach anyway!" Gibbering fool! So he wrote Rach, and then shook my hand … and spotted the other things I had hold of.

"You want those signing too?"

"Well, I have this …" and I produced my Fibbers ticket, for the cancelled gig. I held it up. "I have a ticket for a fictitious gig …"

He took it off me, and looked at it. "Hey! Steve! Look what she has! It's a ticket for the Fibbers gig!"

The whole line examined it, with murmurs of "cool!", and then Chris looked back at me. "You want this signing too?"

I grinned again. "Please!"

"To Roz again?"

I didn't realise what he'd said until it was too late - I just nodded. So now a couple of my things are signed to the girl in front … but never mind!

"You got refunds, right?" That was Barb. Yeah, we did, thankya Barb!

Somehow I got shunted past Derrick onto Zu with a quick handshake, I don't know when that happened!

"So you've come all the way from York? I love playing at Fibbers, it's great …" Zu really loves Fibbers! And he was very impressed at the distance Quinn and I had come. Dad poked me in the back. "Rachael, camera."

So I handed it to him. "Oooh, pictures!" Zu put his arm around me, and then Dad didn't turn the flash on.

"Dad, flash!"

"Where? What?" So I reached over and pressed the button for him, right before he blinded Zu with the flash! He shook my hand and I moved on again …

This time to Tad. He shook my hand. "Hi."

I smiled, nervously. "I have the bizarrest thing to show you …"

"Oh?" He looked intrigued. I took that as a good sign.

"Yeah …" I unfolded the first piece of paper in my hand. "A friend found this picture on the internet."

"Yeah …"

"Sombrero, sombrero, sombrero … no sombrero." I pointed at Steve, Zu, Derrick, and finally Tad. He nodded, so I carried on. "So we wrote a sombrero song." I knew I was bright red by this point, but carried on anyway. I passed it to him.

"No way!" He turned around and held it up to the light, laughing, and Steve reading it over his shoulder. He turned back to me. "Can I keep this?"

"Well … could you sign it?"

"So I can't keep it?"

"Well, there are three copies …"

"Ooh, can I have one?" Steve chipped in. I didn't want to say 'no, the other one is for Ellie!'

"Yeah, sure!" Tad gave him another copy, and I turned to Steve, and smiled.

"I, umm … I'm Rach, with the … uhhh … web … chat … thingy."

"Oh!! You're Rach! Oh, thank you so much for that, you saved that whole chat!"

And Tad spoke at exactly the same time. "Ohh, that's you!"

Steve said "come here," so I leant over and he gave me a kiss on the cheek, and as I was about to stand back up again, there was a guy behind me, trying to take a photo, so Steve said "another?" to the guy, who nodded, and Steve gave me another kiss. I *think* that guy was madenglishbloke, but I couldn't be sure … I didn't ask! Then Dad poked me again, and I asked Steve for a photo for him, which I got.

And then Tad got my attention again, and gave me a big hug. "Rach, I'm sweaty and horrible, but I want to give you a hug to say thank you."

I wasn't going to complain!

I finally hovered at the end of the merch table, watching as I heard Quinn beside me. "Erm … I have one other thing for you to sign," she said. And plonked her foot on the table. "Could you sign me shoe?" she asked Tad, which he did, while I gathered everything up. At some point I'd handed over a section of the web chat that I'd printed. I think that was as late as to Zu, I really can't remember, it was that much of a blur! I picked everything up … apart from my Thrown To The Wolves cover.

I looked around, but I couldn't see it. "Did my Thrown To The Wolves cover get lost along here somewhere?"

"Oh that was yours? Franko has it. Franko, it's hers." Franko brought it over to me. "It arrived so long before you did we weren't sure who it belonged to!" Steve explained.

And that was it. I needed to finish my film off, so I hovered around by the signing table for a while, trying to get a few decent pics of Chris and Derrick, Chris in particular, seeing as I could hardly see him during the gig, he was that far back!

Once my film was finished, Dad went to the loo, and then so did Quinn and I. The queue was now huge, so we did well to get in when we did. We left the hot, sticky Roadhouse at about 11:30 - Quinn reclaiming her marker on the way out - and spent the rest of the night giddy and squealing. Shouts of 'I've met FSM!' - 'Chris liked my hair bobbles!' - 'Tad signed my shoe' popping up at random intervals throughout the night, the rest of the weekend … and well into the next week!



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