For the love of Foo in Hello.

I’m well aware I haven’t properly updated for a while. My PC is being a dick and it’s a pain typing a whole entry on my Kindle.
Last time I wrote, I was about to go and see Foo Fighters. I have to say, it’s something I’m NEVER going to forget, it was amazing and sad all at once.
I went through to Kendal on the bus to meet Lindsey from the Foo forum. The members of the group are all lovely, loud, crude and mad as a box of frogs. They call themselves Foo Fam and they produce merchandise and donate the proceeds to the Given to Live charity, so I bought myself a Foo Fam top to wear to the gig. Lindsey spotted me straight away in Costa. As predicted, she was crackers but absolutely gorgeous. We went back to her house to get ready, a few drinks and smokes, she introduced me to her family and all her friends in the cul de sac. We were going with Lindsey’s daughter, Lizzie, and her fiance, Adam. Adam drove us down, we had a whale of a time, singing all the way to Manchester. We went to the pub where the Given to Live fundraiser gig was being held…weird feeling having random people in a pub in the middle of Manchester coming up to you, yelling “SONJAAAAA!” and giving you a massive hug. Some of them I knew, some of them I didn’t, but I didn’t mind, it was such a nice atmosphere. Lindsey had a spare ticket because her partner couldn’t come with her and she’d arranged to give it to a bloke called Tony for his son in exchange for a donation to Given to Live. Honestly, she’s an absolute diamond. We were milling about, talking to anyone and everyone. Here is a photo of (l-r) Lindsey, Paula and me. Urgh, I was looking at my phone, I thought I was getting another random hug, not having my photo taken!

Shortly after, we made our way to the gig. Lindsey suffers from fibromyalgia and Paula walks with a stick, so we decided to take the tram the short trip to the cricket ground. The tram was rammed, but as the carriage door opened, the people inside saw our tee shirts, yelled “FOO FIGHTERS!” and pulled us in!
At the ground, Paula and her husband went to their seats in the stalls, Lizzie told me to try and squeeze my way down to the front, her, Adam and Lindsey would stay at the back so that Lindsey wouldn’t get jostled too much. We’d arranged to meet back at the pub after the gig.
It was amazing. There was a massive runway coming out from the main stage and I’d managed to get sort of in the middle of the triangle between the stage and the runway. This meant I got to see them on the stage and when they came out to do their cover set on the runway. At one point, Dave spotted a little lad on his dad’s shoulders singing along, and asked for him to be brought on stage to sing with him. Little Frankie was only 8 and when Dave put his hand out for him to shake, Frankie took the pick from between his fingers!

I didn’t take many photos, I was too busy being a fangirl! Besides, some of our group had been queuing since 8am and had made the rail and the front cover of the Manchester Evening News! (As an aside, Julia doesn’t have a tattoo of Dave Grohl, she’s covered in them! :/ And I love how Suzy is flipping the bird on the pic....how that got in the paper is anyone’s guess!)
So after three hours of Foo, I started making my way back to the pub, looking forward to a couple more hours with the Fam before heading back to Kendal to spend the night at Lindsey’s. So I fired off some texts to say I was on my way, when I got one from Lindsey to say she was in hospital. I was confused, I thought Lizzie had gone with her....My head was spinning, wondering what I was going to do, was I stranded in Manchester? Was Lindsey ok? I got to the pub and Lizzie and Adam were already there. I was chatting to more folk, Julia and her husband Lee, Craig, Tony....big squeezy hugs from loads more randoms. Lizzie told me that Lindsey had said she was going to try and get near the front, they’d tried to stop her, but she was determined. Lindsey had been in a lot of pain, had a panic attack and fallen flat on her face, knocking herself unconscious. She’d had a fit, so she got taken to A and E, missing the whole gig. When we picked her up, she had been discharged, but she was still in a lot of pain. We got back to Kendal at about 2 and went to bed (I was sharing with Lindsey), but she was in too much pain to sleep, so she was up and down all night, poor lass. In the morning she was feeling sick and didn’t want to eat, couldn’t have cuddles and was generally pissed off about the whole thing. I’ve never felt so awkward in my entire life....none of us wanted to talk about how amazing the gig was, Lindsey kept bursting into tears and snapping at everyone.
Adam drove me back to the bus station and I had a nice bus trip back through the Lakes. Lindsey kept messaging me about how narked she was and I went through every single kind of emotion. I had a chat with one of the mods from the forum and she was immense, making me feel a whole lot better. Lindsey later told me that this wasn’t the first time it has happened, she tends to panic in crowds anyway. Some of the Fam said they’d club together to get her to Wembley, but she said she didn’t think she’d be able to handle it. :(
So yeah, it was an experience, that’s for sure!

Last night we heard that one of the Fam had taken his own life. I never met him, but I’ve seen others’ photos of him and he looks like he was a right laugh. It’s all very sad. He had BPD and often talked on the forum about his suicidal thoughts. :(
RIP, Craig.

Last updated June 09, 2015