The Birthday Treat - The Used Meet and Greet and Illamasqua Haul

I meant to post this sometime ago but, it had to go on the back burner as the last few weeks have been incredibly busy with Hospital appointments and what not.

As a lot of you know the week following my birthday I was lucky enough to go to a meet and greet with one of my favourite bands The Used. My sister and I ventured to London on the cold and wet Saturday; we started off at Illamasqua's flagship store in London.

The visit to Illamasqua was a last minute thing because as some of you are aware I had treated myself to some items for my birthday but the delivery company they use, My Hermes, delivered my parcel to the wrong address twice! I was desperate for the items I had ordered and even though I had to miss out on my industry discount I wanted the items too badly.

I brought the following items: Fundamental Palette, Precision Ink in Abyss, Masquara in Raven, Medium Pencil in Paddle, Nail Varnish in Scorn and Scorch and finally Cream Pigment in Hollow. This haul hurt my wallet extensively and seeing as at that point I had paid twice for it you can imagine what my bank balance looked like afterwards, it was so worth it though because all of the items that I have actually played with are amazing. I am yet to use the Fundamental Palette or swatch the colours so I will do another post probably later today with swatches.

Posing in our new Ves

Once my bank card was well and truly broken we headed over to Kingston's Hippodrome to see The Used; I have to admit Sarah and I were like little girls as this is a band we have followed for a few years and the first time seeing them live. We queued in the rain for what felt like forever but once the line started moving it really started moving. 

Once inside we spied the merch stall (and the very hot merch guy ha-ha) and got ourselves the vest that appears in the Merch Haul post. We both changed into our new merch as this is something we always do when we get stuff at gigs and then the waiting began.

 We were lucky enough to get a great spot at the side of the stage so we really were close to the action. Quinn and Bert arrived onstage and played a short acoustic set which truly was amazing, that man’s voice sounds no different live than on the CD itself.

I like to tell myself he is pointing at me ha ha

The set finished and we were told to make our way to the back area of the venue, Sarah and I have never moved so fast because we really didn’t like the thought of being number 699 and 700, we managed to get in line about 50 people back and then we waited and waited and waited some more.

About 30 minutes passed and then the line started moving, I personally was shaking and very excited and then finally came the moment to meet Jepher, Quinn, Dan and Bert. I had been trying to think of what I was going to say to them but nothing unique came into my head. When I reached the table I was greeted by Jepher and all I could say was thank you for the most amazing birthday present to which he replied "Oh Happy Birthday Sweetie", I rambled something about being old so he asked how old I was and when I told him his reply was "Ahhh that’s not old I turned 80 recently" with a huge grin on his face. I missed out on talking to Quinn because Jepher carried on but I would not change it.

Sarah's head and then from R-L: Jepher, Quinn, Dan and Bert

 We were rushed through Quinn and Dan to get to Mr McCracken himself now I was really shaking, we had been told no pictures with the guys although, we had seen a few people ask and be allowed so we thought we would ask but, Bert’s manager said no. Bert was so lovely about it and looked genuinely upset that he couldn’t and said "if you are coming to the gig tomorrow come see us after and I will make sure you get your picture" we told him we weren’t and he looked really sad and all he could say was sorry. If I am honest I don’t care about the photo I got to meet them and that’s something I may never get the chance to do again.

So, that ends the most amazing weekend and birthday in a long time, it will take some beating I can tell you. I hope you enjoyed reading my rambled post and if you haven’t already check out The Used’s new album Vulnerable you won’t be disappointed.

Ems xo