Rock Night

As 16-year olds in the hardly bustling non-metropolis of Darlington, we weren't exactly spoiled for choice when it came to concerts or great evening entertainment, so when we heard about a regular rock night at a local bar called Perry's, it was like all our Christmases had come at once.

Perry's was a trendy bar/eatery, but every Friday and Saturday they used their cellar bar for two hours of indie, then two hours of rock. On our first visit, four of us turned up far too early and sat in a poorly-lit, empty, musicless room for almost an hour before anything happened. When the bar finally opened, the general consensus was that we would look cool if we drank designer beer, so as the oldest-looking I was despatched to the bar to secure four cans of Red Stripe. In truth, we looked like arseholes, but the worst was yet to come. As we drained can after can of a beer that cost nearly £2 a pop, we began building an impressive empties pyramid on the table, foolishly believing that girls would be impressed by this display of extreme masculinity. We were wrong (shock, horror) and we attracted a few disgusted looks and more than our fair share of eye-rolls. Music-wise, I don't remember a great deal about that first night due to the ludicrous amount of falling-down water that was consumed, but we vowed to return the following week.
We continued to go to Perry's every week for about a year, but usually only on a Saturday as paper round money couldn't be stretched out over two nights. Every week was like a Groundhog Day of music with Megadeth's Symphony Of Destruction, the bizarre KLF/ Extreme Noise Terror collaboration of 3am Eternal, and Def Leppard's horrific Let's Get Rocked always part of the proceedings.
Another rock night at The Wynds Experience started at this point and it was decided that the change of scenery would probably be good as Perry's was becoming increasingly stagnant. 'The Experience' generally involved over-flowing toilets, sporadic fighting and a dance floor awash with so much spilt beer and broken glass, it made an Angolan minefield look like Flamingo Land. My favourite parts were the ironic-but-perhaps-not-meant-to-be 80s disco lighting and epileptic fit-inducing strobe light. Musically, the nights at The Wynds were much better, with everything from the Sex Pistols to Slayer getting a decent airing. The place also deserves extra credit for selling tequila slammers for £1 each, which resulted in three of us having no memory of what happened after 9:30 on one occassion.
Other pubs tried to get in on the action by copying The Wynds' blueprint with incredibly limited success. The Bowes opened a cellar bar which could comfortably accomodate about 20 people and appointed a 50-year old glam rock fanatic as DJ. The Railway Hotel had a rock night in an upstairs room which was forever being ruined by a couple of loose floorboards that made the records skip. The Royal Oak was marred by disputes with regulars who disliked "long-haired layabouts" intruding on their hallowed turf. The Boot & Shoe never took off because the music needed to be played at limited volume as the landlord didn't like it.
Going out of town to The Mayfair in Newcastle was perhaps the pinnacle of rock nights in my youth. Generally, the music was much better and hearing a DJ say "Biohazard" with a gruff Geordie accent was always a treat for me. On one memorable visit, a friend was thrown out for trouble-making after he accidently knocked a chair over. His "sympathetic" girlfriend refused to have her night ruined by this and dumped him immediately before collapsing in a pool of vomit in the toilets.
Rock nights are probably much better for today's kids, but what a blast we had at the time.