I Remember Friday Nights

I do - it doesn't seem that long ago but as I sat at home, on my own with my takeaway curry I started to reminisce about what a Friday night used to actually mean to me.

I used to like playing gigs on a Friday night - there was something surreal about the preparation of setting up the equipment, doing the sound checks and thinking my mates were in the pub drinking beer ready to go to a disco.

I hated discos with a vengeance. I hated the preening, poncing males. The over-priced drinks and the fights afterwards because some male had looked at someone else's femlae in the wrong way. They're people, not possessions you twats.

In the meantime, after the soundcheck had been done, the band would sit there drinking free beer arguing about changes in the set-list for that evening. Eventually, we'd have a majority decision on the set list written on the nearest available beer mat. This would be blu-tacked to the nearest amp that we could all see (the drummer didn't count as he made his shit up anyway).

The lights would dim, the smoke machine would kick in (alright, it was the roadie smoking 3 Marlboro at a time and puffing it out of a megaphone) and we would be introduced.

Then all hell would break loose as we hadn't told the management quite how loud we were going to play. We didn't care, we were having way too much fun. For 60 minutes or so, the sonic boom would reverberate about the place. Then it was the time to end. With a wailing of guitars and occassionally a flouncing off stage by the lead singer, the lights would go back up.

Whilst the roadie patiently packed equipment away, we would talk to members of the audience who wanted to share their.....stuff. I got some mighty strange offers but being a virgin, always declined.

Once the equipment had been loaded and the roadie had set off, we set off to the nearest rock club or Gothic dive. We probably smelt like badgers arses but we didn't care.

Now it was party time and so we took full advantage of it. Oh the days of drinking diet coke and eating chicken in a basket - don't know anything about that shit at all. We drank anything that contained alcohol, whatever the colour - as for food, who needs it?

The places we went to never had fights - people were generally too stoned to care. If we were lucky, we might get home at 7 am, if not, we just slept in the nearest hedge or whatever.

I would say I'm not proud of it, but that would be a lie.

It was ROCK and we loved every minute of it.

So, as I sit staring at the remnants of my curry, on my own, I can truly say - life's not what it used to be.....