Tonight I’m a rock and roll star: Five musicians I would love to go on a night out with
I often recoil at my elders telling me things aren’t quite like they used to be. Food, football, music – all pillars upon which their insufferable yearning for nostalgia is built, locking us all in an endless museum of the past. Largely, I rebel at this sentiment and proudly celebrate the contemporary landscape I find myself in, but there’s one thing I can’t argue with, and that’s the purity of a good old-fashioned night out.
Nowadays, they seem few and far between. We live in a world where endless phones record every snapshot of embarrassment. And should you dodge that, you still face the ubiquitous judgment of the sober soldiers and their trusted hyper-optimisation of life. Apparently, nowadays, a good old night out isn’t as fun as a shakeout 10km run, followed by group electrolyte chugging.
So yes, in the spirit of that, I’m willing to concede that my forefathers are right; nights out just are not as good as they used to be. The two former problems seem even more threatening to the rockstars of our generation, who are so scared stiff of losing their edge and being filmed in public doing so that bumping into them at the dregs of a night out is virtually an impossibility.
Sometimes when I sit in what is left of our British pubs, I look around at the empty tables and wonder what it would be like to have a time machine and transport back to the halcyon days of Great British drinking. Better yet, what wild nights out of the music industry past would I crash in order to live out my dream of being a rock and roll legend? Well, here is where I would start.
Five musicians I would love to go on a night out with
Charli XCX
OK, boomers, be quiet – this one is for us youngsters. I’m not yet willing to concede that modernity is completely ruined, and hand over the keys to the pub to those who came before us. Say what you want about Charli, but she clearly loves a night out. Yes, I know! It is leveraged for marketing, but I don’t care! She’s method acted the living hell out of it and has clearly sussed how to perfect a night out in the digital apocalypse.
Still, despite my defence, I can practically hear the eye-roll of misogynists propping up the bar. Their gout-induced groans do nothing to dispel my belief that in the crossroads of a night out, when it’s 1am and the pubs shut, but the enthusiasm refuses to wane, it is Charli who would be the one to shepherd us into a pocket of hedonism. I want to believe in today one last time before surging back to the past, and I am putting my faith in Charli to do it.
Suggs
The Madness frontman has now found some peace with sobriety, and ultimately, it’s for the best, but let’s go back to the late 1970s when Suggs’ schoolboy charm populated the very best pubs of London – this was a time when music was thriving, socialising with strangers was commonplace, and the price of a pint was actually reasonable.
All of that spirit was bundled into Madness music, songs that felt as at home around a small table of friends as they did in an arena, all sung by a man who knew what it meant to enjoy a pint. “Pubs are useful places to share information as a community…and get pissed!” he once said. That’s it, that is all there is to it – there was no pretence with Suggs, just a simple desire to be in the moment.
Keith Richards
The thing with rock and roll hedonism is that it comes with its vices. Such a furious approach to a night out has ultimately rendered some of these icons powerless, subject to the crippling pain of alcoholism and substance abuse. It’s a dangerous game that somehow, Richards has eluded his entire life. A biological phenomenon, he’s been able to consume whatever, whenever, with little to no cost.
I could bury myself in the depths of a night out with Richards, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be leaving the great man curled up in a corner of the room, questioning every decision he made. In fact, he’d probably knock at my door with a tumbler of orange juice and a twinkle in his eye.
David Byrne
Now, not all good nights are about full-throttle drinking – sometimes it’s about the dancing. Now there are plenty of musicians whose rug-cutting topped Byrne’s, but only in the hyper-choreographed sense. Byrne was just at home on stage as he was on the light-up floor of the local disco, where his flailing arms would encourage you to feel the rhythm.
Sure, he might not swallow ten pints of Guinness and bookend it with a doner kebab, but there’s nothing wrong with an old-fashioned string followed by a Stop Making Sense danceathon. And once that is all said and done, and it was time for the whimsical walk home, he’d have more than his fair share of existentialism to keep you entertained, leaving you asking yourself, how did I get here?
Liam Gallagher
“What is the point of going for one?” Gallagher once furiously asked. “If we’re going out, we’re gonna go out, we’re gonna have 100.” A battle cry worthy of sending me into the watery breaches and drinking with a man who knows nothing but being a full-blooded rock and roll star.
While his brother and a few easily offended bystanders might argue otherwise, Gallagher is one of the most harmless hellraisers in music. He’s not in it to plunge into existential depravity but to simply have a good time, gather a community around the safe confines of a bar and have a laugh and a sing-along. The ‘90s were known as the last days of liberal bliss, and Gallagher was the mayor of such a time, so who better to have it out with?
