Where's Dave?

:: Sunday, 25 May 2003 ::

He came... He saw... He can't fuckin' remember

He'd been dancing for about an hour. Not really paying attention to anything but the sticky patch of spilled beer that surrounded his feet. He thought, "I didn't spill this." It was true. He hadn't spilled the beer, someone else had, someone on his left, someone who was now dancing crazily next to a fire escape and a stack of bass heavy speakers.

The evening had started quite innocently, some drinks in a few pubs. But his friend was alrady drunk and any more drinking would surely not bode well. He thought about leaving it, but realised that the weekend was long so any recovery would be made easier without the dread of the nine to five, the office... work.

After sharing tales of women and drunken dubauchery they left West London, the temptation to hang around with the mid twenties School Disco crowd was proving too much for his friend. They headed for Central London, still not knowing what to do, how to do it or what exactly was going to transpire over the next 10 hours.

At Euston Sqaure the scene was familiar, his friend had been here only a day before. For him it was an all to reminisant of the working week and the nightmare that is the Hammersmith & City line. Is it all really worth seventy five pounds a month?

They walked into the pub with one intention - heavy drinking at low prices. This, sadly, comes at a cost - Eurovision and EuroHelmet wearing students. Luckily, the drinking soon clouded the drone of the white suited Latvians and the psuedo-lesbian Russians. He felt sad that he had missed the Tatu performance, it was only a brief emotion though... someone had spilled Reef on his shoe.

The booze flowed, and flowed and flowed. By now he was drunk, his friends eyes had started to roll back into his head - it was probably time to leave, but surely not to go home? "We can't go yet" he said to himself, for some unknown reason querying his own made up mind like a crazy man shouting at cigarette ends on the street.

He needed air, they both did - the heady mixture of Europop and sugary alcopops was coming to a head, it was soon to be coming out some other places too. It had now become clear that their mission was afterhours drinking - he regretted not finding out the location of the 24hr drinking den his work mates had mentioned. Not that it mattered because his friend was certain that he knew the location of the ULU Bar and also that his, at most times, useless NUS card would secure the entry of his London host into the midst of student drinking and, no doubt, more hits from Tatu.

They walked. His friend was becoming unstable, talking to nothing, swaying from side to side like a tree in an autumn wind. He knew what was going to happen, soon around fifteen pounds worth of booze were going to come rushing back - he started to think but his train of thought was snapped in half by the projectile red vomit that had splattered onto the floor. His friend took two more steps but there was still more, this time it came out of his nose and mouth in unison.

ULU was closed, they were in the middle of London and the time was drawing close to midnight. He knew where they should go, it was the only place he knew that would definately be open. After stopping for more cigarettes they headed towards AKA, London's dance music media workers club of choice.

The queue was long for The End, he thought "I'm glad we're not going there!" They got in the queue, by this time his friend was rambling in a high pitched voice. It appeared that the days drinking had been long for more than just them, as person after person were helped out by security and embarressed friends.

After waiting for hours they made it into the club, downstairs into the bar. The music was breaks heavy, rumbling, funky. His friend bought drinks, he was on the gin - his vomiting having curbed his passion for fruity alcopops but not for the alcohol itself.

Surprisingly, his normally guitar loving friend seemed to be enjoying the music. What came next he didn't expect, his friend turned to him and said "I need a pill!" Shock? No, more enlightened by the fact that this probably meant that the night was no where near over. "Just ask someone," he said. Normally this type of blatant desperation gets you nowhere but his friend is already in a 'runners' ear and a dealer is on the way over, within 5 minutes his friend has purchased what one would hope was going to be dome decent MDMA, you never can tell.

The rest of the evening remains somewhat of a blur except for the mashmangled words of his drug addled friend: "I don't know where I am," he monged. "So?" He was wondering what shite was going to explode from his friends mouth next as he danced like a freak, spilling beer and managing to throw his water bottle across the dancefloor for at least the third time. "I think I'm on a stage..."