How did Fridays become so boring?

It's Friday. There was a time when Friday was my favourite day of the week, I'm not so sure now.  Maybe I'm just sulking as I have to work today, I normally get Fridays off. I was thinking about when I was a  teenager. Unless there was a mega gig on, we'd only ever plan for Fridays. We'd meet up with a group of friends, and then let the wind take us where it wanted. Often, I'd leave work on a Friday and not get home until midnight on Sunday. Often, we'd start the weekend at the Moonlight Club in West Hampstead with a gig. We'd then go back to someone's house for a bit of a party. Saturdays would sometimes be interrupted by football, but generally in August, we'd end up somewhere, grab a few hours sleep in the late hours of the morning, hit the cafe, maybe go to a pub, club or another party and then catch a beer in the pub, before it shut at 2pm. Sometimes I'd head home then, sometimes, we'd go round to a friends, listen to some music and then head back to the pub. It wasn't a particularly healthy lifestyle, but it was fun. Often, the biggest challenge was getting up on Monday for work. 

I recall, at one point, going out, for a short period, with a lovely hippy girl. She didn't approve of boozing, so we did other things that were slightly healthier. I can recall the novel feeling of going to work on a Monday and feeling wonderful. It felt totally alien. Sadly the relationship didn't last. After a couple of weeks, I was enticed into the pub after work for one on a Friday. The inevitable happened.

 When I didn't show up, she assumed I was with someone else and didn't speak to me again. In truth, I wasn't ready for such sensible shenanigans, with such a lovely girl. You may wonder why I'm writing about this? Well this week, in the studio, we had a band called Creation Rebel. They are a heavy dub Reggae band, one that I listened to a lot in the gaps between pubs and clubs, at peoples flats in this period. It is probably forty years since I last listened to them, but I've had them on non stop since they turned up and their music sounds great. They will have a date announced shortly at The Jazz Cafe in Camden and I will be the first in line to see them. 

 

 Therir music took me back to smokey squats in Maida Vale, to our band of friends playing football at 2am under the motorway lights in Mill Hill, to waking up on trains in sidings in Bedford, to persuading a lovely girl at The Bull and Bush to invite us back to her family's mansion, as they were on holiday and drinking half of her Dad's vintage wine collection. Apparently he wasn't amused when he returned, but we had a great time. Often The False Dots had gigs on a Friday night (we weren't quite good enough for the plum Saturday slots). We'd get shuttled around by our mate Dermot, in another mate Emil's camper van. The gig would just be the start of the party. Dermo once told me the partys and shenanigans after the gigs was far more fun than the performance, and that was why he stuck with us. I was annoyed at the time, but I now get what he meant. I can recall the last time I went out on a Friday night and came home on Sunday morning. It was in July 1984, when I was 22.  I met a random mate on the way home from work, went for a quick beer and things quickly escalated. My then girlfriend, who I was living with,  was not impressed, launched an alarm clock at me, requiring 17 stitches. We split up shortly afterwards. I didn't blame her. We didn't have a phone and there were no mobiles, so I had no means to tell her and after the eigth pint non longer was too bothered (shame on me). As I rather liked her, it made me realise that when you are in a relationship, going walkabout is not condusive to a stress free life. 

Forty years on, it is hard to believe that we had such stamina. If I have a wild Friday night (ie four or five pints and a curry) I am too knackered to do very much at all on Saturday. If we are up past midnight, it is a rare night. The band no longer have parties after gigs. We have a couple of beers and go home. How did it all become so boring? Sadly, the truth is we all got a bit old. Perhaps the song that best sums up how I recall it was Friday night and Saturday Morningby The Specials.

As you get older, you start to find things that used to be easy, a bit harder, playing football, running, remembering to put the milk in the fridge. For me, the first of my superpowers to go was the ability to stay up for 48 hours with no sleep. I am still catching it up!