Death of the Disco

We were the generation that lied, schemed and connived and for what?

Well, I am sorry to say that it was all just to get into, under-aged, a discotheque night club.

In the late 1970's that class of venue tended to be aimed exclusively at the over 25 age group and represented at that time a sophisticated experience of dancing, drinking and a chance to entertain and meet the opposite sex.

Names of establishments attempted to evoke a sense of mystique and style, such as Romeo and Juliets, Silks, Lexington Avenue, Hollywood Nights and Beverley Hills and encouraged an upmarket dress code and behaviour.

My peer group, still at school albeit in the two final years went to great lengths to try to get into the Discotheques in the city centre. The girls in our year group found it easy what with the maturity gap over us lads and a good application of lippy, mascara and a suitable attire.

The doormen or bouncers had the power to grant access to the inner sanctum of the nightclub and made the most of that role and the spin off benefits that came with it.

As for us immature male teenagers that golden ticket was much more difficult to obtain.

We had to spend a lot of time rehearsing a qualifying date of birth if asked for that information by the staff. A few of my contemporaries did have a driving licence, genuine or not and would be fearful that the letters and numbers in the licence itself were a give-away to their youthful under-age.

I just opted for a dinner suit to give myself that older-man impression and I did, I must admit, look pretty good. Given that it was my Father's and that it was held up on my skinny frame by braces and belts made the illusion even more of a gamble.

There were stringent sanctions for being exposed for the age related fraud, most serious being a telephone call to your parents to come and fetch you from the nightclub reception.

Dutch courage, or a skinful of alcohol was often necessary in order perpetrate the con. We would meet at a back street pub in our home town where we knew that the Landlord or bar staff turned a blind eye to our juvenile status. After just a couple of pints it was amazing that we found our way to the bus or railway station for the 8 mile journey to the big city and our intended evening entertainment.

Once safely into the discotheque, the ride up in the lift accompanied by a bouncer being a bit intimidating in case we gave away our true age in a lapse of manner or speech, we could link up with our female friends and begin the serious business of disco dancing.

In those days, well before Sony Walkman personal stereos and with i-tunes and headphones but a distant dream, the disco was the only real access to loud music and to catch up with the charts and trends. Drinking and courting tended to be secondary to the activity of dancing and having a good time.

It was a very social event even though a conversation in the ambient noise was invariably reduced to hand signals or lip reading.

I do not readily recall any aggravation, fighting or mindless violence in that scene although the passenger lift did always appear to have been swilled out with a faint odour of antiseptic which we took to be an indication of an over zealous ejection of a reveller by the doorstaff.

The disco night club did have a special place in our lives at that time.

It is with some sadness that I have to report a significant decline in the numbers of such establishments according to recent figures in a media report.

It appears that a number of factors have brought this about.

There has been a distinct demographic change with the current target age generation favouring small, niche type venues, themed clubs, live music stages, board game playing coffee shops, cocktail bars and enjoying real ales, tapas and gourmet burgers.

They are an age group brought up with piped music at their fingertips or rather on their mobile phone keyboard, perhaps a bit more frugal on spending if saving for a house deposit or paying back a student loan and keen to avoid trouble-spots and potential conflict with other less discerning night time revellers.

The traditional disco nightclub just cannot compete which is a shame but perhaps a necessary sacrifice to enable  a new order to emerge.

As for me, I haven't been to a real nightclub for about three decades, preferring to stay in with a glass of wine and to play my old, rather warped and crackly vinyl disco albums and reminiscing with a mixture of fondness and embarassment at what we used to do just to get down that dance floor.