The 80s Tears for Fears song Shout contains the line
These are the things I can do without
and that came true last Friday. Warning: middle-aged whinge content approaching.
I’d already arranged to meet a friend in a local pub, when my neighbours suggested a meal out. I’d got plenty of time, so we trotted (well, walked) off to a local pub. The food and beer was fine, but one thing *really* grated: the volume.
The music wasn’t the problem. What was the problem was a group of people, clustered around the bar (Grrr!) seemingly unable to conduct a conversation at normal volume: even the act of moving out of my way so I could get to the PDQ machine was accompanied by a needless cacophony of shouts (to which I muttered “for fucks sake” under my breath (hopefully)), and something about the acoustics of the room made it impossible to hold a conversation ourselves (though, as we’re all distinctly middle-aged, it could be the start of our hearing deteriorating in a noisy environment).
This was repeated later when I met my friend in another pub, but also with a band playing. Loud.
I really don’t mind music in pubs; or indeed bands in pubs. In fact, I love music in pubs, if it’s decent, but why always so loud? The loud music, of course, then creates the shouting if it wasn’t there already.
This thing really feeds into my perfect pub post: and it’s worth noting that the pubs I really like often have no music, like this one, this one or this one, or music you can converse over, like this one and this one and, again referring to my critera, the old model of multi-room pubs (before they all got knocked into one space) really helps here: it may have been an answer to the smoking issue too (as many pubs had a smoke room back in the day).
This is starting to sound like a grumpy old man’s desire for quiet pubs with no life to them (last Sunday, I visibly winced when one heavily refreshed customer suggested my local needed loud music on the jukebox to “liven it up” (on a Sunday evening, FFS)), but I’ll address that in two ways. First of all, I know I’m not alone, and secondly, having been in this place at work-chucking-out on a Friday, with it rammed to the point of standing room only, and felt the buzz in the place, which, frankly, was infectious, but still been able to talk to my companion, because people were talking, I can honestly say that at times I crave a bit of life to a pub.
So then: am I just getting old (though, in truth, I’ve hated over-loud pubs since my teens), or getting (even more) boring? I know Andy will agree here, but he’s older than me (and possibly, if the two of us are present, this post may become hypocritical…), and others may not, and I suppose here there’s a point to be made that pubs are, well, public spaces, so have to accommodate different tastes.
I agree and that’s why we have left The Min. Interesting enough, Sheffield has fantastic pubs that are very lively and don’t have jukeboxes blaring out and people are shouting because there are so many of them and they are having a really good chat or laugh.
If I’d have heard the chap with the jukebox comment, I’d have said something. However, this is symptomatic of the 90’s pub culture engendered by the Pubco’s. I remember that in one Irish bar in Wolves, the music was so loud even the youth I was with wanted to leave as it was truly awful. Some people have been brainwashed into thinking that a good night out is loud music, beer and well more beer till you fall over or have a fight. For me its a chat and some jokes over a few beers and see where it goes – usually the 59. The 69 has stopped running.