When I was a young Melbournite living in the mean streets of St Albans (otherwise known as Snorebans to the locals), I frequented a nightclub called The Downunder religiously every Saturday night and sometimes weeknights for about 6 months. Sometimes I went with my cousin and her friends, my own circle of mates, or even on my own – because hey, you never know when you’re gonna get lucky!
The first time I went to the Downunder, it was with my cousin Janelle and her rat bag friends from a hick country-urban town called Melton. I get there in my shiny best duds – black jeans, red button up shirt with shiny white buttons, black leather shoes with high polish…I was 100% sexy, baby. My cousin and her girly-friend flash their security licenses and we get waved in straight away, before a group of people who had already been lining up for who knows how long. It was probably at that point I first thought about getting a security license, oddly enough, especially since I was the classic 100 pound weakling at the time.
The entrance experience was better than I’d gleaned off the television and various movies (that is, guys wait outside while all the hot chicks go in) so again I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. We get in, sign in to the register book and the receptionist offers us some free membership tags – score! Those key chains alone were worth an entry fee of $10/week, plus a $5 credit when buying a drinks card – spend $20 on the card and get $25 credit. Nice. At this point the music coming from upstairs was getting louder and louder, and the crowd was mingling downstairs, upon the stairs and hanging out of the door upstairs too. Everyone I could see was having a great time, there were a lot of pretty girls and bunches of oh-so-suave guys putting on their best charms for the night.
That first night a cover group called The Stealers was playing. I’d never heard a cover group before, and even with the limited exposure I’d had at the time – these guys rocked. In a tiny little room there was probably 200 people dancing in a square no bigger than a standard living room, plus people drinking and lining up to buy drinks. The atmosphere was brilliant – dinghy, smoking was allowed, noisy. I can almost taste the stink even today. The music at the time was pretty classic – Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M, Live, Screaming Jets, AC/DC, retro stuff from Kiss (I was made for loving you, baby) and current electronica played during the band’s breaks. This was probably what spurred me into instant classics like Gina G’s “Oooh Aah”. Out of curiosity I just looked up when this single came out, and that was 1997. So I was 19, horny, and out on the town listening to Gina G, Keith Sweat (Twisted), Blur, White Town and Savage Garden. Such a rebel, I was.
Once I made it to the dance floor I did what any other regular Aussie guy does – I hid myself in a corner and just watched everyone else to figure out what the hell was going on just so I wouldn’t make some initial faux pas to get myself thrown out. I kept an eye on my cousin+friend so I wouldn’t be abandoned, and then I did the next thing an Aussie does at a new club – hit the bar with my spiffy bright white brand-new drink card.
Feeling invulnerable due to my glorious +$5, I slowly pushed my way to the bar like everyone else, where I really did make my first mistake. I’ve been to bars before, and I have ordered quite a few drinks in my time already…but for the life of me I just didn’t know what to order. I was an adult now, damn it, should I get my regular VB or something special like an imported beer or a fancy cocktail just to let me ask girls if they wanted some some Sex on the Rocks? I could see other people drinking Corona and Heinekens, but it seemed unpatriotic to do something like that so I ordered my very first Carlton Cold; a 5% alcohol beer with a strong taste without being overpowering. It was actually really nice, and the bottle design was that if you tapped the rim of the stubby with a sharp tap the beer would foam up and the nearby chicks would shout ‘you came!’ and everyone would have a laugh and start dancing due to the icebreaker breaking down barriers.
Beer in hand, I forced my way back over to the cousin’s group which had now grown to her+friend+3 guys who were being just a wee bit obnoxious, even within the context of a nightclub. I got back into the group and right away the other girl I was with grabbed onto me and put me between the girls and the boys and acted like the boys weren’t there. By now I was sweating bullets so I took a few swigs of my beer and tried to figure out what was going on behind me. I knew the guys were there but had no clue if they were dangerous or just harmless guys misreading the girl’s behaviour, and would move on without a hassle. I raised my beer to my mouth for another sip and all of a sudden a big Maori dude pushed by me and literally jumped onto two of the guys right at my back, while another guy built like a brick shithouse came pushing through the crowd and punched the third guy right in mouth. It looked like he was going to take a swing at me, but by now the first guy had jumped up and stopped the swing with a single shake of the head. At this point, all of the on-duty bouncers had corralled the 3 guys and dragged them all out in headlocks. It was then I realised these two massive Maoris were part of the security team, with the first guy as as I later found out was the Lead Bouncer. Even to this day, I have no idea what exactly happened behind me but it must have been pretty damn interesting. Whenever I went back, I always bought that Lead bouncer a coke while he was on duty, but I never learned his name – but he always did have a smile for me whenever we met. I can’t explain it.
Once the dancing resumed (the music never stopped, and most of the dancefloor didn’t even see anything happen) a couple more girls joined our group who turned out to be friends of the girls I was there with. Even to this day I remember most of their names, and could probably pick them out in a police lineup if I really had to. There was a tall brunette girl by the name of Karen, a short blonde called Carly, and another shorter blonde/brunette Karly. These three girls all actively participated in the horse racing world in one way or another, and there were even guys who went to that club just to try and meet them.
The girls must have seen what was going on, soon enough Carly had started dancing with me in that ‘lets see how horny you are’ way that strange girls seem to love doing. Up until that point, for me all girls were equals but I suddenly fell in lust with this smiling lustful blonde sex-bomb rubbing up against me. Like an idiot, when Karen decided she wanted to dance too I didn’t care, so I tried to dance with both girls in that clumsy ‘I don’t know what I’m doing so I’ll dance like a moron being tasered’ way. Soon enough, the third girl had to have her dance with me too, and sure enough that was pretty intoxicating in its own right.
I had to go to the bathroom by now, so once I’d calmed down enough I made a bee-line for the appropriate area, with my cousin tagging along too to get any juicy info about the other girls dancing with me. While I waited for my cousin to finish doing her thing, I sat at the bar drinking an alcoholic cider called Strongbow. Quite tasty, with a higher alcohol % than beer. Somehow I started talking to some older girl about nothing and everything, and I must have been at least a little drunk by now as she suddenly kissed me and I didn’t resist. My cousin came back what felt too soon, and dragged me away. Met back up with the older chick and discovered she worked for the same company that supplied the place I worked at with various materials. We found that just to be a bit too creepy and never spoke to each other again.
After going back upstairs, I met back up with the girls where my cousin told them what had happened (I assume, she was obviously saying something that made them all laugh and giggle). Soon enough we were paired off with seemingly random people – I had been paired with Karen, and as the night had advanced pretty well by now and we were both pretty plastered. This was obvious as my spiffy white brand new drink card was now exhausted, and Karen was more than liberal with the way she was dancing against me. I grabbed her by the hand and took her downstairs and outside under the amateurish guise of getting some fresh air, where we really started kissing and fondling. One of her racing fans must have followed us out, he too made his presence known and interupted what was surely going to be a happy ending for yours-truly. It’s safe to say I was not impressed, but with the pause I could see that Karen was entirely drunk and probably not in complete control of her yes/no abilities. The shred of humanity that my enjoyment hadn’t reached took over, so I chased the ‘fan’ away and made Karen sit down and just relax a little. Before too long, she was leaning over and spewing out a good portion of alcohol – I remember at the time I guessed there was at least $75 of liquour and beer mixed up without any food whatsoever, so I naturally bought an awesome hotdog from the vendor there and made her eat it.
My cousin finally found us at that point and took the highly-drunk Karen back into the club, while I followed in a slightly less inhibited air of ‘crap, how stupid am I to waste THAT chance’ and ‘hey cool, she will remember I am a nice guy and talk to me again’. That would be classed as Wishful Thinking by most normal people, but it did sound like a valid theory at the time.
Got back into the club, noticed most of the people had left, and noticed that the two Karlys had left as well. Found Karen’s address in her purse, put her into a taxi and paid the driver in advance to take her home. Then I jumped into a taxi with my cousin (we’d been ditched by her friend, who I now discover goes with the highest bidder) and we went back home for a good couple hours sleep.
That was my first time at a night club, and it surely did leave a deep impression with me.