An Ode To Tonic

Or The Existentialism Surrounding The Great British Night Out
 

It is no longer Friday night but Saturday morning and technically my night still hasn’t begun. Our plan was to go to ‘Fever & Boutique’, a new club based off the successful ‘Moo Moos’ chain- the nearest one being a £4 train journey away in Fleet. The Facebook description was soberly post-ironic, promising retro chic and chart hits. I hate retro chic and chart hits, so obviously I wanted to go.

Due to the predictability of the human race, every non-married person in Basingstoke also wanted to get in. We all queued desperately for entry that would cost us £3.  It was like being at Thorpe Park. But at the end of it I would not get to ride on Europe’s fastest rollercoaster, I would be at ‘Fever & Boutique’. I begin to loathe myself more so than I already do, I complain to my friends who in return complain to me. We all begin to feel fulfilled through our complaining, this is the Great British Night Out.

A fork is put in the road and an ultimatum is made by someone probably too drunk to remember why he or she said it “ten more minutes, if we aren’t in then we’ll go Tonic”. We wait three and a half minutes and leave the stationary queue of every non-married person in Basingstoke to walk around 100 metres to ‘Tonic’. We are cold and losing our buzz from the pre-drink at Spoons, anything indoors is looking like a positive.

‘Tonic’ used to be the only nightclub in Basingstoke. Therefore there was no actual need for ‘Tonic’ to do anything more than just exist. It has two levels, the ground floor is mainly just a bar with some soft seating and upstairs is the dance floor with another two bars. Rene Descartes believed that “I think therefore I am”, the philosophy lives on as “I sell Jagerbombs for £3 therefore I am”. The design has no flaws; it works almost as a Socialist testament to functionality. The group I am with begin to grow anxious and some threaten to go to Reading to experiment with something more salubrious. They stay.

Like the cathartic trend of ‘indieamnesty’, ‘Tonic’ stinks of the early 2000s. A projection screen hangs at one end of the dance floor with drinks offers produced on Powerpoint with a penchant for garish word art. The DJ I can only assume was the father of someone I went to junior school with. Dance music is an ever evolving genre and as EDM falls into a neatly dug grave, teenagers are reverting back to Garage, House and Drum and Bass. On the playlist tonight was what I can hear Gregg James play at midday on Radio One. ‘Tonic’ is not a good place for listening or dancing to music.

“I don’t know why I’m even complaining, I love Tonic” come out of someone’s mouth I was standing next to. I didn’t love ‘Tonic’, nor did I love it in the way that I love Frozen as an 18-year-old male. There was no ironic passion, but how could I complain either? I had made a series of ugly decisions that got me to this point of dancing to Sean Paul. Was this me being masochistic? Did I actually want to have a bad time? Or was this ‘Tonic’s plan? Make everyone have a bad time, to make everyon realise what really matters is the people who surround you daily.

Perhaps that euphoric feeling that The Great British Night Out aims to capture doesn’t come from your friend from Media’s trip to ‘Sketch’, or the Snaphat story of a wide eyed girl at a wavy garms rave. Maybe The Great British Night Out is standing on the dance floor listening to Sean Paul and wanting to die.