17. I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs
My wife’s mother is Irish. Her people are from a town south of Dublin, on the coast. It is, like most towns in that part of the world, tidy, compact, old and comfortable.
It is also, to my eyes, an odd mix of foreign and familiar.
* * *
We travelled over there when I finished university, part of a 6-week trip we took around the world – from Australia to the US, on to the UK, Ireland, Europe, Singapore and finally, home.
We were exceedingly naïve and most definitely didn’t make the most of the trip out of nervousness and hesitance.
So when my wife’s uncle picked us up in Dublin and brought us back to their house, it was a tangible relief for my wife and her sister (who’d joined us on the trip).
It’s quite impressive, I think, that my mother-in-law’s family haven’t let the tyrannical distance between Melbourne and Ireland prevent them from being as close as they are.
Similarly impressive was just how easy they made it for me to feel at home there – I’d met them before, but briefly, and now here I was taking one of their bedrooms and making unconscionable amounts of Jameson and Baileys disappear.
* * *
I rather loved my time in Ireland, a sentiment made all the easier by how charming and wonderful I find Irish people. Between the environment and the people, it’s a fantastic place to spend some time:
- The built environment is, generally, possessed of a notable timelessness. Especially coming from a country that tells itself it’s a very young nation (conveniently forgetting the 60,000 years of habitation that came before the grotty convicts), it’s still surprising to find a bridge or a pub or a dinner set that’s older than white settlement in Australia;
- Owing to the weather, I assume, the interiors of their homes are warm, lovely, bright and incredibly welcoming – while the external environment seems permanently shiny with rain, made dull by the limitless clouds;
- They’re funny. Like, properly funny. Sore-throat-from-cackling-all-night funny;
- They have a bewildering attachment to restrictive liquor availability, with all of the problems that come with turning the tap off at 10pm.
It was this last point I was quietly interested to witness.
In Australia the pubs shut late enough that most people are able to have their fill. There was still trouble, but we didn’t seem to have the migration en masse to the nearest take away, where the long queues and short tempers inevitably led to violence.
But from what I’d seen, read and heard (thanks Mike), shutting the taps off at 10 or 11pm, pushed a whole stack of thirsty bastards on to the street, to fill the gutters with their dinner before stumbling to the nearest chippy for a curry and chips.
I couldn’t wait to see it firsthand.
* * *
It wasn’t an issue early on – we were on family time, so it was about meeting the relatives and having a few quiet pints at the pub over dinner.
(Incidentally, while I don’t drink anymore, a few drinks in a British or Irish pub remains one of my ideal activities. They’ve perfected the convivial drinking environment, especially now that they’ve banned smoking.)
But then came the night of the cousins.
My wife’s many, many cousins had planned a night out where they’d all meet at one of the seaside bars and spend some time together.
(Another oddity, from my perspective, is just how many of their cousins didn’t really know each other, despite being from the same family and living within a few miles of each other. But I suppose it has to happen or else your entire week would be spent with your dozens and dozens of cousins.)
I’ll leave any discussion of the matching t-shirts they’d had printed to another time, but it was a great night, at least partly because the bars were playing music I loved, that I’d been listening to at home.
Arctic Monkeys. The Streets. Bloc Party. Gorillaz. The White Stripes. The Strokes.
And, crucially, The Kaiser Chiefs.
* * *
For a while there, I Predict a Riot was playing at every bar in Melbourne. It’s fairly aligned with the burning buzz of the Arctic Monkeys, with jaunty guitars and an accented singer telling a story about a night out. All great fun.
Then you drill down into the lyrics and you realise the boppy tune is all about the dangers of a night out.
The thin line between fun and a punch in the face.
The risks that the local constabulary could pose when you’ve had a skinful and lost your primary faculties:
Watching the people get lairy
Is not very pretty I tell thee
Walking through town is quite scary
And not very sensible either
A friend of a friend he got beaten
He looked the wrong way at a policeman
But it’s a damned fun song with the balance between menace and a danceable tune well tipped towards the sing-a-long mark.
Hearing this song playing in a dark bar with long queues for drinks – and even longer ones for the toilet – put a smile on my face.
* * *
Last drinks were called, and we all started filing out of the bar. We tried getting a taxi – the arithmetic of taxi availability is surely another argument against the early/mass closure of bars? – but had no luck.
So we ended up having that conversation you always seem to have out the front of a bar that’s kicked you out:
Should we wait here?
Should we walk over there?
Oh, they got one over there, should we walk over there?
Geez, it’s cold.
Should we just walk back?
How bout we walk to the chip shop, try to get one from there?
Have you called a cab?
Is that the one you called?
What do you mean it is, those people are in it?
Did you try calling again?
They’re not answering?
Oh, come on, let’s just walk it, we’d be home by now.
I know your feet are sore, but there just aren’t any cabs.
Yes, I need to use the toilet as well.
Ooh, is that cab free?
Well his light’s on.
I can’t remember which light means he’s available. No, you go and ask him.
It’ll be fine, those guys aren’t getting in, they’re just standing there.
Bloody hell, they’re trying to kick off, you better go and get him.
I don’t want to get him. You get him.
God it’s cold.
Let’s just walk.
And, eventually, many goosebumps and bladder pains later, we decided to follow the rest of the crowd and walk.
It was exactly as I pictured it.
* * *
A huge crowd of people walking along the footpaths and spilling onto the cobblestoned roads.
Stumbling, tripping, grabbing on to the stone walls for support.
Yelling, laughing, crying rang out.
For winter in a country with weather best described as ‘moderate’, there was a shockingly low number of jackets.
Now and then, a taxi would pass, already full with occupants. This wasn’t acceptable to some punters, so abuse, chips and the occasional shoe would fly after the cap.
The fresh (read: cold) air coming off the Irish Sea was quickly dissolving the alcohol, but not enough to be completely sure of each group you walked past.
Those lyrics ran through my head:
A man in a tracksuit attacked me
He said that he saw it before me
Wants to get things a bit gory
But it was interesting, I was witnessing the great migration from bar to chipper firsthand!
Then we came over the hill and saw the chipper.
The one, lone chip shop filled to bursting with florid-faced, cold-sweating beer enthusiasts.
There was a crowd out the front, half waiting to go in, the other half trying to keep everyone else away from their hot chips.
And they were all just standing there, which I found confusing – go home, you mad sods – until I realised they do this every Saturday night.
This was part of their routine.
It was a social time, an extension of the time at the bar – not a poor replacement.
So we went and lined up for some chips – which were unreliably delicious, a characteristic I imagine fades as the sun comes up – and stood around, chatting with the cousins and their friends.
There was no menace in the crowd, though I got the feeling that was entirely dependent on those fryers continuing to churn out hot chips.
Turn that off, and I imagine a riot was the least of the issues.
* * *
And that was the night of the cousins.
We left a few days later, vowing to return, and one of the cousins came with us to Europe and on to Australia.
It was a great trip.
