If you didn’t live in the UK in the 70s, it’s licensing laws in pubs and bars were often pretty lax. Technically you had to be 18 to buy alcohol but that was widely disregarded by most landlords, to the extent many of us had our 18th birthday party in our favourite pub after going there for over two years,
I was a young looking 16 and I only got refused service once and that was in the bar at Newcastle City Hall before Uriah Heep but after Widowmaker. More usually you were never challenged and there were no ID cards or anything. 14 year-old girls would often get dressed up and get served despite looking very young. The only problem came when the police came in to check ages. There was an unofficial network of people in Stockton who looked out for Police doing their rounds and tell everyone in the bar “cops are checking” so the landlord didn’t get in trouble and lose their licence. We would all leave and reconvene at a pub that they’d already visited.
They must have known it happened and I never saw anyone get into trouble for underage drinking. Of course there were always the boys who had a full beard at 16 and they’d often be sent into off licences to buy booze.
As long as you didn’t annoy the regulars, you were pretty much allowed to sit in a corner nursing a pint of lager and lime.
So it was that drinking and gigs went hand-in-hand. Thinking about it now, I don’t think I saw a band while sober. Not wasted but definitely some distance from sobriety. This might sound, to less drink-focused cultures, a bit weird but it was entirely normal and most of us did it, some of us more than others.
And in the towns where I lived, there were rock pubs. You know the sort of thing. Basically a good jukebox and some Roger Dean-style murals on the wall. These were great places because everyone was of like minds and you didn’t get any fights, which was a constant concern of life in northeast England. What we called ‘smoothie’ pubs were people in fashionable clothes went, were always violent places in contrast
Someone reminded me of how we’d get in the Farmers Rest -a perfectly ordinary pub which we hairies occupied - at 5.30pm when it opened and stay there until 10.30pm when it closed. A five hour session. Thought nothing of it. Then we’d go to the Mayfair to see some bands until after 2am. The levels of energy we had was, looking back, phenomenal.
So my experience of live rock n roll is largely through inebriated eyes, In fact all my public pursuit of rock is, from going to pubs with a loud rock jukebox to queuing outside the City Hall, to going to gigs. When I hear of young people not drinking, as understandable as that might be, it would have been totally alien to us. Drinking and (though I didn’t) smoking was a default. And not just in the evening, either. This happened at lunchtime too. The afternoon session till closing at 3pm, 2pm on a Sunday, especially was a frantic time of throwing booze down your neck. And we were just teenagers.
It seems reckless now but we didn’t think so back then. It was a regular part of life. I remember being properly drunk for the first time aged 15 ½. 3 pints of lager and lime in the American Tavern in Stockton did it. I staggered home to try and sober up on the way home. Lying in bed with the room spinning. But by the time I was 17, 6 pints of Bass (a powerful laxative) was no problem.
I assume this was commonplace across all towns and generations, not just mine. Beer was cheap and we’d go out with two pounds, have 5 pints and a bag of post-pub chips and in between see loads of legendary bands. We really didn’t realise we were living through such a special time and thought it would go on forever.
