That’s it kids; the name status you’ve been working academically towards your whole life, usually expressed in the format of “DOWN IT, YOU FRESHER!”
So, ‘Freshers Week.’ Is it all you dreamed it would be? Surely that £65 wristband was worth it? Promising us all these great activities and events throughout the week? Quad biking, grub crawls, cocktail making; you name something you wanted to do, they had it on offer- or did they?
The expectation that hungover students would really want to wake up at 8am to go and sign up for all these great activities, after a night of downing jaeger bombs in the SU, was just a bit too unrealistic and a lot of people missed out on what they wanted to do. Maybe it’s time to get with the 21st century and arrange a booking app for next year. At least that would save you crawling out of bed still drunk to sign up for a 30 minute mini bus journey to the countryside, only to be bombarded by paintballs by the lads you saw signing up to the rugby society the other day. Just a suggestion that’s all.
“Maybe it’s time to get with the 21st century and arrange a booking app for next year”
All this, however, was nothing in comparison to the main event, the worst thing of all Freshers Week - and potentially of the entire world - Tiger Tiger. I felt exploited, but also a fool for believing all the Facebook claims that it would be “THE BEST NIGHT OUT IN NEWCASTLE THAT ANY FRESHER HAS EVER SEEN!”. It was all lies. Being greeted by a £10 entry fee and discovering the absolute joke price of £3.60 for a vodka and coke was bad enough, especially considering no one’s loan had dropped yet. If that wasn’t awful enough, the music was. Once you got past the initial awe of the 70’s style light up dance floor in Groovy Wonderland, you realised that the whole place is an utter joke. I’m all up for a bit of chart music too, but when you hear ‘Hotline Bling’ played by Drake at least 3 times over, you know that you’ve been conned, and that it’s time to go home.
Fair enough, the horror that was Tiger Tiger was my fault, it wasn’t included in the wristband, so the loss of what little money I had to the exploitive bartenders was by my own choice. I had hope though. Hope that the SU organised nights might be better, but yet again I was wrong. Pandamonium on the Friday night was utter shambles. It was fun to dress up, but Basshunter performing at Sam Jacks was possibly one of the most dreadful experiences of my life - if he wasn’t droning on about how wasted he was over the microphone, he was torturing us with some of the worst mixes of all time. In fact he was so bad, that majority of people inside evacuated to nearby bar venue ‘The Gate’, which proved to be no better. It felt like being in a low budget ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake, where instead of zombies entering the shopping mall, it was just newly turned 18 year olds with panda eyes stumbling across the floor having had one too many trebles. Yes, Freshers’ week might be exclusive to Freshers but honestly, I can’t imagine those smarmy second and third years putting themselves through it again. Motivating yourself to down another vodka and cranberry concoction is bad enough, the least you need is a decent night to gear yourself up for.
“I’m all up for a bit of chart music too but when you hear ‘Hotline Bling’ at least 3 times over, you know you’ve been conned”
I think I’ll just stick to pre drinks next year, and the odd house party. But hey, it was an experience and let’s face it, you don’t want to be exposed to the best of Newcastle right from the start - the only way is up from here!