My night as a rock star

It's Thursday afternoon. At Stefan Batory School the UFO festival is buzzing in its preparatory phase. The UFO festival, I gather hasn't much to do with aliens, more an opportunity for students to gain some exposure for their artistic work and talents. My involvement in the proceedings is playing a song as part of Olivia's fashion show. The band consists of Piot (playing bass), Alex (playing guitar), Zd [another foreign name I have trouble remembering] (on drums) and myself playing guitar and singing.

We are delayed from being able to practice on the stage by some local teen rock band. They crank out Zombie by The Cranberries on out of tune Gibsons and Fenders. The two questions I put to my band mates are: Are The Cranberries still cool here? And what's the point in having a £2000 guitar if you can't even tune it properly? Two questions I've asked before at open mic nights in the UK. We sit in an unused classroom and play along, unplugged to the tune playing on Alex's mobile phone. Finally, our chance to use the amps and drums arrives. We do about three attempts, which sound all right from my position on stage. Sweet.

Olivia and I work our way through a bottle of wine in the practice session and as she adds the final touches to her girls in the minutes before they go on stage, we're quite a way through the second. I feel quite honoured being allowed to sit in on their preparations. I sit at the window with the wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Around me a dozen hot final year of high school girls are getting ready (i.e. putting their clothes on), I feel like a right VIP. Before the show, I hadn't played in front of an audience for about six months. Even then, an audience consisted of about fifty people in a pub not watching the open mic. I was about to go and play to about 200.

For some reason the girls go out on stage way too fast and I find myself being hurried on to stage. Alex tells me to let everyone know about our lack of preparation. 'We only got together this afternoon and I'm British,' I say into the microphone as we start playing Main Offender. Despite being told previously not to walk down the centre aisle and that the show wasn't over, rogue members of the audience start to filter down the area used as the catwalk as the girls come out for a final appearance. I don't remember much. In my head the whole song lasted about ten seconds long.

We leave the hall to a decent applause, which some I have to steal for myself, in spite of all the work my girlfriend has done. We pack up all the clothes, equipment and head to the nearest pub. The nearest pub is an underground rock bar, which reminds me distinctly of the (now defunct) Vic Bars in Newquay. I feel a bit out of place in a black jacket, white shirt and skinny jeans, but I don't give a fuck. I'm on the performance buzz. By about midnight our friends decide to depart, they have school again in the morning. I don't.

As I come in to my apartment, I'm met by my house mate Krzysiu (here in referred to as Chris, because I'm lazy). 'Do you want to go out drinking?' I ask him. He does. Awesome.

We get the bus up to Plac Trzech Krzyzy and walk over to Lustro. Lustro is Polish for mirror, but as it's that kind of place, it's suspiciously empty at just after 12.30am. 'We should go to Sofia,' says Chris. 'The strip club?' I ask, pointlessly. Yes, the strip club.

At the door is a chap about three times the size of me. He takes 50zl off Chris and points the way. We check our coats at the cloakroom and head inside. The place is massive. There are two podiums, dozens of tables and chairs, a massive red sofa in the shape of lips. We scope the employees and clientele, avoiding eye contact for two very different reasons. The are practically as many naked or almost naked girls as there are men, dressed in either designer suits of sports gear. Behind the bar, behemoths of men with ruler straight buzz cuts man the taps. 'Ex-KGB, definitely,' I joke. 'I wouldn't say that too loud in here,' replies Chris.

'Jesus, I feel like I've walked into a scene from a Bond movie. I wonder how many people died to build this place.' I say to Chris as he takes in the view of a pair of fake tits stood defying gravity on an upside down dancer. The variety amongst the girls is quite impressive. There are token stripper looking strippers with fake tits and blonde hair, some look quite attractive despite their token stripper garments, some are just repulsive. They each take turns to approach us for business and as the night grows later our explanations grow shorter. Some we don't even look at as we shoe them away, 'No, thanks.' Now where were we in the conversation?

Chris and I debated our place in the club as a couple of poor drunk twentysomethings compared to the guys in the club with money. I think the general gist was: They're here because they have to spend money to look at women who want their money, we're here for a laugh, ergo we are the cool ones.

We decide it might be better if we go to a normal club and drink beer that we can afford and maybe dance with some girls that don't expect to be paid for the pleasure. The only place we find open at 3.30am on a Thursday morning is Underground. It's a consistently shit place. Every time we go it gets worse and after our first port of call, the crowd of about three ugly girls doesn't get our attention. Good job too, with us both having girlfriends.

At about 5.30am we decided to call it a night. After beginning to walk home, we bundled ourselves into a taxi and went home.