WHAT started out as a chance to catch up with a couple of mates ended up in a haze of obscure musical nostalgia. Popping down to Greenock on Saturday night to check out the latest addition to the town's social scene, we realised to our horror that despite our combined musical knowledge none of us could answer the annoying question.
Just who the hell sang that soft slab of '70s disco, Dancing In The City?
None of those present at our table in the Greenock branch of the expanding Waterline chain knew the answer.
But more to the point, what on earth was going on with the sounds? When was the last time you sat in a bar on a Saturday night - a bar with a very 'pre-club' looking clientele - and listened to Illusion by Imagination, The Love I Lost by Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes, Earth, Wind & Fire, MacArthur Park by Donna Summer and what sounded like most of the Staying Alive soundtrack?
On paper, it sounds camp and hideous. But, in fact, it was a welcome trip down memory lane, even if it did take me back to being, oooh, about four minutes old.
We were lucky enough to get a table in The Waterline, but it was under a speaker that sounded like it might have recently been retired from service at the Carling Academy.
So the chat was hampered a little. Lots of craning of necks, and 'sorry, what was that..?' going on. But it would have been a lot worse in that seat had the silver-topped DJ been playing the usual pounding fare served up in the majority of your Saturday night pre-club bars.
This guy was even playing jazz. Seriously. The Waterline was formerly known to locals as The Trophy Room, Cafe Cini and The Limehouse. A fire left the premises vacant for five years but now Belhaven's given the former bank building a new lease of life.
Brightly lit - we're talking as bright as the lights usually get for kicking out time - it gave us a good chance to have a look around.
They've stripped the walls back to the original masonry here and there, which is always a good look, and there are bog-standard landscape paintings around the walls, and big screens for watching the footie. It succeeds in being both the kind of place you could take your old man to for a hauf and a hauf, without worrying that he felt like he was gatecrashing a 21st, and somewhere you might go for a quiet(er) midweek drink with your chums.
There's a distinctly less impressive by--the-numbers bar called The James Watt a couple of doors down. But it's cavernous and drab by comparison to The Waterline.
Chain pub it may be.
Weatherspoons, it ain't. One mate claims he's had problems with 'warm pints' there, and another mate experienced good food, but poor service. Just as our self imposed music quiz was entering its final leg, a bizarre thing happened around quarter to 11.
What was previously a packed to the rafters bar suddenly emptied when three-quarters of the bar stood up, donned their jackets and walked out, presumably to carry their drinking on in Greenock's clubs before the 11pm curfew.
But rather than head down to 'the strip' as that particular part of town's called, we opted for a more sedate end to the evening, heading up to a pal's for a wee malt and to fill in all the bits of the conversation we couldn't hear in the pub.
So now we know the answer to the Dancing In The City teaser - it was Marshall Hain.
But what's the odd's we'll all have totally forgotten by next weekend?
The Waterline 96 Cathcart Street , Greenock, Inverclyde Tel: 01475 888111 Opening hours: Mon, Tue,Wed:11am-12pm; Thu, Fri, Sat: 11am-1am; Sun: 12.30pm-12am Drinks: Bottle of Becks: £2.25; pint lager from £1.90; vodka mix: from £2 Food: Served from 12pm-8pm Rating: Three out of five
