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One of us has been invited to a party. A girl she works with is djing there and she has put our names on the list. We walk up to the venue and it is definitely a “club”, complete with big angry looking bouncers, a velvet rope, a queue of anxious and excited looking people, everything. It looked like the kind of place that was once a music hall and was later converted, when the word “crisis” was the last on anyone’s mind. Apparently, super club Pacha used to be there.

We walk in and say we are on the guest list, and are given a little receipt that says we get two free drinks, or wait maybe three?! Two shots and one long drink… and a bunch of other little tear off tickets, for what I can’t work out.

When we get inside, it is heaving, and on stage is what looks like a band only, they don’t actually seem to be playing anything. Some house-y music is playing, and they, this make believe band, looking like their average age is about 17, they are mucking about on instruments, a drum machine and other electronic things. But whatever they are doing, is making no real difference to the soundscape we are hearing.

The other girls I’m with must be thinking the same thing, because we are all staring at the stage with strained confused expressions. 

Finally one of us says

“Are they actually playing anything…?”

We look back to the stage, still none the wiser.

“Drink?”

The other girl asks. We walk quickly to the bar in unanimous agreement.  I notice something. The bar only serves Jack Daniels. This strikes me as strange, not the strangest, but there is something else about it that is odd, and I can’t, I’m not sure what it…?

The bartender serves me a double jack and coke that tastes like a triple. It would be more accurate to call it a Jack Daniels with a coke top. (Dash of coke? Misting?) Does he smile when he takes my drink ticket? I can’t remember, but I notice his Jack Daniels t-shirt. And the other bartenders Jack Daniels t-shirts, and the bar shelf with light up Jacks Daniels logos. Still not so weird, brands pay for stuff these days, normal. After all, I am living in a city where the central metro station was renamed “Vodaphone Sol”.

I take a generous sip from my jack and coke, in a tall Jack Daniels glass, and the band… the band…no wait, the instruments…. they are ALL branded. 

There is a Jack Daniels drum kit and a Jack Daniels keyboard and a cute indie girl photographer taking pictures of it all, wearing black skinny jeans and a Jack Daniels t-shirt.

 

We go on a wander and find ourselves in a line to get a group picture, and just as we are about to have it taken, I get it, the pictures will be printed for us to keep… ok cute, and then what? Projected on the wall? Why? I look at the stream of pictures projected of others at the party, wearing variations of Jack Daniels t-shirts, and over them a hashtag for a certain whiskey…

We are thinking about getting another drink and notice our tickets get us other things. A t-shirt?  With what on it? Let me guess…

We see a guy dressed up like a beekeeper… pouring shots…? Free? Ok great! Sure! 

“What’s with the outfit?”

One of us asks.  He sprays some dry ice out of a little machine and laughs. I ask if he likes the job. He says yes. We get shots, honey flavoured… right….. We are running out of little tickets.

 

Above our heads, TV screens with Jack Daniels logos, strobe lighting in a variety of florescent hues. I realise we are now waiting in a queue, for what? Free customising of our t-shirts. What…really? One of the girls says all they are doing is adding eyelets, and decides against it. (Smart move) I walk over to check out the “customising “ in action.

On a long table are two rent-a-hipsters, one in each gender. A broad shouldered bearded guy in a buttoned up check shirt taking t-shirts into a little machine that adds studs, and a midriff baring, skinny jeans wearing peroxide blonde with a pixie cut, adding eyelets and cutting off sleeves. I find this hilarious.

“This is nuts, I’m going for it, let them customise my branding.” I say, and one of my friends decides to stay with me. We are looking at the room around us, getting dizzy by all the Jack Daniels logos on display, when a very petite girl beside me says something.

I look down to her, she grumbles it again. I explain in broken Spanish that I don’t speak Spanish. She then tells me in perfect English

“This is a line, I have been waiting here for one hour, you can’t just walk in”

A Spanish girl has just schooled a Londoner on queuing….

She is calm and yet quietly furious. She must have been thinking this for the last fifteen minutes, because it had been at least that long since we have been the line.

“ You have been waiting here for an hour to have your Jack Daniels t-shirt customised….?”

I look down at the black t-shirt she is proudly clutching to herself

“Yes”

She says huffily.

         “Ok”  I say “ sorry… “ My friend adds

“ Its alright, we’re not bothered really”

We walk away. I look back at the long queue incredulously. Ok… ok. that girl has been waiting AN HOUR for her piece of live in advertising to be studded by a rent a hipster.  And she isn’t even embarrassed to admit  it?!!!. What is wrong..?! What is wrong here?!

Now the alcohol is starting to hit, and I am feeling a bit delirious, and concerned, concerned that no one in the room seems to be aware they are in living breathing commercial, a dancing all drinking immersive advertising experience. And no one looks bothered by it. People are enjoying it.

And the worst part is, it feels like someone in youth marketing has gone, what do young people like? Electro bands! Hashtags! Printed photographs! Instagram! Customising! Who is cool enough to customise? A peroxide blonde and a guy with a really bushy beard! Now lets its put it all together, add shit loads of alcohol, disco lights, and chuck a bunch of logos over it!!!

Does no one else find this wrong?

I make jokes about this to my friend Jenny, who does find it funny, but is perhaps not feeling quite as disturbed by it as me.  I need to tell people what’s going on! I need to tell…. I notice a brunette with perfectly straight indie fringe standing next to me.

“Hey!” I half shout at her over the blaring music (I don’t even think it occurs to me she won’t speak English”). She smiles at me. I smile back at her and say

“ This is totally weird right?!”  Her smile wavers.

“What’s weird?” she says

“This event. This party. This scene”

“Why?”

“All the branding. I mean I get it, sponsorship, sponsored events, sponsored festivals, logos in bars even. But this is too much, This is weird. In London where I live, people would find this really uncool. in Berlin where I lived before that, no one would want to be here, this wouldn’t happen. I mean it’s over the top, don’t you think?”

I’m rambling, she hasn’t said anything. Her smile has tightened across her face until she’s almost grimacing. She says to me sharply

“But everyone here knows it’s a Jack Daniels event. Actually, I work for Jack Daniels marketing.”

(Now a normal person would have left the conversation now, but for some reason I persist)

“Yeah ok cool, but what I’m saying is…You work there, but you seem cool, I mean, I get that this is your job or whatever, so you have to support it, or pretend that you do, but come on, I mean seriously, (I gesture around me) “ this is heavy handed brand promotion. Right? “

She is not nodding. She is glaring…at me.

I realise…I am in my first party in Madrid… and I have made my first enemy.

The next day, the hangover I have is legendary. My great grandchildren will tell their children about it as a bedtime story. It is absolutely mythical. The black t-shirt with the white logo stays in the back of my shelf.

I swear to myself…

I will never drink Jack Daniels again.