Page - 88 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 3/2017

88 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 3 2o17 Samantha Wilkinson, Catherine Wilkinson | Night-Life and Young People’s Atmospheric Mobilities The other night we went to Maverick’s [nightclub], in the city centre, it was raining, it was Friday night, it was raining. It was my mate’s 21st I felt dead sorry for her, because it was just a disaster. Her mates from uni were meant to be coming down, but three of them are from Durham, and the train got cancelled, and they got stuck in Leeds, so they couldn’t get here, because the weather was terrible (David, 21, Wythenshawe, interview) Here, it can be seen that train and tram disruptions yield negative affective atmospheres of frustration (see Duff and Moore 2015); they can heighten sensitivities, reducing one’s capacity to tolerate other affects (Wilson, 2011). In the event of a disruption, it can be seen that “the com- fort associated with anticipated...sequences of events are brutally scrambled” (Bissell 2010, 275). Tram and train schedules then are, what Vannini (2012, 257) would term, “influential perfor- mers of polyrhythmic attunement”. Yet, equally, such schedules are also “the key protagonists behind instances of ‘arrhythmia’” (Vannini 2012, 257). In addition to scheduling issues, David highlights the significance of weather conditions, contending that the embodied rhythms of this night out was perturbed by the arrhythmic events of “rain”, and the consequent disruption to train services. Having discussed how young people have both the capacity to affect, and be affected by, the atmospheres of vehicular mobilities, this paper now turns to discuss the atmospheres of bar / club spaces. Commercial Drinking Spaces and Atmospheric Mobilities Participant observations undertaken by the first author lend credence to understandings that drunkenness is not about alcohol alone (see Jayne et al. 2010). The music, lighting, non-alco- holic drinks, glasses, and other bodies were all materials acting on the researcher, influencing her corporeal experiences of space, and making a difference to the social experiences of alcohol consumption (see Duff 2012). The can be illustrated through the following passage from the first author’s field diary: Despite only having one vodka and coke, I felt drunk. Normally, I require a certain number of drinks in order to have the confidence to dance. However, tonight, being surrounded by other mobile drunken bodies, the darkness of the club, and the thump of the upbeat music, increased my ability to dance uninhibited… I even found myself participating in the Gangnam Style dance without feeling self-conscious! (Field diary, 21/12/2013, night out with Maisy, 18, and friends, Wythenshawe) From the above extract, one can see that the first author experienced a transformation, her body ‘became’ drunk, through its practices and encounters in assemblages with other drunken bodies, the sonic environment, and lighting in the affectively charged space (see Waitt and Sta- nes 2015). This notion is also evident in Peter’s map of his drinking spaces (see Figure 2):