Too loud to chew the fat

We were going to meet up with some people a couple of us in our group hadn’t met before. It was lovely sunny afternoon and the meeting place was a gorgeous establishment on Banks Peninsula.

We entered the bar and found that our entourage was seated in an enclosed small semialfresco area. Introductions were made and everyone set about getting to know each other, endeavouring how-de-do conversations.

Unfortunately, a lone guitarist, who had set up camp a couple of metres away, had his amp turned up to high volume. This made conversation challenging to say the least, but by shouting across the table and using animated facial expressions we toiled away at the pit face of small talk, trying our best to communicate.

When this proved exhausting, I asked one of the waitresses if the muso could turn down the vol just a little, to which she shook her head and mouthed an emphatic ‘‘no’’.

How we longed for the guitarist to take a break to rest our poor ears from the assault and give us the chance to speak at a civilised level. It wasn’t as if we could step outside to chat. We were already outside.

I am all for live music in bars but not if it intrudes upon patrons wanting to converse with each other. It was not a concert and we were there to talk and enjoy each other’s company, not sit silently and have to endure indifferent music played at a level that made you feel unwell, and gave you cause to wonder why you had bothered to venture out at all.

Alas, the guitarist was oblivious to the effect he was having on his patrons, and to add to our misery, he was joined by not one, but two bongo drummers pounding away, hell for leather in the small space, the music ringing out across the water. What fun they were having – at our expense.

When it all became too much, we came to the mutual realisation that we had by then used up our slender stocks of forbearance, and should jack it in.

I went to pay my bill and had to raise my voice above the din, and say, not in an unpleasant way (I believe the term is to give feedback), to the grinning head sherang, who wanted to know how my experience had been, that we would have loved to stay longer and eat but were leaving because the music volume had become intolerable.

The bearded hipster kept grinning and informed me, with a crazed look in his eyes, how lucky the establishment was to have not one, but three musicians turn up to play.

The wretched fool had ignored the basic tenets of hospitality – that, No 1, the customer is always right, and No 2, staff are there to meet and anticipate the needs and comfort of patrons . . . otherwise you quickly won’t have any patrons, or a job. Duh.

But of course, one is not allowed to point this out because you risk sounding like an old fudster, who really has no place being out and about and should be at home watching The Crown.

So often a visit to a hostelry is an oppressive experience where the patron is held hostage to the musical tastes and sound volumes of staff.

You can’t please everyone’s taste, but you can keep the volume to a level so that people, if they are alone, can hear themselves think, and if they are with others, can hear each other talk. Is that too much to ask?