Introduction

According to David Byrne, “A history of nightlife!--what an interesting concept. A

history of a people, told not through their daily travails and successive political upheavals, but

via the changes in their nightly celebrations and unwindings. History is, in this telling,

accompanied by a bottle of Malbec, some fine Argentine steak, tango music, dancing, and

gossip. It unfolds through and alongside illicit activities that take place in the multitude of discos,

dance parlors, and clubs. Its direction, the way people live, is determined on half-lit streets, in

bars, and in smoky late-night restaurants. This history is inscribed in songs, on menus, via half-

remembered conversations, love affairs, drunken fights, and years of drug abuse.”

Nightlife is a collective term for entertainment that is available and generally more

popular from the late evening into the early hours of the morning. It may include pubs, bars,

hangouts, nightclubs, parties, live music, concerts, cabarets, theatre, cinemas, shows, and some

restaurants. These venues often require a cover charge for admission. Nightlife entertainment is

often more adult-oriented than daytime entertainment. People who prefer to be active during the

night-time are called night owls.

There are other definitions when it comes to nightlife. According to Encyclopedia

Britannica, nightlife is defined as an activity for entertainment provided for pleasure-seekers.

However, for English Dictionary, it is defined as an activity for social interaction that are

available at night. Furthermore, the common denominator for these definitions is that nightlife,

generally, is merely a social activity that catches the attention of those

In different places, undeniably, most of the participants of these nightlife activities are

students on different levels. This phenomenon happens due to lack of supervision and proper

control of those who engage on these kinds of activities. Moreover, this event can never be

corrected since owners of different places for nightlife activities are more concerned on their

income rather than the age of their customers. Sometimes, these things happen because owners

and customers lack education on matters like how these things can affect not only the physical

aspects of an individual but also his or her entire being.

If there is a direct way to find out just how the nightlife is for those that go out, no other

person would be better to hear it from then the average young adult. There perspectives are

indeed varied. Some of them might have found essentialities in going out with their friends.

Others, on the other hand, want to go out because they want to be seen and they want to over-

expose themselves. What many may know is the substance abuse that enhances people going out,

but they have no idea as to the extent of how serious it is consumed.

In this study, one can find out what nightlife is to different individuals and groups of

people. It also presents how nightlife can affect the lives of its participants who are usually

students. This will also show what kind of effects it will bring to their studies and to their

personal lives together with their relationship to other people.

Chapter 2

From about 1900 to 1920, working class Americans would gather at honky tonks orjuke

joints to dance to music played on a piano or a jukebox. Webster Hall is credited as the first

modern nightclub, being built in 1886 and starting off as a "social hall", originally functioning as

a home for dance and political activism events. During US Prohibition, nightclubs went

underground as illegal speakeasy bars, with Webster Hall staying open, with rumors circulating

of Al Capone's involvement and police bribery. With the repeal of Prohibition in February 1933,

nightclubs were revived, such as New York's 21 Club, Copacabana, El Morocco, and the Stork

Club. These nightclubs featured big bands (there were no DJs).

In Occupied France, jazz and bebop music, and the jitterbug dance were banned by

the Nazis as decadent American influences, so as an act of French resistance, people met at

hidden basements called discothèques  where they danced to jazz and swing music, which was

played on a single turntable when a jukebox was not available. These discothèques were also

patronized by anti-Vichy youth called zazous. There were also underground discotheques in Nazi

Germany patronized byanti-Nazi youth called the swing kids.

In Harlem, Connie's Inn and the Cotton Club were popular venues for white audiences.

Before 1953 and even some years thereafter, most bars and nightclubs used a jukebox or mostly

live bands. In Paris, at a club named Whisky à Gogo, founded in 1947, Régine in 1953 laid down

a dance-floor, suspended coloured lights and replaced the jukebox with two turntables which she

operated herself so there would be no breaks between the music. The Whisky à Gogo set into

place the standard elements of the modern post World War II discothèque-style nightclub. At the

end of the 1950s, several of the coffee bars in Soho introduced afternoon dancing and the most

famous, at least on the continent, was Les Enfants Terribles at 93 Dean St. These original

discothèques were nothing like the night clubs, as they were unlicensed and catered to a very

young public - mostly made up of French and Italians working illegally, mostly in catering, to

learn English as well as au pair girls from most of western Europe. In the early 1960s, Mark

Birley opened a members-only discotheque nightclub, Annabel's, in Berkeley Square, London. In

1962, the Peppermint Lounge in New York City became popular and is the place where go-go

dancing originated. However, the first rock and roll generation preferred rough and tumble bars

and taverns to nightclubs, and the nightclub did not attain mainstream popularity until the

1970s disco era. Sybil Burton, former wife of actor Richard Burton, opened the "Arthur"

discotheque in 1965 on East 54th Street in Manhattan on the site of the old El Morocco nightclub

and it became the first, foremost and hottest disco in New York City through 1969.

Ernest Santiago, a leading fashion designer and landscape artist, lived alone in a beautiful

Balinese-style home behind his café in Pagsanjan town in Laguna—a favorite destination of

local and foreign tourists and the lifestyle crowd. From the 1970s and even to this day, Ernest

helped define the fashion, design and night life landscape of the Philippines. He was a lifestyle

icon. People remember him best as the maverick behind Coco Banana—the iconic club of the

1970s and 1980s immortalized in the Hotdog’s Original Pilipino Music “Annie

Batungbakal.” He opened Coco Banana in the mid-1970s, turned it into the “in” place for

Manila’s bohemians, café society, fashionistas and socialites. Indeed, it defined the after-six

freedom of the city populace in the peak years of martial rule. From disco music to live theatrical

performances to outrageous fashion, Coco Banana dictated Manila’s night life for over a

decade. Also in the 1970s and early 1980s, Ernest helped set fashion trends with the innovative,

wildly adventurous designs he showed at luncheon shows at Hyatt’s La Concha or in his gala

shows. Among the country’s fashionable women who wore his clothes, he became known for his

designs of exaggerated shoulders and capes. Among these was the highly publicized ensemble

Imee Marcos wore at an Experimental Cinema formal event. 

The Manila club scene as we know it was built by an elite group that includes the likes of

Tim Yap, Fernando Aracama and Erik Cua. Who better to tell the epic story of the rise of their

nightclub empire than the men themselves? Erik Cua opened Temple Bar in Greeenbelt in 2003.

They initially focused on being a restaurant. Tim Yap, before embassy, was throwing parties

every other day for all the clubs, bars, brands, and products. Louie Ysmael, is an owner of V-

Bar. He had connections with the models and the creativity to make those ngihts work. In Cebu,

however, nightlife is lively and starts rocking at the start of eight pm. Visitors are spoilt with a

seemingly endless choice for nightlife in Ceby City with its various restaurants, casinos,

nightclubs, discotheques, music lounges, pubs, and cafes, Entertainements venues are relatively

cheap and some remain open until morning. In Boracay, the sun may be down but the place is

never out. Bass starts pumping, streaks of life pulsates with the beat, and the energy still rising.

In Baguio, there are different places you can spend the night with. There are places with angelic

voices. You can sit anywhere in the lobby or closer to them if you wish, or have a private

moment in the balcony while listening to the live music. You can have dessert, drink coffee,

drink wine or munch on finger foods while enjoying the performances of the artists. There are

also places when you can have nice dinner and have a drink or two afterwards without having to

change venue. And in Iligan City, nightlife is refelected in the busy bars and open restaurants

mostly located in Pala-o. People, especially students, usually have businesses to attend their at

night.