Last night Londonist put together another team for You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat in Highgate. By 11pm we had confirmed two things. 1. We are not as smart as we thought we were, and 2. This is the best pub quiz we've ever been to.
You can tell it's a bit special from the intro:
This was our second outing and while again we managed to finish respectably enough in the top ten, this is without a doubt the toughest quiz we've ever been to. It's also a lot of fun.
The setting is great. The Boogaloo on Archway Road is a very special venue - check out their mission statement:
To encourage and promote, to entertain and educate our audience in real music, to return to it's golden era, a time when boogaloo was hip, Elvis was King, Jack Kennedy was a poster boy and vinyl was all the rage. To develop and promote this through the ideal surroundings of a 'Juke Joint'...
Nice. The whole thing is run very professionally by Simon and Lee-Jay, but they have a special circle of hell reserved after coming up with questions like:
What was Dalton's third rule in the 1989 Patrick Swayze movie Road House? Clue: Rule 1 - never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Rule 2 - take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary.
That one cropped up the last time we were there and we're still in awe of people who have that kind of thing filed away along with trivia about Dolph Lundgren. The same punters also seem to have no problem recognising the theme from Rain Man remixed as a techno track and can spot and name King Acrisius from Clash of the Titans without breaking a sweat.
The quiz itself is broken up into several rounds covering trivia (which actor was the highest ranking officer in WW2?), soundtracks (Pearl Harbor and a trance remix of Planet of the Apes for Christ's sake!), trailers, a guest star round (Dustin Hoffman last night) and a photo section that will give you a headache. Damn good fun though.
The whole thing runs from around 8.30pm until 10.30pm depending on how many times they have to replay the cut up trailers or soundbites for idiots like us. The half way mark features a run down of the scores so far and perhaps the best bit is finding out the answers (Little Orphan Annie's second name anyone?) and shaking your head miserably into your beer as you realise the team next to you really do take Sean Bean's career very seriously indeed. Prizes range from big fuck-off top of the line toys (Robocop / Kill Bill) to DVDs and plonk!
The next one is on Wednesday the 7th of February and they run monthly. Full details on the website. Special thanks to Jess, Laura, Jess, Rob and Alex for helping Londonist stagger into the top ten.
