‘El Rider’ – A Short(ish) Account

A short account of one of the more eventful evenings of my family holiday:

 

Before we arrived at ‘El Rider’, we intended to go to a slightly more, uh, ‘normal’ place, where the staff were rude, but the food was amazing, as we found out on our first night in Prades (a town in the Pyrenees), when I had magret de canard – a personal favourite of mine. However, this night when we arrived at the town centre, we were cruelly dismissed from our first choice and sent on our way, this is when we found ‘El Rider’ around the corner of the square. El Rider was decorated with neon lights outside, and the posters announcing that ‘Ass/Deus’ (an ACDC tribute band) would be playing later on that night. It was, essentially, a biker bar,

where 80% of the customers were sporting a leather something, the rest seemed to be more of our kind, out of place families not wearing nearly enough black. Our family group of eight approached this place with caution, increasingly aware of the fact that we would stick out like a sore thumb, a pulsating thumb, a sawn off thumb… you get the picture. My elder cousin even voiced the concern that his smart, pristine white polo shirt would result in him being beaten up, and so we enter…

I feel somewhat out of place in a full length terracotta dress and another full length rainbow jacket, as rock music from the speakers fill my ears. Just a moment before now, an energetic waiter with fantastic dreadlocks and a relatively entertaining gotee, came to tell us the menu, we were all quite impressed as it appeared that he was intending to tell us from memory, the choices turned out to be:

– steak

or a

-hamburger.

As you can imagine, it didn’t take us long to decide.

When ordering the drinks, the waiter, who spoke only French (fair enough, what with us being in France), was taken aback by my fathers enthusiastic attempt at ordering a beer, and then went onto assume that our whole family party (which included a 12 year old who was, at the time, decorated with daisies) wanted an El Rider pint. We corrected him and went on to disappoint him with soft drinks and wine – this bar was far too hard core for the cider I wanted, so I am left sipping a coke. This is not the look I would’ve gone for had I known I would be head banging along to heavy French rock music along with the local bikers (who knew there were any in the Pyrenees?!) and sat next to a decorative gas pump on our left and a motorcycle being ridden by a skeleton mounted on the wall to our right.

Trying to accurately capture my family’s awkwardness appears to be a challenge currently. You would’ve thought describing a family ordering hamburgers from a man with more piercings than limbs you would begin to understand, but it is a moment like this where words defy me.

 

***food arrives***

After having to send my steak back the first time, I enjoyed a huge rare steak with fluffy chips. I’m not sure what kind of quality I was expecting, but I was once again surprised, whilst also mildly entertained that this place doesn’t bother with any other kind of vegetables. But I’m not here to criticise the place, I don’t see myself to have the authority to review – I honestly don’t think I have the required standards for it, generally I’m always happy if there’s a rare steak involved.

I won’t lie, I still remain is some kind of awe of our waiter, he exceeds the level of cool that I assumed had been left in the legends of the 60s.

 

Then the band starts. Wow.

The band, who I believe who are called ‘ASS(lightning bolt)DEUS’, who were a French ACDC tribute band, managed to fit beautifully* with the rest of the bar. All members of the band were around the age of 40, their unkempt shoulder length hair had clearly not been washed in preparation for tonights gig, and the guitarist played with so much enthusiasm that when I went out there to watch them for myself, he was shirtless, showing his tattoos, and jumping all over the place, which included the roof of the bar, (this is one of those times when I’m not exaggerating). All this was happening whilst a drunk fan was swaying along with the band on stage.

 

Despite us not being their regular clientele, there is no hiding the fact that we enjoyed ourselves, just like the out of place old couple sitting behind us, smiling happily and raising lighters, compared with the other sans leather families who looked almost frightened, shooting hostile vibes to their surroundings, they were having the time of their life. We also flatter ourselves in thinking that our presence there was appreciated, and added a certain something to the even. (We wish.)

Anyway, that and the few photos and videos that were taken is all I have to share with you this evening, I hope it entertained you as much as it did us.

 

*”beautiful” is never a word one would expect at first glance to associate with these particular group of boys

Last updated: April 16, 2020