CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Betoota’s popping Roma Hills nightlife precinct was apparently the place to be on Saturday night.
That’s according to a squad of local usos who could have been mistaken for furniture.
The town’s prominent hip hop nightclub, Da Highlander, is well known as the go-to destination for the Islander boys who make up the playing group for The Betoota Dolphins RLFC first grade.
This means that at any given time, the venue’s dance floor is hosting up to 5-10 of the biggest blokes in the club who are standing with their backs against the wall in complete silence.
The phenomena of ‘wall-riding’ is popular amongst members of Betoota’s Polynesian-Australian community, and is a term used to describe a specific style of partying that doesn’t look that fun.
However, some of the town’s most experienced wall-riders claim that there’s no other way to do it.
Prominent wall-rider, Graham Carnegie (31) and his cousins, Hugo Smithers (28), Angus Smithers-Claymore (26) and Sione Tuigamala-Fuimaono (27) are believed to have spent up to 7 hours parked up at the back of the Da Highlander on Saturday night – and had their time of their young lives.
This is despite the fact the lads were seen doing absolutely nothing but very subtly nodding along the music and and taking turns in going back and forth to the bar to buy eight highly alcoholic bottles of lolly water at a time.
And according to the Monday morning debrief, apparently it was one for the books.
“Sole how good was Saturday!?” Graham says to the boys at work today
The boys agree, one of the best nights of the year, and fuck how funny was Timothy being.
Timothy, is the name of the obligatory non-wall-rider cousin, who does enough socialising to make up for the entire crew.
As is almost the case, wall-riders are often accompanied by more flamboyant pretty boys who spend the entire evening less than two metres away from the crew, dancing up a storm and chatting up girls.
While the concept of wall-riding is not exclusive to men, the female equivalents usually take up the booths at the edge of the dance floor. These are known as ‘DJ Requesters’.
According to research conducted by the Licensing Inquiries and Testing For Australian Management (LitFam) ombudsman, at least one wall-rider is expected to be the designated driver for the evening.
Identifying which uso is carrying the car keys is often a difficult task, given the fact that this favourite past time revolves around doing nothing but drinking alcopops all night and occasionally giggling at the ‘Timothy’ of the group.
However, while this type of nightclubbing doesn’t look that exciting to your textbook palangi, Graham and his uso insist Saturday night was a night to remember.
“How about when Timothy did the thriller?!” says Graham, finishing his sentence as quickly as possible before erupting into laughter.
The che-hoos ring out, and the boys confirm that they’ll be doing the exact same thing next weekend.
