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The 'You Need To Hear This Guide' to Freshers

We're putting on a Freshers tour and you should probably sign up to get drunk for free.

It’s the end of September, which means that a portion of the country are about to engage in a two week period of liver, loan, and lovelife battering known as Freshers week. If you’re a Fresher, then in-between learning how to microwave jacket potatoes and plastering your walls with pamphlets, you’re probably putting together a schedule of cheap club nights that will ensure maximum drunkenness for the minimum price. Luckily, we’re putting on a bunch of parties with Bloodshake, Maxixe, The Wytches and Superfood, for free, with free drinks.

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To coincide with the whole event, we asked three of the bands on the tour - The Wytches, Superfood and Maxxie - to put together a neat little guide on how to survive outside of the nest of mother’s home cooked meals and clean sheets.

Alcohol

Let’s not pretend, aside from little polystyrene boxes filled with non-descript meat and thick grease, booze will be the staple of the next two weeks. If you’re looking to ruin your evening, then The Wytches recommend a dark and stormy, “it’s rum and ginger, and if you ask for one, then you get ten more cool points.”

Drinking Games

There’s an untold university rule that if you’re not drinking with some sort of pre-conceived game plan, then you’re not having as much fun as everyone else. This is complete BS, but since this is Freshers week, you’re going to have to grab a deck of boozed-coated cards and play along anyway. Maxixe recommend a drinking game for a gig, “each time the singer says a particular word, everyone should drink. Every time they look moody, you drink”.

Meeting New People

Superfood believe that the best way to meet new people is to “give them weird looks… stand there looking the creep in the corner”. This is probably a bad idea. Instead, go with Maxixe’s advice: “It’s not really a cool competition. Just let yourself go. When you go to uni you’re like a different person and no one knows who you were before. It’s a good time to do the shit that you’ve always wanted to do, join the football team, join something or do something. You don't get that opportunity many times in life, to start fresh, and everyone's in the same boat, it's really fresh.” If that doesn’t work, just go with The Wytches plan of “buying everyone lots of presents.”

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Finding Cool Hang Out Spots

Both Maxixe and Superfood reckon that the best way of finding new music is to go to the best hang out spots, but how do you go about finding them? “You should initiate a group. You don’t follow anyone wearing a vest, or anyone with chinos or a big quiff” is The Wytches advice for scoping out the best venues, while Superfood state that the easiest way is to simply, “get a haircut”, believing that you have to go to the rubbish places and talk to people, before you find the good ones.

Money

There’s always the one keen eyed fresher who spunks his loan within the first week of arrival on strippers and copious amounts of top shelf booze. Unless you’re willing to spend the rest of the term living off 9p noodles and walking the mile long journey into campus each day, then this probably isn’t the best way to go. Instead, The Wytches have some pretty solid advice for cashing in favours that you’re not yet owed. “You should probably go with someone who is willing to spend all their money, then you don’t have to spend any of your own money.”

Finding New Music

Each university town has its own scene, clubs, and specific genres that flourish in their own self-contained areas. Bristol has become known for house music, Brighton is a go-to point for exciting guitar bands, and London has its own scenes that are concreted between postcodes. So, how do you go about finding the best new music? “Some of the best music journalism is done by local magazines”, Maxixe reckon. “If you go to a cool venue there's always loads of stuff around, you just need to find people who are writing about stuff that's going on in your local area. Just get out and go and see stuff - if you stay in and only read what’s online you might not see stuff local to your area. You have to go to the venues.” The Wytches agree with the local vibe, stating that the best way to stumble upon new music is to “find the most happening venue in the city you’ve moved to, and keep checking what’s on. And also, checking Tumblr.”

Now, sign up HERE to come to our Freshers tour. It's free, with free drinks, and you could win £500 worth of Urban Outfitters goodies.

Listen to Maxixe cover Grizzly Bear

Watch The Wytches new video

Listen to Superfood