I have only ever put makeup on once in a gent’s toilet. It was the night of Halloween two years ago, Alphabeat were playing at the Anson Rooms and a group of friends and I had met up in the Clifton Wine Bar just down the road before the gig. I had already got my vampire cape, I just needed to make my face a whiter shade of pale, so I walked into the toilets to apply makeup in front of the mirror. We are a very understanding lot in Bristol, and I only got casual glances from other visitors to the loo as I smeared makeup over my face and slicked back my hair. For the piece de resistance, my friend Katy’s lip gloss doubled as fake blood. I was ready.

I often meet friends at the Clifton Wine Bar before a gig at the Anson Rooms because it is so convenient, if definitely on the expensive side. It is very Clifton, almost next to the students union, right in the middle of student-ville and popular with the student clientele with money to burn. Get onto a round system for a group of people and your bank balance can be hit hard. With my friends Tom and Tim on a Tuesday night to watch Manchester United in the Champions League, an Erdinger, Guinness and Amstel came to £10.50.

It is a smart, predominantly young person’s bar with low ceilings, a spacious beer garden out the back, and if you’re here with a small group, two alcoves at the front away from the big screens elsewhere, nice for a bit of intimacy.

A trip to the Clifton Wine certainly doesn’t prepare you for a gig at the school hall-type Anson Rooms, especially with vampires and warlocks on the prowl. It is a reasonable place, nothing special and seriously over-priced. But it knows who it appeals to, the stereotypical Bristol University and young Clifton professionals willing to flash their gold cards. I have no grumbles, it’s just not my ideal type of place.

Clifton Wine Bar, 4 Richmond Terrace, Clifton. 0117 973 2069.