Paint the town red

To go out and celebrate wildly, often with drinking and revelry, splashing a place with vivid, reckless fun.

From 19th-century America, possibly tied to a 1880s Missouri spree where a marquis and crew, drunk, painted Melton town red-literally, with paint cans. A 1884 newspaper called it 'painting the town red,' though some link it to red-light districts or blood-soaked brawls. It reflects Wild West exuberance and a growing urban taste for loud leisure, cementing a vivid idiom of riotous nights.