Sounds familiar... Although in Finland it depends about the place quite a lot. Just for example, a small street corner pub in our town central, nice little place with all kinds of people visiting, a very popular spot for people who prefer rock/metal music and cheap beer. Not very easy to get into a fight, people there are from all walks of life, the pub's in the center of everything, so a lot of tourists visit also. They're so used to different kinds of folks, it's hard to get into a fight.
Then another kind of place, it's few km away from everything, on the way to Russian border.. The place is old fashioned pub, they play crappy old fashioned music, the prices are rather high, but still the place is not any top notch bar... It's frequented by two kind of people, first there's the old drunkies who have been sitting there for the last 30 years or so, the other group is nazi-skinheads. Don't ask me why these NAN folk go there, i don't know. Anyway, in that bar, nearly every weekend, there's a fight... Usually around closing time.. But if you look like an old fart drunkie or a nazi there's no problem, usually. To the NAN folk, long hair is enough to start a fight... Or sitting to "their" table. There's no nametags there, but it's easy to spot, some of those kids has scraped a huge swastika to that table.
Anyway, the worst places in my country are usually the places where old folks go and trendy club places, frequented by twenty something, rich guys....
The most peaceful places are usually rock or heavy metal bars. 
I agree.
In my 20s I used to drink in a bikers bar. Always a good atmosphere, decent jukebox, never any trouble and a good place to buy drugs.