White Night Enlivens Prairie Village

I'm a terrible concert-goer. I go to White Night 2011 at Prairie Village. I have good South Dakota bands playing live for me... and I end up talking to people the whole time.

I chat with an old neighbor lady who just got sight back in one eye after four years of blindness. I chat with a high school friend who now lives in Portland. I see a gal who hired me to tutor her in math at SDSU years ago. I sit with some real local press and discuss summer classes, school buildings, and septic tanks. I commiserate with a friend about his unpleasant experience changing a blown tire at 2 a.m. on I-29. I meet a blog reader who loves Madison and talk a little downtown entrepreneurship.

Meanwhile...

More Than Heroes opened the show on the well-decorated flatbed. I like "Dance Dance Dance." Lake Herman could use more music like that... and more dancing! (Three little ones ran in circles on the grass in front of the flatbed---almost a mosh pit!)

Then Wumpus. These guys are good! And the Wentworth Depot makes a pretty good wall for bouncing those punchy drums and guitars right back at the audience.

Alas, I'm an old man with an early bedtime, so I didn't stick around for the big closing act, Pasque, who hauled their gear up the beautiful Prairie Village Main Street to rock the Lawrence Welk Opera House (known to us local lefties by its original name, the Socialist Hall).

But as Pasque set up inside the hall, I did see this outside:

Everybody else was looking the same direction I was. We are all children. I tried to back up to get the whole double rainbow in the frame. Silly me: rainbows back up with you.

Good show, Madison Area Arts Council! And good call, Prairie Village, opening your grounds to this great event and bringing your Main Street to life for a lovely summer night.