I am in the Rathskeller at the Memorial Union, and it is filled with Coastie frat kids in costumes that make this place feel like a rave. This is going to be a strange crowd to listen to a solo acoustic hipster musician from Milwaukee.
The Union is the center of campus for anyone visiting or coming back to reminisce over college memories. Because it's raining, the music tonight is inside the Rathskeller, a beautiful olde German-style bar and music venue. The Rathskeller has a domed brick-tiled ceiling and a dozen thick wooden-framed archways. The rod-iron chandeliers are ancient (or ancient-looking), and the walls are painted with odd characters and German phrases; scenes that at one time may have had a deeper meaning, but now simply give drunk college kids something to wonder at. The beautiful mismatched wooden tables have been in here for decades and are layered with years of pencil carvings... “Donny” and “MoLo” have graced my table over the years, small steps in the history of a Union tradition.
Outside of the Union, along the shore of Lake Mendota, is the Memorial Union Terrace. In better weather, we'd see the show on that outdoor stage, a much larger space, more beautiful, and the perfect summer contrast to this German beer hall. The Rathskeller is heavy and dark, filled with thick humid air that seems to hold the weight of the memories of everything that passes through. The Terrace outside its windows is light and sunny, filled with the ever-coveted metal Terrace furniture in an array of bright colors; the open sky and the Lake and the woods take the music and the memories of this place away as fast as they are made, to be lost like so many Summer nights.
Shaggy comes on the playlist before the live act, and the Coastie kids have gone crazy. The dance floor is suddenly filled with bouncing tutus and guys in make-up and suspenders. This is followed by “Take Me Home Tonight”, and the room breaks out in unison for this one line. A table of blonde high-school girls in matching black-and-white stripes are bouncing and shaking their ponytails at each other in a corner.
The solo acoustic guy gets on the stage, and the Coastie kids quickly realize that they can't bounce this way anymore. They slowly bob and weave to a calm stop, place their hands at their sides, and turn calmly toward the stage to enjoy the music. The musician has a 19-inch waist and scraggy arms and fingers, a huge acoustic guitar, shaggy brown hair, and an orange knit cap (which he keeps on despite this room's ungodly temperature. How hipster-ly ironic.).
The time comes, apparently, for the costumed Coastie kids to move on to whatever party they are preparing for, and there is a sudden mass exodus from the room of hundreds of tutus, clown wigs, suspenders, mascara, and tiaras.
Later in the night, I go on a short excursion through the Union, starting outside up on the brick semicircular balcony covered in vines; into the gallery where I sit down to play the grand piano in the middle of the room, without knowing at all how to. I browse the room, touching the texture of the paintings on the wall, because I always want to do this and finally I am in a gallery with no one else around. I walk through the foyer of a formal ballroom dancers' ball. I am tempted to crash it, to step in and try to follow along; but a little afraid, concerned about ruining their magical evening to complete my own. I complete the circle and make my way past empty meeting rooms and locked student org offices, back through the gallery, and out onto the balcony.
From here, in the dark and through the rain on the early May evening, I can feel the buzz of change at this campus hub. I can hear the music inside the Rathskeller, and I can see the Terrace, open for business and coming alive, ready for Summer. The Coastie kids will be leaving the city soon, and the Spring rains will give way to sunny Summer nights. The Rathskeller will sit dark and empty, while the Terrace is filled with nostalgic Wisconsinites, reggae, blues, brats, and oh-so-many pitchers of beer.
