Musical youth

As Charles has noted, my show Friday night with Sleepy LaBeef got rained out. Memorial Union Terrace is one of the few venues in town that can move a show indoors when it rains, but that didn't happen due to circumstances too dull to describe. Dejected fans came and went, but most dejected of all was Sleepy LaBeef: the 70-year-old musical nonpareil seemed to sum up decades of playing live music when he gazed out at the drizzle and said to me, philosophically, "Sometimes it gets rained out."

Saturday's show at the Tyranena Brewing Company in Lake Mills was altogether more successful. The World's Greatest Lovers played an acoustic set on a lovely patio bedecked with flowers and ivy, and the small-town crowd was appreciative, if restrained. When we began playing it was broad daylight and families had spread blankets, so I was once again unnerved at the prospect of entertaining children with classic honkytonk songs about sex, drugs and the kicking of hippies' asses. But no one seemed to mind, least of all the young'uns.