We were up wayyy past our bedtime Saturday night. In fact, it was almost past our bedtime when we left the house. But it was a special occasion: One of our friends is in a band and was playing a gig at a tavern not far from McFarland called Tricia’s Country Crossroads, the kind of Wisconsin tavern you typically find at the intersection of any two roads, one of which has a name that’s one or two letters. For about the first hour they played tunes from the 70s and 80s to a crowd of 15 or 20 regulars, then took a break and came over to chat with us a bit before going back to work.

Just as they were getting ready to crank up the second set, about fifty young men and women, about college age, came in and took over the dance floor. Not in a bad way; they were just out to have a good time. They rushed the stage and requested one tune after another, which were, surprisingly, classic rock songs from the 70s and 80s. Not only did they ask for them, but they knew the words and sang along! I thought that was pretty weird until somebody pointed out that songs from the 70s and 80s were re-popularized by television shows like Glee. Makes sense, but doesn’t account for the weird popularity of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.

While the first bunch of kids were dancing on the stage, jamming on their air guitars alongside the band members, three chartered school buses pulled up and at least a hundred more college kids came in! The place was wall-to-wall with them, surging back and forth from the bar to the dance floor, dancing and drinking beer and posting the selfies they kept taking with their cell phones on Facebook or Instagram or whatever they’re using now for that sort of thing. More than once, one or two of them would and ask B why she wasn’t dancing and try to lead her out to the dance floor. “They could tell I’m the Cool Mom,” was the only explanation she could give later.

There were always at least a half-dozen of them up on stage with the band, singing and dancing and tripping over the power cords. Amazingly, they never killed the power or kicked out a patch cord. Even more amazing, the band played their requests, even the songs they’d never played together before, for three hours straight without a break. The kids loved it. Ate it up with a big soup spoon and kept asking for more until about one o’clock, if memory serves, when one of them grabbed a microphone and announced that the buses would be leaving and they should start heading for the door. In about five minutes they were all gone, leaving the place weirdly empty except for about fifteen or twenty people sitting around the edges of the room or at the ends of the bar. The band played two or three more songs for just us, before they ran out of adrenaline and had to pack it in.