language barriers and unexpected musical greatness

This past weekend Mary and I spent the weekend up north with nearly a hundred middle school students for our annual snow camp. Everything went well which means the students had a great time and did their best to avoid anything resembling sleep. This also meant that once again we arrived at another Monday exhausted. Both Mary and I love live music and as much as Madison seems to want to have a vibrant music scene we have yet to really experience it.

So we were excited to find out there was going to be a Monday night show happening at the Orpheum this week. Before we went to buy tickets we wandered down State St and stopped in at Himal Chuli for dinner. When we arrived we were the only costumers but within a few minutes of being there the place started to fill up. Within minutes we ordered, Mary something with chicken and mine was a beef. I wish I could remember the actual names but I couldn’t find an online menu. Soon after ordering we ran into a bit of a language barrier. After some discussion we both were pretty sure that dal is bread, it is not, and thought our service had forgotten to bring it, which of course she had not. So Mary bravely, since I was too much of a wuss to ask, went up and asked for ‘our dal, you know bread’. Within moments the server came out with two more cups of soup and when we looked confused and asked for bread she very kindly brought out a warm plate of pita bread smothered in butter. We felt pretty embarrassed but not so much as to not enjoy the food. Himal Chuli is another one of the great things about Madison that I never had a chance experiencing growing up in small town Wisconsin.

After dinner we walked back up the Orpheum to get tickets to the Brett Dennen show. A coworker, friend of mine had recommended this show a few weeks ago but neither of us had heard his music so didn’t know what to expect. It was good enough to have a place to go, kick back and unplug after a crazy weekend. We were in for a good surprise. We arrived at the Orpheum Stage Door Theater a little after 7 for the 8 show and were some of the first people there. When the doors opened we headed and found great seats in the third row. Within minutes the opener kicked things off and thus began nearly 3 ½ hours of music.

Brett Dennen’s music has a bit of Jack Johnson, Ben Harper feel from a musician that looks 14. Brett has a shaggy head of hair that I only wish I could have and knows how to perform to his audience. It was a good show and I would recommend checking them out if they ever end up back in Madison.

And so with the purchase of the group’s CD and a slippery walk back to our car another good date night came to an end.