Lifehouse to play Madison's Freakfest Anyone who hasn't been to the annual State Street Halloween blowout in Madison, Wis., for a few years will be surprised by the celebration's recent makeover. After years of tinkering failed to prevent the gathering, which draws around 80,000 revelers, from ending in broken glass and tear gas, last year the city took the odd step of essentially privatizing the event, closing off the area and charging admission to access the public street (former mayor Paul Soglin threw a fit over this, questioning whether it was constitutional). As much as the cover charge ran counter to the "spontaneous" nature of the event, it seems to have workedthe night ended without major incidentso once again State Street will host Frank Productions' "Freakfest" on the Saturday before Halloween. Your $7 ticket to Freakfest won't just get you a good few of all the drunken frat boys and sexy nurses, though; there's going to be formal entertainment. The headlining band? Lifehouse, an ultra-Christian piano rock band whose lilting ballad "You and Me" makes for a perfectly inoffensive wedding slow dance, but is incongruous with a holiday typically associated with things spooky, dangerous and, uh, interesting.
