Eric Tadsen
It’s Saturday night at the Ivory Room, and everyone is singing, even the wallflowers.
The crowd, four and five people deep, presses into the center where two pianos face off in raucous concert. Pianists pound keys, Jerry Lee Lewis style. Young men raise their pints. Young women dance in the aisle, squealing.
A tall, drunken man stumbles from the bar up to the pianos. In his hand, he clutches a song request and a $10 bill. Just then, a blond bridesmaid here with a bachelorette party grinds up against him, stopping him in his tracks. Suddenly his request is less important. One of the piano players launches into the 1977 Hall & Oates song “Rich Girl.”
“You’re a rich girl, and you’ve gone too far and you know it don’t matter anyway!” Twenty-somethings, born two decades after the song’s release, shout out all the words.
“I love this place!” cries 28-year-old Sammi Sullivan. “They play such a wide variety of music.” She’s come with her friends in one of at least four bridal parties here tonight.
As if to make her point, the second piano player hammers out Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” “I requested that,” David Jacobson, 34, yells over the music. He’s visiting from Rockford, in town for Brat Fest. He sings at the top of his lungs, even though he doesn’t sing at home, not even in the shower. “I love live music, I love covers. Essentially a piano bar is a big cover band where the audience participates,” he says. It’s hard to talk over the din, and he stops so he can scream out Styx’s “Come Sail Away” along with everyone else.
When one of the piano players takes a break, he’s quickly replaced by a backup. The pianist invites a bachelorette — this one wearing a white veil and plastic necklace featuring a picture of her future husband — to sit on the piano. “I need four brave men,” he calls out into his mic. Four eager volunteers push their way to the front. One tries to jump up on the piano, but the pianist stops him. “Hey, that’s just for the ladies,” he laughs. Soon, they’re all reenacting the Righteous Brothers’ “You Lost That Loving Feeling,” the way it was performed in Top Gun.
Peter Hernet, the piano player on break, has a cigarette outside, then sits at a bench in the back sipping a whiskey and soda. He’s a father of six from Oshkosh. Working here on weekends allows him to be a stay-at-home dad the rest of the week. “The really young crowd, the college kids, come in around 11. They pack the place,” he says. It’s not quite 11 yet, but already 125 people have walked through the door.
“Live music attracts people,” he says before taking a sip of his drink. “There are so many options around town, places with jukeboxes or DJs, but here we cater to every genre. They want to see me play Miley Cyrus or try rap on a piano. The amazing thing is they also request ‘Brown Eyed Girl.’ That song’s 48 years old, and they still know all the lyrics.”
Even more unusual, not one person is on a cell phone. Everyone faces center. Everyone sings. The Ivory Room may not be the bar where everybody knows your name, but it is one where they all know your song.
Ivory Room Piano Bar
Address: 111 State St.
Cover: $2 on Thursdays, or free with military or student ID; $5 Fri.–Sat.
Most requested song: Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”
How much it will cost you to hear it played: Usually as much as a $20 tip
