A festival sponsored by a large alcohol corporation offering free music to Madison residents (and students fortunate enough to be of drinking age), the SoCo Music Experience made a stop this year at Willow Island, the lawn next to the Alliant Energy Center (home of the World's Biggest Brat Fest.)

Would listening to free music and drinking (very not free) liquor be the perfect way to spend the first weekend of the school year? Along with me to find out was recent University of Wisconsin alumna and Southern Comfort connoisseur Emily Paulson, who provided invaluable woman-on-the-street commentary between drinking and enjoying the sun.

3:00 p.m.: We arrived at the entrance gate, where our licenses were checked and scanned. We were asked for our e-mail addresses so we could be "entered in the raffle" for VIP seating, though their real intentions were probably to farm our mailing addresses for intrusive future mailings and demographic information. Likewise, according to a large notice inside the concert grounds, we had already given unwritten approval for our images and voices to be used in any future SoCo advertising campaigns without monetary compensation.

This would all be cause for concern for those of the more paranoid persuasion. However, we got through the gates quickly enough, and we were thirsty and in a socially complacent mood.

Once inside, we caught the first main stage band of the day (apologies to Wisconsin jam band natives Del Mar for missing their opening set), the terribly named Goat Motor. They played generic guitar rock for the classic radio set, which was right up Emily's alley.

"I was going to complain about the music, but this is really more my thing," she said, reclining slightly and sipping on her SoCo & Coke. I too took Goat Motor's lyrically inept suggestion that "Your firewater will set you free" and sucked on my delicious, if a bit too sour, frozen SoCo Mojo & Lime Slurpee.

Looking over the complimentary red and white Mardi Gras beads and refrigerator magnet with a "SoCo Hurricane" drink recipe on it, Emily wondered aloud, "Isn't calling a mixed drink with alcohol from the South a 'Hurricane' in bad taste?" (For the anal-retentive: Southern Comfort is now based in Louisville, Kentucky, though it was first created in the French Quarter of New Orleans).

We also wondered about the ethics of five-dollar liquor and three-dollar-a-pop bottled water without any available water fountains. Later on, when we hopped out to the parking lot for a moment to hydrate, I noticed the side entrance had a sign that claimed factory-sealed water was allowed to be brought in. Still, they seemed to have done their best to obfuscate this (possibly legally mandated) proclamation.

3:30 p.m.: The Selfish Gene started off their set at the smaller 105.5 Triple M stage. Throughout the day, the band's sets alternated between the two stages, keeping the sound-checks from running too long and the bands from having to compete with each other. It was really the perfect solution for a smaller festival like this; it had the bonus of turning over the crowd as we steered between the two stages like cattle.

As for The Selfish Gene themselves, I've never been particularly grabbed by their earnest science-fiction jam rock (one of their songs featured an unironic spoken-word interlude), but they seem to have a devoted local fan base and always get good crowd responses. I was, however, impressed by the giant, blue swim-goggle sunglasses their lead guitarist and singer Matt Allen was wearing.

Emily noted the somewhat surreal atmosphere of early afternoons at these kinds of free events. Indeed, the crowd was still sparse (though the concert grounds were jammed by the time the Flaming Lips came on stage), with several groups of roving cops conspicuously ambling around. By the requisite DJ tent, a couple games of SoCo bean bag toss (baggo?) seemed to be entertaining the shirtless Greek system contingent, and the mood was relaxed and laid back.

4:00 p.m.: Sick Puppies took the main stage, an all black-clad band with lip-service punk ethos — appropriately ripped jeans, black haired girl bassist with blonde highlights, and a frontman gleefully swearing like a fifth grader with Tourette's). The chugging choruses and clean vocals were made for the radio.

Emily thought they were "kind of wussy and bland" — perfect for angsty high school kids looking for safe rebellion (at one point, they proudly announced to the crowd that their next song was the background music to the "free hug" video that made the rounds on YouTube), and I couldn't help but feel that their target audience was missing out because of the 21-plus restriction. A small group of balding men were dutifully rocking out to them, however. Lyrical gems included, "Even though it's over, I need closure" and "I try every drug I buy." (As opposed to throwing them away?)

When they broke out a bassy hard-rock cover of Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" with babbling metal-rap interludes, we decided to head over to the food vendors. There, a burger at the Coliseum Bar food stand, with onion rings, provolone, and a "SoCo marinade" caught my attention. I wolfed it down with relish, while Emily chewed unhappily on a rubbery and over-salted pretzel, reflecting, "It's almost like we've traveled outside of Madison, what with their complete lack of vegetarian food."

5:00 p.m.: The Sharp and Harkins Band at the Triple M stage turned out to be a pleasant surprise, with an insistent up-tempo back-beat, a funk-influenced bassist breaking into occasional solos, bass harmonica and conga accompaniment, and cool, whispered lyrics. It all had the air of a laid-back living room jam, with songs seamlessly flowing into each other and an ably performed cover of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life."

"They look really clean cut," Emily noticed. "They could be the guys next door to you." Arguably, they were the best band of the early sets.

5:30 p.m.: Cowboy Motor from New Orleans, La., should really have been named Cowboy Blowhards. Singer/drummer Fred LeBlanc took on the role of a southern, second-tier Jack Black, and was so busy talking to the crowd that the band was often barely able to finish a song. Speaking of their songs, they ranged widely from being about getting with girls ("Baby, I can give you true romance/ As long as you let me stick my tongue down your pants."), to apologizing to girls, to idolizing girls ("She's got a red heart/ That she wears on her red sleeve/ …Everybody loves Jill").

Then there was "Joe Strummer."

"They're playing weird pop country songs about punk!" Emily exclaimed in horror, as they played the eponymously named song in honor of the legendary Clash frontman, weaving The Who's "Talking About My Generation" in the center. Emily thought their set "fulfilled every negative stereotype about musicians," though she was impressed by them having "[yet] another chick bass player, and they didn't even relegate her into a corner of the stage!"

Cowboy Motor are obviously their own biggest fans, and LeBlanc's earnest evangelizing of the Motor religion was so ridiculous that it was almost endearing.

I was thankful when they ended though.

6:30 p.m.: "I won't waste my time on your assembly line/ You can't make me grow up," Sunspot sang on their opening song at the Triple M stage, and it's a shame, because their midtempo, gel-haired-guitar-soloing-between-verses-rock was seriously dated.

Although well intentioned, their socially critical songs, like one about a 15-year old girl on Prozac ("It's the Prozac girl/ In a Prozac world") were flat and failed to inspire. "Okay, this is fucking terrible," Emily conceded, "but at least they don't have stage banter (like Cowboy Mouth)."

7:00 p.m.: We left Sunspot's set early to head back over to the main stage to get close for the Cold War Kids set. Although their first full-length album, released earlier this year, underwhelmed people excited by early EPs, they're nonetheless energetic and inspired performers.

Opening with a song "about the dire effects of alcoholism," as singer Nathan Willet explained it (adding, "Drink Responsibly"), the band sprang into a set of gritty, stomping rhythm and blues, Willet belting out a smoky, soul inflected voice as he pounded his keyboard.

Highlights included the songs "Hospital Beds" and crowd favorite "Hang Me Up To Dry," which respectively book-ended the set.

"You undersold them," Emily admonished me, "when you said they were an 'indie band.' I thought they were going to be guys with less testosterone than my little finger."

8:40 p.m., the main event: After the Cold War Kids' great set (Emily's favorite of the whole concert), I made the (not so) tough decision of skipping Wisconsin natives Shoeless Revolution's jamming so I could keep my great spot near the stage for the Flaming Lips. Sorry, Shoeless Revolution fans.

Despite the extensive setup for the Flaming Lips set, complete with a large, circular video screen and gong, they were only running 10 minutes late before the band (and festival attendees plucked from the crowd, dressed up as Santa Clauses and sexy female Martians) came on with a triumphant fanfare.

Frontman and all-around crazy visionary Wayne Coyne started the set off by crowd surfing near the front of the stage in his human-sized hamster ball, which has become something of a ritual for them. Then the opening chords to "Race For The Prize" from 1999's The Soft Bulletin rang out, confetti was shot from primary-color cannons, Coyne shot streamers out of his shotgun (at one point playing target practice with the drummer's cymbals), and inflatable balls and a giant SoCo bottle began to bounce among the crowd.

Emily: "There is definitely a postmodern social comment [in] how he's going out into the masses, but he's separated by his plastic ball."

They followed it up with "Free Radicals" from 2006's At War With The Mystics and "Fight Test" from 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Coyne noted they hadn't played in Madison in the last seven years, and dipped far back into their catalog with the muscular guitar-distortion of "Mountainside," from 1991's In a Priest Driven Ambulance.

Keyboardist/guitarist Steve Drozd took over singing duties for the great, ambient and drum-driven "Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung" off of Mystics, and Coyne led the crowd with sing-alongs of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1," "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" (which Coyne noted had become a kind of unintended protest song) and "Do You Realize" from their last two albums, ending their set and the Madison leg of the SoCo Music Experience with their one-hit-wonder single, 1993's "She Don't Use Jelly."

Although another fellow attendee was disappointed that the crowd wasn't singing along in the back, you wouldn't know it in the front. There, the band almost couldn't be heard at times by the ecstatic and enthusiastic crowd. Coyne thanked SoCo for bringing their "experience" to Madison ("these are the sorts of things we should be supporting," he said), and as a stagehand declared that the event is coming back again next year and thanked the crowd, and Ray Charles' "It's A Wonderful World" came on the speakers, it was hard not to think about how a world with nothing but free concerts like this couldn't be anything except wonderful.

Emily even tested her Scandinavian understatement with the bold statement, "It was enjoyable."

Never one to let political, er, lip service go unnoticed, however, she frowned in the fade of the afterglow at the Flaming Lips' parting antiwar, anti-Bush and pro-SoCo message:

"I mean, it's one thing to defend this giant corporation, but to [endorse] the Democrats is another thing altogether."