Disappointing

Silk Madison is one of two clubs in reasonable distance from the city of Madison, along with Club Bristol. Silk, part of the chain that includes several clubs in Milwaukee, is a few miles west of Madison, directly on the highway that heads out of town. They have a large, lit parking lot (no valet). When I arrived on Friday night there was a guy checking IDs outside. The cover charge was $12.

Immediately inside the doors is the stage running along the wall on your left, with a "T" sticking out from that wall into the room. Each of the extensions has its own pole, and there are seats all around the stage. To the right is a good-sized room with tables and cushioned chairs, many of which were marked with a "reserved" sign, and most of which you can't really watch the stage from. Past the seating area on the right, the back wall has a bar running its length. The wall behind the stage is covered with large, circular, colored lights sort of like giant "connect 4" boards. It's an odd style choice, and makes for poor lighting to watch the stage as the changing lights behind the dancers make the dancers themselves harder to see.

The stage performances were decent. When I arrived, around 9:30pm, they had just one dancer on stage but she was the last solo performance. They moved to two dancers after her, and then to three dancers on at a time after another half hour or so. The typical set was maybe half a song of topless performance, on the pole or otherwise, and then moving from one rail-sitter to another taking tips in exchange for a motorboat. After the first song they got nude and did a little more dancing, then resumed the close-ups.