Brand New plays the Common Ground Music Festival July 8. Photo/Trevor Redford
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s many alternative lovers know, Common Ground Music Festival kicked off with a bang Tuesday in Lansing at the Adado Riverfront Park.
The event brought in bands like Brand New, The Hold Steady, The Front Bottoms, Circa Survive, Say Anything and many more.
The Front Bottoms got down early with some upbeat acoustic jammy sounds to get the crowd groovin’. I personally am not a big fan, but these guys had me moving to a great set.
Our shoes stood no chance against the puddles in the crowd bringing the care-meter of many peoples image down substantially.
One notable aspect of the event was the price of beer – it was cheaper than any big event I had ever been at. Domestic beers were only $3 with premier brews anywhere from $4-7. The beer prices coupled with the $35 admission cost (although prices vary day by day) made this an extremely reasonably priced day festival.
Circa Survive hit the stage at 8 p.m. bringing a lot of fans and energy their way. Their set consisted of mostly newer music, but with a hint of some old favorites too. Anthony Green sounded humbled to be performing and gave it 110% in their 45 minutes on stage.
Then 9:30 p.m. hit and only one band would play for the next hour and half – Brand New.
You could feel their presence as they walked out and cheers roared. They started out with a couple from Daisy but made sure to not shortchange any one album. Styles ranged from heavy, harder rock all the way to airy, broken down, ambient riffs. The crowd went from war-zone to vigil song by song.
The middle of the set brought in some fan favorites like Sic Transit Gloria…Glory Fades, Seventy Times 7, The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows and Jesus Christ.
As many Brand New fans know, the band is well known for improvising on many of their songs – and they did a fine job of that. Degausser into You Won’t Know into a heavy 5ish minute jam was how they closed out the best set I’ve ever seen.
If you finished the night with Brand New and your shoes weren’t covered in mud at the end, you were either VIP or doing something very, very wrong.
My one and only complaint with the event was the mannequin-like security that allowed some local thugs come in near the end without wristbands and do that knockout game (punching random people in the face) crap to festival goers, which I had the displeasure of seeing first-hand.
All in all though, a lot of Sawdust and mud, and some of the best sets i’ve ever witnessed is what went down at Common Ground. Given the chance to do it all over again – I’d take it in a heartbeat.
