Common Ground Music Festival Show Review

I have been attending the annual Common Ground Music Festival in Lansing, MI for the past eight years or so, and look forward to the week long string of concerts every summer. In my years of attending the festival, I have never been more excited for a lineup than I was for Tuesday, July 8. The ballot listed Brand New, Circa Survive, The Hold Steady, Say Anything, The Front Bottoms, The So So Glos, You Blew It, Seahaven, and a few others. I was both excited and surprised at the lineup that was booked for the festival this year, and I tip my hat off to the event coordinators for really doing their homework in booking. Needless to say, I had some high expectations going into the festival.

I arrived outside the gates of the festival at 5:00, a half hour before gates opened at 5:30, and already the line was huge. Clearly I wasn’t the only one super excited for the lineup that had been set. Once I got into the festival, I headed to the Sparrow Stage to check out You Blew It, who started playing a mere 15 minutes after the gates opened. Despite how young the night was, the band attracted a decently sized crowd. My knowledge of specific songs from YBI is very limited, so I wasn’t one of the guys in front mouthing the words to each song unfortunately, but the band sounded very good and had a good balance of playing their songs and interacting with the crowd. At one point, vocalist Tanner Jones pointed at a guy in the crowd with a bandana pushing his curly hair upwards, stating that he almost mistook him for a member of Slingshot Dakota. I’m not sure if the crowd understood the reference, or have seen SD’s drummer Tom Patterson’s hair before, but I found the joke to be hilarious personally. Overall, You Blew It possessed great stage presence in their short 45 minutes of being on stage, and set a great tone for what the evening had in store.

I decided to do a little walking around and interact with people, given that I had 45 minutes until The Front Bottoms were scheduled to play at the GM Pavilion Stage. While waiting for TFB to play, I knew the show was going to be a good one the second the three giant inflatable letters T, F and B made their appearance on the back of the stage. The stage was packed minutes before TFB came out, and things only got louder when they finally made their way to the stage. The good vibes I felt before the show continued while TFB went through their setlist and played a few personal favorites of mine “Au Revoir (Adios)” and “Skeleton”. The guys were just on stage having fun, and sounding good at the same time, making their performance another memorable one for the night.

The Front Bottoms Setlist:

1)      Twin Size Mattress

2)      Funny You Should Ask

3)      Backflip

4)      The Beers

5)      Swimming Pool

6)      Au Revoir (Adios)

7)      Skeleton

8)      Maps

I then hurried over to the main stage to check out Circa Survive, who was already about halfway through their first song by the time I got there. From what I heard on the way to the stage, Anthony Green sounded flawless, which is a feat that’s not easy to do by any means. By the time I got settled into a decent spot, CS started on “Strange Terrain”, which is a great song from a great album. Though I wished I could have stayed longer, I had to head back to the GM Pavilion Stage to get a good spot before Say Anything took the stage, because they were the band I was probably most excited for in the night.

Circa Survive Setlist:

1)    The Lottery

2)    Strange Terrain

3)    Sharp Practice

4)    Holding Someone’s Hair Back

5)    In The Morning and Amazing…

6)    The Greatest Lie

7)    Jimi

8)    In Fear and Faith

9)    Stop the F***in’ Car

10)  Get Out

The excitement continued to build as each minute passed by as I waited for Say Anything to take the stage. Since Hebrews was just released about a month ago, I was a little concerned that SA would go heavy on their new material to promote it. Don’t get me wrong, Hebrews is a great album, but with this being my first time seeing Say Anything I was hoping for a good variety of material. When the members finally took the stage, they opened with “The Writhing South” from their second full-length release “… Is a Real Boy”, and my anxiety lifted. The hand-picked material for the setlist was incredibly well put together, taking a little bit from each album. They only ended up playing two tracks from Hebrews, one of them being “Judas Decapitation” which is far and away my favorite off the new release. Say Anything was everything that I hoped and more, and continued to make the night memorable.

Say Anything Setlist

1)    The Writhing South

2)    Alive With The Glory Of Love

3)    Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too

4)    Judas Decapitation

5)    Baby Girl, I’m a Blur

6)    Six Six Six

7)    This is F***ing Ecstasy

8)    Surgically Removing the Tracking Device

9)    Do Better

10)  Cemetery

11)  She Won’t Follow You

12)  Belt

While being enthralled with Say Anything’s stage presence and amazing setlist, I almost forgot that Brand New was about to play on the main stage. By the time I made my way over to the main stage, the crowd was enormous for Brand New. Though I was at a pretty far distance from the stage, Brand New’s sound was still on point. They played a good mix of material, including some of their bigger hits “Sic Transit Gloria… Glory Fades”, “Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t”, and “Jesus Christ.” Though Brand New hasn’t released an album since 2009, it’s clear that people haven’t forgotten about them by any means. Brand New still has a big following, which is completely understandable given the hits they’ve released over the years and the amazing show they put on for those in attendance.

Brand New Setlist:

1)    Sink

2)    Gasoline

3)    At The Bottom

4)    You Stole

5)    Sic Transit Gloria… Glory Fades

6)    I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light

7)    The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot (Jesse sang the chorus to “Yellow” by Coldplay as         the outro)

8)    Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t

9)    Seventy Times 7

10)  The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows

11)  Sowing Season

12)  Millstone

13)  Limousine (MS Rebridge) – (Extended Outro)

14)  Jesus Christ

15)  Degausser

16)  You Won’t Know

Though the main headliners of the festival played, the night was still not over. Soon after Brand New finished their set, Seahaven was about to play at the Sparrow Stage, which was another band on the ballot I was really excited about before coming to the festival. The mellow nature of Seahaven’s style of music in certain songs wrapped up the night perfectly. Seahaven was another band with a great setlist, playing several songs from their album Winter Forever, such as “Goodnight” and “Save Me”. I couldn’t help singing along to “Save Me”, which is a rare occurrence at shows because my singing is atrocious; but that also means that Seahaven was doing a great job of keeping the crowd into it. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible to top the high expectations that I had coming into the festival, but I was pleasantly proven wrong.