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Common Ground returns

Music festival gives Lansing an encore for 14th consecutive summer

July 8, 2013
	<p>Taylor Taylor, 16, sings a song during a rehearsal on July 7, 2013, on Alpha Street in Lansing. She performs July 11, 2013 from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at the Common Ground Music Festival. Weston Brooks/The State News</p>

Taylor Taylor, 16, sings a song during a rehearsal on July 7, 2013, on Alpha Street in Lansing. She performs July 11, 2013 from 6:30 to 7:30 pm at the Common Ground Music Festival. Weston Brooks/The State News

Photo by Weston Brooks | The State News

When the Common Ground Music Festival began in downtown Lansing, it originally focused on classic rock, but as the festival progresses into its 14th year, it now headlines some of the nation’s brightest stars along with upcoming local and regional talent.

“We bring in a wide variety of diverse acts of all types of music,” said Scott Keith, board chair of Center Park Productions. “Whether you’re a country music fan, hard rock, old school rock or rap — we have it all.”

The annual festival kicks off today and wraps up July 14 in Adado Riverfront Park on the Grand River and features performers ranging from Ludacris to MGMT to Slash.

Common Ground offers Lansing a week of diverse music, featuring more than 70 bands, according to Keith. The festival offers emerging Lansing artists such as Taylor Taylor and the BLAT! Pack and other regional artists the opportunity to perform at a major music festival.

Homegrown acts

Keith said Common Ground allows emerging artists the opportunity to gain notoriety from traveling with national acts and their agents or producers.

“It gives them certainly an exposure to a larger fan base than they would typically get in a smaller night club venue,” he said. “So it’s a great opportunity for exposure for them.”

Jahshua Smith, rapper and member of the BLAT! Pack, spoke about being a part of a lineup with a legend such as Ludacris and rising star Kid Ink on the festival’s final day.

Born in Detroit but raised in Lansing, Smith earned a degree in journalism from MSU in 2008. He said Common Ground gives him the opportunity to perform for his family, his biggest fans and a whole new audience at the same time.

“Common Ground is like the Super Bowl as far as Lansing is concerned,” Smith said. “The opportunity to play a great card and still get the proper spotlight — that’s the culmination of everything we’ve worked so hard for over the past four years.”

MSU alumna and MSU Community Music School Rock Camp coach Lisa Kacos has been preparing teens for the camp’s opportunity to experience a real rock concert for the past week.

Rock Camp is a crash course in being in a band and provides the teens training with her band, The Outer Vibe, which has toured nationally, Kacos said.

She and The Outer Vibe have performed at the festival for the past five years.

Kacos said she couldn’t ask for a better situation with an annual festival to the caliber of Common Ground right next door to East Lansing.

“It’s a real rock concert,” Kacos said. “Most kids their age don’t get to play in a concert like that until they really developed their bands for months or years.”

Buck for the bang

The festival not only offers Lansing residents a week of great music but generates positive economic impact to the economy, Keith said.

“People are coming and staying in hotels, eating downtown or gassing up at a gas station — there’s a lot of economic impact,” Keith said.

According to Keith, depending on variables such as weather and the artists, the festival attracts approximately 60,000 to 90,000 people each year.

Shea Daugherty, manager of Edmund’s Pastime in Lansing, said she hopes an expanded menu will attract more customers from the festival this year.

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“It just depends on the concert that day; it’s a very diverse crowd,” Daugherty said.

Keith said they see a wide variety of people, but during the past couple years the demographic has gotten a little younger.

Ashley Starr, waitress and bartender of the Nuthouse Sports Grill in Lansing, said they typically see a bigger crowd of people following the shows throughout the week.

“It’s nice; it brings a lot more people down to this area,” Starr said.

Common Ground offers the Lansing area the same thing as Lollapalooza offers Chicago on a smaller scale, Keith said.

“People want to live in a community that has exciting events happening, things happening and things that garner attention toward them,” Keith said.

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