In the classic rock radio staple "The Joker," Steve Miller lays the claim that, in addition to being a joker, a smoker and a midnight toker, he plays his music in the sun.
The Steve Miller Band wouldn't take the stage at the Common Ground Music Festival until 9:15 p.m. Monday, but there was plenty of sun to be had for those lined up outside the festival's gates that afternoon.
Matt Caterino, "a fifty-something" Lansing resident, was at the head of the line on North Grand Avenue, that he started at 2 p.m. Sunday.
"Next year I've got to be here earlier," he said. "I don't want to give others a benchmark to base that on."
Caterino slept on a cot next to the gate and set up a canopy tent under which an erstwhile family of festivalgoers sat, seeking shelter from the rays. Lansing resident Violet Tompkins, 36, said the tight-knit group is what brings her and her two sons back year after year.
"It's just the camaraderie, really," she said. "It does not matter who's playing — we're down here anyways. Our Common Ground."
The canopy was just one in a number of ways to find shade in the line. Some fans hid beneath umbrellas, while others chose to sit in the shadows of the Lansing Community College parking structure.
Friends Casey Price and Natasha Oxender, both 23, cooled down against the festival's chain-link boundary. Oxender read a book while she waited to see the act she described as "the greatest band ever."
"I go to school right now, but I don't have class today, thank God. So I'm studying as we sit in line," she said.
Price and Oxender secured their tickets months in advance, but were unable to get a ticket for a friend Monday afternoon — passes had sold out for the day.
Many in the crowd outside the gates wore their Common Card — a pass for all seven days of the festival — around their necks. Delta Township resident Jonathan Ellis, 32, purchased his in December when the price was $79.
"With the single-night ticket prices, you can go three nights and you've got your money's worth right there," he said.
Ellis said he was excited for African folk group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which he figured would attract more curious listeners than the other band scheduled for Thursday night, classic rockers Styx.
"I think it's going to be more of a draw for Ladysmith — the people that know that culture that want to be exposed to that kind of music," he said.
Ellis added that the festival's lineup had a universal appeal. There was an air of friendliness among the early comers that Tompkins said carries over to the festival.
"You got to expect at a concert, there's going to be some people wearing inappropriate clothing or drinking too much, but I think (Common Ground)'s pretty kid-friendly."
