The The first act to take the main stage Tuesday evening on the first day of the 2016 Common Ground Music Festival was Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers, who played an upbeat and lightning fast 45 minute set.
Hertler described his sound as “Funk and RNB influences put on kind of like a folk-pop foundation” in an interview last month.
The band’s set was topped off by a large rainbow fixture befitting their name.
Much of the night’s excitement came through anticipation for Milky Chance, a German folk outfit making their Lansing debut.
"(Milky Chance) put on a killer performance,” said festival-goer Noah de Leon, “I really liked the three piece instrumentation... that’s super unique, you don’t see that a lot these days.”
Best known for their smash hit “Stolen Dance” which careened across charts in 2014, Milky Chance threw some fresh and as-yet-unreleased tracks such as “Ego” into their set, which included spacier sounds and heavier bass.
The night at the main stage was topped off by AWOLNATION, whose hour and a half long set clocked them in as the longest performance of the night.
Known primarily for the 2011 hit “Sail”, AWOL played tunes off of their new record “Run,” which focuses heavily on the artist’s electronic rock flair.
Bruno and his guitar wielding companions played through the sunset and into the night, with a veritable storm of beachballs being tossed jovially around the crowd.
