To start the list of who to see this weekend, you have to find some “Common Ground,” on which we all can agree is musical quality. So here goes:
– My friend Jake is the lead singer for the group Common Ground, which plays Dibbo’s on Saturday, and says they are steering more toward modern rock with new songs added to their set list. That’s big for a group whose singer Jake used to be a bit more of a headbanger when with “Lasher: Scarred by Metal,” even to the point of pulling off songs like The Trooper by Iron Maiden.
Common Ground, of course, is more about the ’90s and today, and they’ve had some interesting facets to their performances at Dibbo’s of late, which have been many and well-received. They get my kudos for originality in their song choices by tearing through Tie Your Mother Down by Queen, and Jake has played a double lead with the guitarist on his keyboard, and even soloed, to songs such as Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith.
Like the group Mock Star two weeks before them at Dibbo’s, Common Ground gets the audience involved. When a request came for Girls, Girls, Girls, the band members said they knew parts of that Motley Crue song, but not others, so they asked the women who asked for it to come onstage and help out. They did, and gave a respectable showing. At one other show, they rewarded two women who had danced all the way through a set with a couple of drinks — ordered via Jake over the microphone in his role as frontman.
– At Hefty’s Roadhouse in Bayport at 8 p.m. Saturday is Timbre Creek with Dale Martell and Pat Cutler. They will do not only Irish songs, but folk, rock and bluegrass, and Martell — who also does music lessons and production — has even been known to pick up the mandolin and fiddle and venture into other diverse genres of music such as Old Time, country and jazz.
– Irish music, of course, is not new to the area. The Mouldy Figs have played the Village Inn in North Hudson, sometimes to warm up the crowd before Packer games, and at Paddy Ryan’s the groups playing that style of music have included Todd Menton and also The Langer’s Ball.