The Common rocked the house down at Ned Devine’s Irish Pub April 17 at Faneuil Hall for their annual semester concert.
Kicking off the concert with Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer,” newest member Dora-Liisa Meriste got the audience in the spirit for a show full of throwbacks.
After a couple introductory numbers, the band members were introduced to the crowd. This included drummer Matt Desario, guitarist EC Repp, keyboardist and keytarist Katie Kilbride, multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Weldon, singer and bassist Dora-Liisa, singer Carson Stiles and singer Manuela Maria.
Maria is currently studying abroad at Suffolk’s Madrid Campus and could not participate in the show, but the band dedicated one of her usual songs, Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” to the vocalist during their performance.
“I have had some of the coolest experiences here and met some of my closest friends just through this band,” said Weldon. “We have days where we are all super focused and everything just seems to click, and we have days where we just laugh and fool around. I enjoy both of those types of practices equally, and I look forward to them every week.”
Throughout the night they played their hearts out, rained the crowd with fake monopoly money covered in the band members faces and entertained their friends and family as well as other Suffolk University students.
“Seeing my friend and roommate get up on stage and get to do what she loves while also pursuing her college career is just so impressive,” said freshman Julia Frenna. “I didn’t even know Dora could sing like that, so seeing her so alive on stage was fun to watch.”
Some other songs on their setlist included The Police’s “Roxanne,” Paramore’s “Ignorance,” Kiss’s “Detroit Rock City” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”
The concert was bittersweet as multiple of the bandmates call this semester their last with the band due to graduation or the need for space in their schedules. After Suffolk Performing Arts Office’s Springfest concert, The Common will look very different as new members step into the spotlight after auditions in the fall.
Besides playing the keyboard, Kilbride is also the president of the group alongside Weldon as treasurer. Kilbride will be stepping away from the role, passing it to guitarist Repp, as she graduates in a matter of weeks.
“The Common gave me a musical outlet that I’d never had before. I’ve played piano since I was five or six-years-old but it had always been solo classical piano and I hadn’t played in public for several years,” said Kilbride. “I knew I wanted to do something with my musical skills in college, so I tried out for The Common because I thought it would be a cool opportunity to try performing music that I loved listening to but never seriously played. So being in The Common gave me that.”
Music across campus is so important to many Suffolk students, with a handful of acapella groups, show choirs, a rock band, jazz band and many more musicians and performers.
At Suffolk, there is a group for everyone, just like The Common was the group for Kilbride during her college career.
“I’ll miss having a musical outlet like this and I’ll definitely miss performing,” said Kilbride. “What I’ll miss the most though is absolutely the camaraderie and the friendship. Each and every person in this band is so amazing on and off the stage; and I feel so so lucky to have been in this group with them.”
The Common as well as other PAO groups will perform either their final or one of their final shows of the semester April 26 at the Modern Theatre.
