By Nikki Ramos, Patsy Newitt, Jessica Rish, & Jocelyn Soto
In a neighborhood littered with Cubs fans stumbling down crowded streets, Uncommon Ground is unexpected. The cozy bar and restaurant tucked away on the corner of Clark and Grace Street, offers a haven from the chaos of Wrigley Field after a game. It sticks out like a sore thumb.
Despite Wrigleyville having a bar on every corner and Uncommon Ground’s lack of cohesion with the rest of the neighborhood, the tiny front still manages to fill the house every Monday night for the venue’s popular open mic event.
Uncommon Ground’s Monday night open mic event is a staple event of Chicago’s art scene. With a sign-up list that regularly fills up several pages of a yellow legal pad, the popular event gives performers of all varieties the opportunity to showcase their work.
Monday June 3, 8 p.m., was just a regular Monday night for Uncommon Ground. But for first-time attendees, the diverse performances were a diversion from the typical open mic, something unique and welcome to all Chicagoans brave enough to sign up.
This personifies the premise of Uncommon Ground Open Mic – fundamental inclusivity. Performers are limited only by a five-minute time constraint. Outside of that, anyone is welcome and encouraged to perform anything. There are no limits.
The show featured a comedy set centered around a wet t-shirt contest, a man singing an acapella rendition of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s “Shallow” from A Star is Born, and an individual who got on stage exclusively to tell a long-winded story about entertainment in 1964.
The event is incredibly popular, hence the extensive legal pad sign-up list. Sign-up begins at 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show, but the website encourages performers to show up early to ensure a spot.
For more seasoned artists, 2019 marked their tenth year performing, for others, it was their first time on stage.
“The goal is to encourage upcoming artists to come out and share themselves and their material for the first time in front of their peers,” said Eric Quigley, the host, and producer of the event.
This complete adherence to inclusivity opens the door to potentially cringe-worthy material, but Uncommon Ground and its audience are not deterred. Uncommon Ground is intentionally welcoming. Bring your good, your bad, and your man telling a story.
For the performers, this inclusivity was palpable. “I haven’t been into too many scenes like this, but it was cool, it was open,” Jimmy Gavin, first-time musical performer, said. “It was fun because it was a combination of things and that’s what things like these are about.”
Unlike other open mic venues around the city, Uncommon Ground offers a tangible and immediate reward – the winner not only gets half of the donation earnings from the empty beer pitcher passed around throughout the show like an offering plate but also access to Chicago’s music scene.
Every Monday, Quigley chooses the best of the performances to move on to the next level. The weekly winners are invited to compete at a final competition where the ultimate winner receives a cash prize, Shure microphones, Greenstar Brewing, and Uncommon Ground Merchandise, a 30-minute artist photo shoot, an opportunity to perform an original piece on the radio, an on-air interview, an independent show at Uncommon Ground, and Opening Slots at Chicago Venues.
These final competitions are hosted twice a year, in January and July, and are open to the public.
The winner is chosen by Quigley, based on performance, song, musicianship, crowd reaction, and participation. The performers rarely question this subjectivity because winning is not really what the performance is about. It’s about embracing the opportunity for performance and the venue that supports it.
The goal of the competition is to create a network for emerging artists, providing an avenue for new performers to get their foot in the door.
“A lot of the times that is their first show, and then from there they are kind of set and have a network and know who they are booking through,” said Quigley. “I often see those same people playing Elbo Room and other places throughout the city. So it provides kind of a launching pad.”
Uncommon Ground itself is a perfect spot for the action. Wrigleyville, despite all its chaos, gives the venue extensive foot traffic. From the outside, Uncommon Ground is unassuming, but once inside, the venue is spacious, warm and bright.
The venue’s commitment to social awareness and inclusivity isn’t exclusive to its open mics. During the day, Uncommon Ground is a healthy and sustainable restaurant, home of the first certified organic brewery in Illinois and the first certified organic rooftop farm in the US. Vegetables are homegrown, and they have a solar panel on the roof.
Though they didn’t serve their full dinner menu in the space where the mic took place – dubbed “Music Room” by a colorful sign before the entrance – the event had a specials and snacks menu, an extensive drink selection, and table service for audience members.
These aspects make Uncommon Ground uniquely suited for audience engagement, producing a community supportive of every act regardless of the quality.
June 3 proved no different, with some audience members even providing back-up vocals from their seats to a performer who forgot his words. The audience isn’t sitting silently watching with an air of judgment, but instead, are actively making Uncommon Ground a place where performers feel at ease before going up on stage.
“It is a listening room,” Quigley said, “A lot of open mics are placed in bars where it’s noisy, and there is a lot going on. This room is designed around people bringing in their material and everyone paying close attention to it.”
It’s easy to dismiss open mics on the premise of inexperience, but Monday nights at Uncommon Ground prove that throwing standards out the window doesn’t have to diminish the validity of the art itself.
Uncommon Ground provides a perfect venue for deinstitutionalized art explicitly.
“Something like an open mic is a great creative outlet to come out and interact with people,” Gavin said, “You never know who you are going to meet, and just show what you are doing.”
Patsy Newitt 