Most big-city orchestras and university-based classical programs take a diminuendo in the off season, but there is always a summer crescendo at the regional epicenter of summer classical music, the Interlochen Center for the Arts in the northwest lower Michigan, about 15 miles southwest of Traverse City.

In some ways Grand Funk Railroad has always been the Rodney Dangerfield of hard-driving rock ’n’ roll — they get no respect.

From the very beginning, the Flint-bred band made a gargantuan noise. Their bombast was not unlike the MC5, but Grand Funk skipped the cosmic revolutionary stance in favor of a more working class, populist worldview. In the argot of the time they were a “people’s band.”

But even at the height of the band’s popularity, in the first half of the 1970s, they took a beating from the critical establishment who mainly complained that they were too loud and lacked sophistication.

It was 27 years ago that New Kids on the Block released its breakthrough pop album Hangin’ Tough and began packing massive venues across the world with Beatlemania-style frenzies. That nostalgic vibe was thick at Van Andel Arena Saturday night when the group, along with openers TLC and Nelly, took over the venue with its Main Event tour.

For years, West Michigan concertgoers with eclectic musical tastes and festival appetites have had one reasonable option to satisfy their craving: Lollapalooza. But in Lansing, the often-overlooked music festival Common Ground provides a similarly vast array of genres. And this fest is cheaper, closer, spread over six days and provides attendees with a little more elbow room.