By Charlotte Ormond
At the corner of Knox Road and Baltimore Avenue in College Park, onlookers peered into Cornerstone Grill & Loft, intrigued by the electrifying music of the night’s special guests, who, by the end of the night, had the rowdy crowd of college students chanting for one more song.
Shore Thing, a band based in College park, packed the small corner bar Thursday night with crowds dancing and singing along to their three-hour-long set.
University of Maryland seniors Ryan Silverberg, Thomas Strandquist, Caleb Gordon, Grant Fellows and Max Ruby decided to form the band in the fall of 2023 and have since created a name for themselves.
Their longtime individual passions for music—spanning piano, guitar, drums and saxophone—sparked a pivotal moment when they pooled $150 to buy their first drum set off Facebook Marketplace. That purchase set the stage for what would soon become Shore Thing.
Their goal as a band is simple: to savor every moment and share their love of music with others.
“We’re all kind of trying to have fun. A lot of us are going away after college and as it’s our last semester, we want to have fun and make the most of it,” Silverberg, Shore Thing’s lead singer studying economics, said.
The band, inspired by indie rock groups such as The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys, performs covers of songs that they believe their crowds will resonate with.
“We started playing songs that we liked and wanted to play. And then from there, we took requests and started playing more crowd-pleasing songs,” Silverberg said.
Thursday night, they concluded their set with one of those crowd-pleasers: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 hit “Free Bird.” The audience was nothing short of ecstatic to hear the iconic guitar solo that closed out the song.
Since joining Shore Thing, Ruby, a philosophy, politics, and economics major, has discovered a passion for songwriting.
“I’m more of a reader and writer, so I like the lyrical aspect of songwriting. So I will have a theme in mind, and then I’ll come up with the chords,” Ruby said.
The band performed Ruby’s original piece, “Boat Song,” for the crowd.
Shore Thing is dedicated to expanding the live music scene in the College Park area. According to Strandquist, it had been eight years since a five-person band performed at Cornerstone.
“I think it’s kind of hard for managers of the bars to have a band come in because a lot of them are resistant to change,” said Strandquist, a mechanical engineering major.
The band aims to challenge that resistance and prove that live music belongs in College Park bars.
“In such a big DJ school, there isn’t as much live music coming in. So even though we’re going to be gone next year, we’re trying to change that culture,” Ruby said.
Despite the challenges of performing live, for Shore Thing, the reward is well worth it.
“We look forward to these gigs for so many weeks, and we come down here and practice for hours to make sure everything’s perfect, and when the day comes around, it’s so exciting,” Strandquist said.
That excitement was palpable Thursday night as the band performed crowd favorites, such as Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey,” “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters, and The Backseat Lovers’ “Kilby Girl.”
With graduation quickly approaching, Shore Thing is faced with the challenge of considering the future of their band. According to Silverberg, each member has their own ambitious career goals, and they do not expect to live in the same cities, which could lead to the band’s eventual conclusion.
In the final months of their time as a college band, every member of Shore Thing encouraged aspiring musicians to not wait on their dreams.
“In terms of taking that leap, the best time to do it is now,” Gordon, studying neurobiology and physiology, said. “We’re all going to have jobs after college and have more responsibilities, but right now is the last time where we are all going to have the opportunity to do something like this.”
Featured image: The audience cheers on local band Shore Thing at Cornerstone Grill & Loft. Photo by Charlotte Ormond, March 13, 2025.