Consider planning your weekend around 10 musicians, one little girl and a pizza place.
The Essentials, a band of University students and graduates, will be playing a benefit show for 1-year-old Isabelle Costa at Cozmic Pizza on Friday.

The band’s alto saxophonist, Gabe Dickinson, said his 2-year-old son is what prompted him to organize the show.
“He’s the most important thing in my life for sure,” Dickinson said. “The plight of an infant really hits home for me and that, more than anything, is why I wanted to do something. If I didn’t have a band, I would find another way to contribute.”
Dickinson first learned about Costa and her rare combination of life-threatening medical conditions from his day job at Lane Forest Products.
Isabelle’s father, Dan, also works there.
“I learned about her through all the fundraisers we had there,” Dickinson said. “I was able to see her in person and hear her story.”
Isabelle suffers from situs inversus totalis, which is the reversal of internal organs, as well as dextrocardia, the reversal of the heart organ.
At six days old, she underwent open-heart surgery. In November she had to undergo another open-heart surgery at the University of Michigan.
Isabelle and her parents recently returned from Michigan, but not without facing more complications.
She couldn’t eat food for more than a week. Now, she is able to eat again but has not been able to keep anything down.
Dan Costa, who had to drive home, hit ice in Nebraska and crashed the family’s car.
“How much can one family go through?” Dickinson said.
He hopes Friday’s show will expose Costa’s story to fans of The Essentials.
“I think that we have a fan base of college students who may not have heard this story yet. So, this is an opportunity to just spread the word,” he said.
The Essentials’ lead singer, Neil Thurston, who was discovered while singing karaoke at Taylor’s Bar and Grille, reiterated Dickinson’s point.
“Anybody who has the ability to help, should,” he said. “It’s not ‘Why should I help?’ but it’s more like ‘Why not?’”
The band will accept donations at the door. Dickinson said any amount will help.
In addition to donations at the door, half of all merchandise sales and all profits from food sales will be given to the Costa family.
Dickinson said they chose Cozmic Pizza because the pizza eatery provides a venue for a lot of the community’s fundraising.
Thurston said it is hard to describe The Essentials’ sound.
“The made-up category that I’ve been telling people is ‘new funk.’ There are so many different influences in the band, and there’s so much going into the music,” he said. “If you didn’t have the right players, it could turn out being a mess, but somehow it manages to work.”
The band has an interview with 89.7 KLCC today at 11 a.m., where “one of the Costa family members will join us to talk about Isabelle,” Dickinson said.
“They’ve had a lot of expenses. I’m sure there are going to be more to come, and I hope that we can help in any way possible.”
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