717 ENTERTAINMENT 400
”BACK TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN”

When the idea of doing a 400th show celebration came up the original idea was to do 2 days at Lovedrafts Brewing Co. in Mechanicsburg. We had a pretty solid lineup put together including Lacey Sturm (from Flyleaf), Rivals, King 810, Deadlands and a few others. Then we got word that Lovedrafts would be relocating to Harrisburg and wouldn’t be open during the timeframe of the proposed 400th show. The planning for this show was in all honesty incredibly difficult w/ all the different moving parts. Numerous venues were considered as well as a plethora of acts that we had booked, unbooked. Dates were changed on multiple occasions. Then it all came to me, Lets do it in the room where this thing started over 15 years ago. Gullifty’s Underground, now just called Underground Live. So now we had the venue, dates and a few bands set but what to do w/ this show in March that was already planned. Well… We did our first show at XL Live w/ Lacey Sturm, Rivals and Observe The 93rd. More on that in the full year in review…

King 810 was signed on from the beginning and frankly it was more then fitting as they are one of my favorite bands and ironically looking back through our shows they also played our 200th show.

So w/ our headliner in tow we set out to fill this thing up w/ upcoming bands, reunions and special performances, not unlike festivals that we see. Originally we had Julian Fist signed on as they headlined our first ever show at that very venue, unfortunately they had to pull out a week before the show. We scrambled and added Atlas At Hold, an absolutely incredible band that is skyrocketing in the local scene. Nailbite was one of the first bands we asked to be a part of this and they gladly accepted. I thought itd be neat to include a tribute set as that has become a small part of what we do and I couldnt think of a better one than Eminenscence from NY who play the most spot on tribute to evanescence that you’ll ever hear. Another band we Had to have was Mantra of Morta who are from IN and have become some of our closest band buddies in recent years. Here is the actual schedule from the show…

The venue was BYOB so folks were encouraged to bring a cooler of liquor, beer or whatever they chose. One of the absolute best memories from that weekend is Jeff Porrini coming in on friday night w/ his big cooler of booze and jamming that night and then returning to his hotel (yes he got a hotel for the show) and then returning early the next day to do it all over again. Not many came both days but Jeff was there, laughing w/ friends, bands and standing front row for nearly every single band. Jeff was an absolutely amazing human being and I’ll talk more about him in our tribute to him and may even repeat this story as its honestly one of my favorite moments of the entire year.
I’ll be the first to say the attendance wasnt’ what it could have been for this weekend and there’s a million factors that could contribute to that but I think it was attended by some of the most wonderful people and I wouldn’t change it one bit as I was humbled and felt so happy the entire time. Between the bands that played and were excited to be a part of it, to the folks who came out one or both nights it was one of those happy tears type of weekends. When I did my first show at Gullifty’s I never dreamed of hitting 400 shows. I honestly wasn’t even planning on a second one at the time. The idea was one awards show and boom, cool that was fun. But there I was back in the same room after years of not being there and 17 years since that first time that featured some of the same people like Brad Cox (who performed at the first show w/ Skitzo Calypso and at this show acoustically).