REIMAGINED:
THE TOURS & SHOWS OF THE PAST
717 Entertainment has never been a Tribute / Cover band booking type of booking company. For years I’ll admit we were against booking anything but original bands. Through the years I began to appreciate the value, skillset and drawing power of Tribute / Cover bands. I grew close friendships w/ many folks in tribute bands and the question was raised many times over the years as to why we don’t book them. Eventually the answers didn’t come to me and I wanted to start incoorporating them into our shows. I didn’t just want to put a cover band w/ some originals and mix and match w/ no rhyme or reason to it. Thats when I got the idea of putting together shows from the past that I wish I could see again. I’ve been going to concerts for over 25 years and they simply don’t put shows together like they used to. Well there are some, if I’m being fair. At any rate I felt it would be awesome to put together shows of the past and relive them or “Reimagine” them. So I began reaching out and the first show came together like Magic. The Ozzfest went off so well that its been decided that this will continue as we have Family Values, Knotfest shows in the future. So many other ideas are in my head. The idea is to do these three, maybe four times a year. We can’t wait to see everyone at all these shows.
REIMAGINED EPISODE 01:
TRIBUTE TO OZZFEST
What better way to kick off our Reimagined series than with a tribute to one of the biggest Metal festivals that ever was? When we do things we generally try to start big, our first show was 13 band Awards show, first show at Phantom Power an Evening Sun Festival w/ 9 bands. Our Reimagined series started no different. 10 bands, 6 tributes and 4 local original acts participated in the innaguaral show and it was the most successful show of 2022 for us. Over 400 people showed up to relive thier old Ozzfest days.
Naturally the show had to be represented by Ozzy so we got the best damn Ozzy tribute we know of Bark at The Moon. We paired them up w/ one of the hottest tribute acts in the area Penntera. This was also the first time these two bands performed together. Another great local tribute band Stricken played a full set of Disturbed. Hate Grenade came down from Altoona and nearly stole the whole show w/ thier tribute set to Limp Bizkit. Megadeth was presented by the band Closer-To-Deth and the first tribute band was the debut of Negative Steel: The Type O Negative Tribute. All six tribute bands put on some of the absolute elite sets of these acts and you’d swear you were at an Indoor intimate Ozzfest show.
Locally we had 4 original bands headed by the up and coming band Evil Like You. It was just like an Ozzfest w/ all this buzz around the “side stage” band and they did not dissappoint as they slayed the stage and impressed everyone in the building. Humanity Decayed, Burn The Martyr and Purveyor also performed opening the show in the afternoon to an impressive crowd especially for 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
REIMAGINED EPISODE 2
TRIBUTE TO 1998 VERSION OF FAMILY VALUES TOUR
For our second event in the Reimagined Series we put together a tribute to my personal favorite Family Values version. The 1998 Version which was also the first one of its Kind. Korn broke boundries by putting together a tour w/ not only bands of thier style / genre such as Limp Bizkit but incorporated other genres as well. Hip Hop was represented by the Legend and founding member of N.W.A. Ice Cube. Industrial metal was provided by German legends Rammstein and the show was opened by a band who had never toured before and was signed to Korn’s Record Label Elementree Records: Orgy. They even brought in a DJ to play inbetween sets to give the show a totally different vibe then any other tour.
Our edition was no diffrerent. Obviously the first piece of the Puzzle was a Korn tribute so we enlisted the newly reformed Lasciate to put together a special set for a potential one time only type deal. Rammstein was handled by one of the absolute best tribute bands you’ll ever see. Du Has: The USA Rammstein Tribute is not only spot on but they are endorsed by the band. We found “The Worst” Limp Bizkit tribute including Aaron Miller on keys who also provided us w/ his Brujo’s as house DJ for the night spinning inbetween sets. Ridicule out of Pittsburgh came down and blasted through an amazing set of Ice Cube. Mudshovel opened the show w/ thier debut performance performing a blistering set of Staind Material. All in all we felt this was an amazing night and really captured that feel of The Family Values tour.
REIMAGINED EPISODE 3
TRIBUTE TO KNOTFEST
Our third Version of Reimagined is another one we were pretty psyched about. Another Full day of music w/ some incredible tributes and amazing local artists. We did Ozzfest so we decided it was time to do Knotfest. We couldnt’ be happier w/ how this one turned out as it was right up there w/ the Ozzfest as far as success and turnout went. We Enlisted Slapknutz out of Connecticutt to due the duties of Slipknot and let me tell you they absolutely Crushed it. Mosh pits galore and the band does Slipknot to an absolute T. They are a band we indend on having once or twice a year from now on…
The support lineup was incredible. Know Your Enemy the best Rage Against The Machine tribute came in and laid it down and had the entire venue moving for the entire set. Preceeding them was the show stealing Old School Hollywood a System of a Down tribute you have to see to believe. With an absolute Spot on Serj in the band they were simply unreal. The Deftones was provided by our friends in Archia and opening the tribute set was one of our favorite bands Nailbite putting together an outstanding set of Gojira.
The local (what we call side stage) portion of the show was headlined by Indiana’s Mantra of Morta who were another candidate for show stealers. W/ a huge afternoon crowd the band lived up to thier hype once again. Rounding out the first 4 bands we had Virginia’s The Plan, who tore the roof off, Survive The Conspiracy and the opening set provided by Burn The Martyr. Who was our first Two time performer as they also performed at our Ozzfest. The show was Huge as mentioned and one our favorite shows of the year.
