Sunday, May 20, 2001 - Gullifty's - MDA Benefit (PA Musician sponsored) - Halestorm, Negative Space, Spinebelt

Sunday, May 20, 2001
Gullifty's
MDA Benefit (PA Musician sponsored)
Halestorm, Negative Space, Spinebelt
http://www.halestormweb.com
http://www.negativespacerocks.com
http://www.spinebelt.com

Around 4:10, after just seeing the No Show Ponies, we set foot into Gullifty's and proceeded down the stairs, with Shannon's parents following behind us. Joy, our favorite Gullifty's employee, talked to us for a while about how her frenzied weekend had been going. We slapped on some hot pink wristbands and entered the bar, heading towards our usual table (up front, stage right, to be exact), but we chose the table behind it, due to an elderly man with a pipe lodged between his lips who had been sitting there.

While reading the menus, we had quite the unexpected greeting from Sir Roger Hale himself! Strolling up to our table with a bright smile, he suddenly bowed down to us, as we curled into our shells of shyness. We introduced Roger and Shannon's parents to each other, and Roger soon led over the newest addition to Halestorm, Nate Myotte. Before long, Beth (Mommy Hale) came over and welcomed us with hugs. Beth ran to find Liz, who also said hello and talked with us all for a while. Being the extremely generous guy that he is, Roger surprised us both by giving each of us a copy of their newest CD, "Breaking the Silence." (Thank you!!!)

Roger was telling us how no one was positive if Negative Space were going to make it. We confidently informed him that they would definitely be there, since we had just spoken with some of them about it the day before at the Long's Park BBQ.

Soon enough, the Negative Space lads showed up, and Todd (brand new guitarist!) gave us a warm greeting. Five o' clock was rapidly approaching, so we munched on our chicken tenders as Butch (lead singer of Spinebelt) introduced his friends, Halestorm.

Liz swept onto the dance floor in an angelic wedding dress, which she soon pulled off to reveal a darker, mystical ensemble. The strong bond between the band was obvious, and the new guitarist, Nate revealed the perfect finishing touch to Halestorm. Liz's solid vocals and keyboard playing left the Gullifty's crowd wowed. At one point, Roger startled us by coming towards our table and bowing down with his bass. The musical talent of the Hales doesn't end there! Arejay (keep in mind that he is only fourteen!) had everyone's jaw dropping from his incredible drumming. There must be some kind of musically gifted gene that is carried throughout the whole Hale family! Although Nate is technically not a "Hale," he appears as if he's been playing with them for years!

They performed a lot of songs off of their new album, such as "Unbreakable Promises," "Shadows of my Heart," and "The Children." During a break between songs, Liz started to thank PA Musician and Shel Hoachlander, 92.7 the Eagle, Gullifty's, and a few other people. After she streamed off some names, Roger explained to her that she forgot two very important people. (This is the part where we tried to hide!) He went on to say that two "celebrities" were in the house, ("Shannon and Melanie!"), as Shannon almost dropped her camera while videotaping, because she didn't expect him to say such kind things! We definitely felt incredibly special to be spoken of so highly…we're not worthy!

Not too long after their amazing performance, we interviewed Liz, Arejay, and Nate. The three of them have such incomparable personalities and it's great to see how they all get along so well. Negative Space had begun playing during the Halestorm interview, but we only missed two songs. Josh and Todd were matching again in blue sporty tees. They did an awesome set of both originals and covers. Some of the originals they performed were "Dropout," "She Makes Me," "Dirty," "Untitled," and "Anthem."

Their covers were excellent…"Jack and Diane" (John Mellencamp), "Talk Dirty to me" (Poison), "All the Small Things (Blink 182), "Summer of 69" (Bryan Adams)….the list goes on and on. They have such good taste when choosing covers. All five of them are full of massive amounts of energy, tis a shame that there wasn't a bigger crowd there to enjoy the show. Todd AKA Shaggy already fits in with the band perfectly, as their new guitar player. Tonight was the night for new guitarists!

After their set ended, Shannon went up to Negative Space's merchandise stand and bought the Buzzfest 2000 CD. She was informed that it was the very last one, so she felt guilty because Melanie was going to buy one later as well. We sat back down at the table, and Jim introduced Tommy (Bon Fuhrer's drummer) to us, and told us we should interview him later. Mitch Mensh also stopped by and introduced himself to us (even though his brother, Ricky Leigh introduced us to him at Darcie Miner's show at the Whitaker Center during MMC). We talked to him for quite some time. Negative Space's roadie, Bob came up to us and said he just wanted to say hello to us because he knew we were the girls with t he website, so we felt incredibly special! (Hello roadie Bob!) We talked to the Halestormers for a little while longer, and then hunted down Tommy for an interview. We pulled him away from the bar and went up to sit on the bench for a quieter, brighter environment.

Once the interview was over we said thank you, and we headed down the stairs once again and watched Spinebelt perform a few of their hard-core songs. Shannon's parents seemed a little disturbed by Spinebelt's powerful metal sound...it was amusing to watch their expressions as the bassist, Bill was… well… growling. We only saw them perform about three songs. Poor Todd was sitting by us, and he said he was going to have nightmares. As we were leaving, Melanie was standing up putting her sweatshirt on and she hadn't realized it, but she was totally in the way of Jim's (Harrisburg Online guy) video-taping (we didn't realize it, but we both had been in the way during Negative Space's performance as well! Sorry!!!). We were on our way out the bar doors when Beth asked us if we would pose for a few pictures with Halestorm. We wanted a posse picture with them anyway, so we said of course.

We were officially introduced to the lovely Shel Hoachlander of PA Musician, as she took pictures of all of us posing with copies of PA Musician. Shannon's mom was also snapping pictures, so we were seeing double the amount of spots. Todd came out at one point and Melanie asked him to join in on one of the pictures (camera ham!). Todd left and we began to mumble to one another that we still needed a "posse picture" with the Negative Space guys. Beth overheard us and said that Roger could go gather them up for a picture with us. We said that he didn't have to do that, but he went to fetch them for us anyway (aww!). They started coming through the doors one by one, and we had almost the whole group. We were all sort of posing for the picture, despite Mark not being there to smile for the camera yet. Tired of posing, Josh decided to chat with Roger until Mark arrived. A few minutes later Mark popped in saying he had been “taking care of some business.” We then posed for the cheesy group photo. (Thank you, Roger for getting them together for a picture! Thank you Negative Space for taking the time to pose with us!)

We all hung out and talked for a little while longer, and there was a lot of hug exchanging! At one point, Shannon's mom mocked Bill's barking and she had the growl down perfectly, which surprised (and sort of frightened) Liz and us as well! Shannon asked Mark if he wanted her and Melanie to help pass out flyers for Buzzfest and he said that'd be great and later came back with a pile for us to disperse. After some more hugs from the Halestorm crew, we waved goodbye and arrived back home around 9:30.