On Saturday March 18th, A Day To Remember had a celebration concert in their hometown of Ocala, Florida in honor of the City Of Ocala awarding the band with keys to the city for putting the City Of Ocala on the maps. Not only was this a celebration but also a homecoming concert for ADTR and direct support Wage War. The band was given their individually customized keys by Ocala’s Mayor Kent Guinn as he stated “It’s a real honor, I’m so proud of these young men and they’ve made Ocala proud, I’m proud to have them here tonight. Tonight is truly a day to remember in Ocala.” before presenting each member with the keys to the City Of Ocala. Jeremy Mckinnon stated “We’d like to say thank you to the city of Ocala for putting this on tonight – this is amazing. We used to play in our parents’ garages and we’d get the cops calling on us some of the time because we were making too much noise. Those cops are actually here somewhere, thank you guys, too for letting us keep playing!” after receiving he keys. After the band received their keys to the City Of Ocala, the band got to perform a powerful 19 song set which you can read about below.
After a brief ceremony of Ocala Florida’s Mayor Kent Guinn presenting each band member with the Keys to Ocala, A Day to Remember exploded unto the stage with “Mr. Highway’s Thinking About The End” with a burst of confetti showering the sold out crowd (7k). Their 19 song setlist was filled with hits, and lots of new material from Bad Vibrations as well, even including “City Of Ocala” which hasn’t been played live since 2015 at Self Help Festival. Their set was impactful, bright, and very energy driven, all while Jeremy Mckinnon, Kevin Skaff, Joshua Woodard, Neil Westfall, and Alex Shelnutt had a huge smile on their face throughout the entire night. The fans loved every moment of the show singing along to each song louder then I have ever heard at any show, especially during the call and repeat parts of songs. At one point during the set Mckinnon requested more crowd surfers and WOW did they pour over the barricade when he requested that, not only did they crowd surf but there was crowd surfers surfing on top each other at one time I seen 5 people crowd surfing by a male fan laying down surfing as 4 females sat on his back 1 actually standing on his back to get to the front, to say it was incredible would be an understatement. The Ocala Cobra even made an appearance on stage during the 4th song “Right Back At It Again.” However I will say, An A Day To Remember hometown show in Ocala, FL is definitley a show you MUST see next time it happens if you are a fan of ADTR. Congratulations to A Day to Remember for making their City proud and receiving such a extraordinary honor.
