SummerSounds celebrates 20 years in Greensburg

The SummerSounds concert series in Greensburg will celebrate its 20th season by going back to the past.

The schedule isn’t final yet, but the plan is for all but one of the 13 free concerts to feature an act that has played at SummerSounds before.

Organizers announced most of the lineup Tuesday at All Saints Brewing Company during the annual party for SummerSounds sponsors and volunteers.

Series chairman Gene James said the philosophy for booking acts is the same now as it was in 2000, when the first SummerSounds series was held.

“For every top 10 artist, there’s 100 people who are better, who weren’t in the right place at the right time,” he said. “And our job is to find them.”

That first year there were six bands and about 1,000 total attendees. Now, SummerSounds draws tens of thousands to St. Clair Park every year to watch more than a dozen acts.

“The key to success has always been, for me, to give them more than they expect,” James said.

From the Celtic rock of Seven Nations, which first came to Greensburg in 2003, to the brassy funk of Swift Technique, which played SummerSounds last year, this year’s series is all about bringing back some of the best.

Organizers did run into one problem when they started looking into which old acts to invite back, said organizer Dick McCormick. Some of the musicians have outgrown SummerSounds.

“Some of the bands that we’d love to have back, we can’t afford anymore,” McCormick said. “And that’s a good thing, because it means we picked well in the first place.”

James said he and his fellow organizers are working to make sure SummerSounds will be around and sustainable for a long time to come. They started a nonprofit organization, Friends of SummerSounds, in 2017 to oversee the series.

SummerSounds begins 7 p.m. June 7 in St. Clair Park.

There will be a concert in the park every Friday evening in June, July and August.