Miller Center performance Friday

Bluegrass band Bearfoot makes tracks to RACC

Bearfoot will perform at the Miller Center for the Arts at Reading Area Community College on Friday at 8 p.m.
Bearfoot is one of the hottest young groups to hit the Blue Grass scene since Nickel Creek! This Alaska-based quintet combines youthful grit with harmonic romance in artfully crafted original works hinting at Appalachian, Southern blues and jazz influences. Bearfoot's energetic stage presence elicits an appeal that bridges generations.

The acoustic sound of Bearfoot quickly found success touring various festivals, winning the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition in 2001, following in the footsteps of Nickel Creek in 1995 and Dixie Chicks in 1991.

Three CDs later, Mickelson said the band members are happy with the direction their careers have gone, although their music is better characterized as Americana than as bluegrass.

"We aren't strictly bluegrass," Mickelson said. "We've never had a banjo, and we found out when we were doing shows in the Southeast that it's not bluegrass if you don't have a banjo. So we're more in the Americana direction I think. But we've always been eclectic."...read the rest of the Reading Eagle article here.