Event

Goldmine Pickers

Goldmine Pickers is a young, passionate, four-piece band weaving together roots and inspiration in bluegrass, jazz, folk and Irish traditions to create an energetic new space in Americana music. With memorable acoustic performances, the group has magnetized audiences in intimate to expansive concert halls, at festivals and on live radio shows with inspiring interplay between guitar, mandolin, upright bass and a fiery fiddler and soaring, heartfelt harmonies.

Lead vocals are shared smoothly by Jay Lapp (mandolin, guitar) and Lukas Simpson (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, harmonica), with Sean Hoffman (fiddle) and Brian Cook (bass) leaning in with additional layers of harmony. The Pickers "capture the audience" with "really nice, tight three-part harmonies," described a reviewer at acousticguitar.com, who also wrote, "I was virtually stunned at the quality of play at the concert. [And] chemistry and stage presence weighed nearly as much as musicianship in reasons for enjoying the concert." The band has been noted for an ability to shift from high-energy barn-burners with remarkably tight musicianship into skillfully rendered and laid-back ballads. Performing in diverse settings from the U.S. Midwest to Ireland, the versatility of the band has delivered them to stages alongside artists such as Del McCoury Band, Hot Buttered Rum, The Waybacks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Pierce Pettis, Cornfed Girls, Greensky Bluegrass, Emory Lester Set, Wayne Hancock and many more.

Opening the show, Ann Arbor's The Bearded Ladies take Americana music to a whole new level of party with a huge collection of traditional bluegrass tunes and jazz standards, as well as a bunch of originals. Blending jazz with bluegrass isn't new, but taking on a dancable tempo and energy is what the Bearded Ladies excel at. The Ladies (four rustic gents with a penchant for pickin') take the energy and passion of a punk band and blend it with the elegance of a string quartet, serving up a foot-stomping good time while maintaining an invite to your grandma's dinner table.