Please join the Arts Council for the second to last night of the 2024 Music in the Mountains free summer concert series. This week we welcome Montana’s own The Lil Smokies! The concert takes place in Len Hill Park in the Big Sky Town Center and is family-friendly and free! Food and beverage vendors will be available. Please remember that NO DOGS, NO GLASS CONTAINERS, and most importantly, NO PERSONAL FIREWORKS are allowed in the park. The Park opens at 6 p.m., with music from Bozeman-based bluegrass band North Fork Crossing starting at 6:30 p.m. The Lil Smokies take the stage at 8 p.m.
Blending virtuosic instrumental acrobatics with riveting lyrical craftsmanship, The Lil Smokies have earned a reputation as one of the most electrifying acts in modern American roots music thanks to their exhilarating live show and critically acclaimed studio output. Since forming on the streets of Missoula, Montana, where the group got its start busking back in 2009, the band has performed everywhere from Red Rocks to The Rialto and captivated festival audiences at Telluride, High Sierra, LOCKN’, Freshgrass, FloydFest, and countless more. Their latest album, 2020’s Tornillo, showcases the hard touring four-piece at its most adventurous, teaming up with producer Bill Reynolds (The Avett Brothers, Band Of Horses) for a genre-bending joyride from the hills of Laurel Canyon to the wide-open deserts of West Texas.
Founded in early 2021, North Fork Crossing has quickly made their presence known all around Montana. Most notably in the beautiful Gallatin Valley where they live. In a little over a year they have been able to grow their audience to a wide range of listeners - consisting of traditional bluegrass lovers to die hard jam band enthusiasts.
Composed of 5 young multi-instrumentalists, North Fork Crossing can do it all. Their genre resides somewhere in a strange untapped musical realm between Traditional Bluegrass, Psychedelic Rock, Americana, and Folk. The quintet - Cade Slayden (guitar), Ryan Kelly (mandolin), Rabi Phelan (upright bass), Silas Rea (fiddle), and Matt Hickey (banjo) are drawn to having Bluegrass reach a new younger generation of people, priding themselves on their unique sound being the “evolution of string band music”. North Fork Crossing has just recently finished writing an album - which they are now in the process of recording, and look forward to releasing into the world.
This show is sponsored by Yellowstone Club.
