The Reading Downtown Improvement District has announced the latest headlining act for what it’s calling its “Platinum and Gold” Downtown Alive concert season. Southern Culture On The Skids, which itself has scored a gold record, will perform the evening of Wednesday, September 18 in center city Reading.
The band joins a star-studded lineup of other performers who will take the stage for the free concert series that kicked off May 29 and runs monthly through October. “After we booked all the acts for this year, we sat back and realized that almost all of them have either attained platinum or gold record status,” said Charles R. Broad, Executive Director of the Reading Downtown Improvement District, which puts together the music series.
“So we decided to call it our ‘Plantinum and Gold Concert Season’.” In addition to Southern Culture On The Skids, other nationally and internationally acclaimed acts that will appear include:
- July 17 – Local H (gold record status)
- August 14 – The Revolution (Prince’s former band)
All of the shows mentioned will be held in the 500 block of Penn Street starting at 5 p.m. The block will be closed off to vehicular traffic to create a festival atmosphere that will include food trucks and alcoholic beverage vendors.
A “kids play zone” will also be set up to entertain the young ones with face painting, balloon sculpting, and other activities. Southern Culture On The Skids has been spreading the rock and roll gospel since they formed in Chapel Hill, N.C. in 1983. Guitarist/singer Rick Miller, drummer Dave Hartman and bassist/singer/heartbreaker Mary Huff “play a greasy mix of surf, rockabilly, R&B and country-fried garage with a side of psych,“ according to their Facebook page.
“It’s a musical gumbo Miller calls ‘Americana from the wrong side of the tracks.’” The band has toured everywhere from the North Carolina Prison System to Mt. Fuji, Japan and delivering what Rolling Stone calls “a hell raising rock and roll party.” Opening for the September 18 show will be Drew & The Blue, Reading’s very own popular surf/rockabilly trio.
