A packed theater audience cheered as the band Bearfoot performed Saturday night at the Davis Concert Hall.

Playing original material on acoustic instruments, the Alaska-based band has quickly become a success. The quintet, which has its origins as a teen band at a music camp, has now performed together for more than seven years. Today, with the support of their families, they aspire to be fantastic, creative, musical artists.

Audience members cheered on the band, consisting of Kate Hamre on acoustic bass; Mike Mickelson on guitar; Jason Norris on mandolin; and Angela Oudean and Annalisa Tornfelt on fiddle.

Many audience members would agree that Bearfoot has never been your typical band. But how did all of this success come to this band?

In September 1999, six teenagers assembled in Anchorage to form Bearfoot Bluegrass. Two months later they were performing for 20,000 people at the National FFA convention in Kentucky.

"I think [the name] originated from one of our parents suggestions when we first started out as a band," Hamre said. "We must have been like 14 or 15."

The band opted to drop the "bluegrass" from its name since it doesn't only play bluegrass. It also plays a mix of jazz, blues, and oldtime Appalachian music. As one audience member commented, "The music sort of sounds like country, but different." The band's sound changes tone slightly with each song, going from more of a bluegrass, oldtime sound when the female artists sing, to an old folk, country sound when the males sing.

With the great help of the band members' parents booking their gigs and helping with the financing and traveling plans, Bearfoot played throughout the Northwest and Alaska promoting music camps.

That all changed with their win at the 2001 Telluride Band Contest. From there, they really took off.

Their first shows began as any new band struggling to make ends meet. But now the members are on center stage, and the audience is packed cheering.

They have successfully accomplished outstanding singing solos as well as combined and have composed very creative arrangements well doing so. To someone sitting in the audience, they certainly don't get boring, with band members radiating a vast amount of talent, animated expressions and movements, big smiles, and soothing magical voices.

The band happily surprised audience members at Saturday's performance, but perhaps no one is more amazed at its success than the band members themselves.

As their Web site states, "Their performances as Bearfoot Bluegrass were the proof of the rapid musical growth that often results from kids' music camps."

At intermission and after the show Saturday, lines quickly formed, with anxious individuals wishing to purchase one of Bearfoot's CDs.

The band has also recently recorded a session for PBS's "Mountain Stage," which aired nationally on the same day as they preformed at UAF.

Bearfoot currently has three recordings to their credit including "Only Time Knows" (2001); "Back Home," produced by Grammy Award winner Todd Phillips (2003); and "Follow Me," produced by Grammy Award winner Gene Libbea (2006). These band members had a great door of opportunity open for them because of their talent.

"Bearfoot is one of Alaska's experts," said Jeff Stepp, student activities coordinator. "I mean, they were born here and have traveled all over, including Ireland."

Some of the places to next visit include Michigan, North Carolina, Colorado, North Carolina, Idaho, Wyoming, British Columbia, California, Arizona and Louisiana.