Sister Hazel Return Home 9/18 For a Concert At The Phillips Center

Gainesville natives, Sister Hazel, return to their old stomping grounds on Friday, September 18 at 7:30 p.m. to perform the band's exceptional blend of alternative rock, folk and southern rock at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

The band released their latest album, entitled Release, last week on indie label Rock Ridge Music, and the record has entered the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #37. This is the highest chart number for any Sister Hazel album ever on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart: the platinum-certified Somewhere More Familiar peaked at #47, while the gold-certified Fortress peaked at #63. Release also hit #3 on the Billboard Indie Chart and #14 on the Billboard Digital Album Chart. Last week on release day, the album went all the way to #1 on the iTunes Rock Chart and #7 on the overall iTunes sales chart.

Sister Hazel was recently selected as a "recommended" user on Twitter. All five band members update the feed regularly. The band's list of Twitter followers has swelled to over 300,000 people. A fan-centric promotion ran in July that allowed band supporters to call the group: Give Sister Hazel a Ring. Every three days for a week, a new phone number was released to the public via the band's Twitter, Facebook and MySpace pages, and fans were able to call the active numbers and speak to a band member between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. eastern. Calls poured in from fans across the U.S. and around the globe.

Sister Hazel, who has logged over 3,500 live shows throughout the course of their career, continues touring as always and kicked off their tour for Release last week with an intimate acoustic radio performance in Orlando. Release, their seventh disc of original material, features twelve tracks with the lead single, Take a Bow.

Opening for Sister Hazel is Aslyn, a native of the Gainesville area, who moved to Atlanta to pursue her musical career. Her first Album, Lemon Love, charted on Billboard's Top 40 chart and produced a Top 20 radio single also making appearances and performing on VH1, MTV, Fuse, Jimmy Kimmel Live and The CBS Early Show.

Web sites: University of Florida Performing Arts: www.performingarts.ufl.edu

Sister Hazel: www.sisterhazel.com