Fruition

Tue Sep 16 2025

8:00 PM (Doors 7:00 PM)

SPACE

1245 Chicago Avenue Evanston, IL 60202

SPACE

1245 Chicago Avenue Evanston, IL 60202

$27.27

All Ages

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Three songwriters. Five bandmates. More than 15 years together, building a grassroots audience with a combination of stacked vocal harmonies and collaborative, song-driven Americana. Fruition is proof that there’s strength in numbers.

How To Make Mistakes, the band’s first studio album in four years, showcases a reinvigorated group at the peak of its powers. This is American roots music at its broadest and boldest — a melting pot of rock, soul, folk, and pop. What began as a busking string band has evolved into something more eclectic, rooted not only in the unique delivery of three different singers, but also the cohesion of five friends who prefer their music to be homegrown and honest… mistakes and all.

“This is the first studio album that we’ve recorded entirely live,” says Jay Cobb Anderson, who shares frontperson duties with fellow multi-instrumentalists Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek. “We recorded 17 songs in 7 days, with everybody playing together in real time, and we didn’t overdub anything. The songs sound honest and real. They sound like us.”

Co-produced by the bandmates themselves, How To Make Mistakes restores the momentum that Fruition nearly lost in 2020, back when Covid-19 forced them off the road and into quarantine. At the time, they’d been playing some of the biggest shows of their lives, crisscrossing the country in support of their most recent release, Broken At The Break Of Day. The album’s lead single, “Dawn,” had even become a hit on Americana radio. Years of relentless work had taken a toll on Fruition’s mental health, though, and cracks were starting to show in the band’s foundation. “We were so deep into the tour hustle that a lot of our cohesive vision might’ve gotten lost,” Naja admits. “Like anybody in any work force, we’d all learned to put our heads down and keep moving forward, even if that wasn’t the best thing for us.”

When they reunited one year later for a long-overdue band practice, they took stock of everything that had changed during those 12 months apart. Some members had started families. Others had gotten sober. All of them had made the conscious decision to return to music. Fruition funneled that growth and maturity back into their new songs, which doubled as rallying cries for a band eager to chase down success once again. “We all had the time to ask ourselves some big questions like ‘Do we want to keep doing this?'” Naja adds. “The fact that we reunited in such a reinforced way after all that time apart… I think it says a lot about who this band truly is.”

Fruition

  • Fruition

    Fruition

    Americana

    The first time they ever made music together, Fruition’s three lead singer-songwriters discovered that their voices naturally blended into beautiful three-part harmonies. In the eight years since that impromptu busking session, the Portland, Oregon-based quintet has grown from a rootsy, string-centric outfit to a full-fledged rock band with an easy but powerful grasp of soul, blues, and British Invasion era pop.

    On their new album Labor of Love, Fruition shows the complete force of their newly expanded sound, matching their more daring musicality with sophisticated, melody-minded song craft. The album subtly imparts the sense of being swept along on a journey, one reflecting an open-hearted spirit that sets in from the first notes of the dobro, mandolin and electric guitar driven title track, carries on to the sleepy soul of “Santa Fe,” and unfolds into the epic balladry of “The Meaning.”

    “A common theme for all three songwriters is trying to embrace being out on the road all the time, but also feeling like you’re missing out on the everyday lifestyle that most people get to have,” says Leonard. Embedded within that tension is a wistful romanticism that imbues many of the album’s songs. “Most of the love songs are very much about those rare moments of getting to be with the people you love,” says Anderson. “And then other songs are about coming back to the people you love, and trying to deal with the strange ways things change because of being apart.”

    After releasing their debut EP Hawthorne Hoedown in 2008, Fruition moved from busking on the street, to scraping their way onto the lower levels of festival lineups, to opening tours for bands like ALO and Greensky Bluegrass and onward, to being invited to play bigger festivals with ever bigger billing on those lineups.

    Last year saw them appear at Bonnaroo, Northwest String Summit and Telluride Bluegrass where Rolling Stone cited their artful choice of covers and “raucous originals filled with heartfelt lyrics and stadium-worthy energy.” This year will see them share a Red Rocks bill with JJ Grey and Mofro and The Infamous Stringdusters, along with a full headline tour of the United States.

    That breadth of touring experience has steadily reshaped the band and ultimately allowed them to achieve a sound they’ve long aspired toward. “We all tend to write on acoustic guitar and let things start in the same stripped-down, folky sort of way that we always did,” says Naja. “So where the songs come from hasn’t really changed much at all. What’s different is where we let them go from there.”

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Select ticket quantity.

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limit 10 per person
Standing Room Only
SRO ADV
$27.27 ($20.00 + $7.27 fees, including tax)

Delivery Method

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Fruition

Tue Sep 16 2025 8:00 PM

(Doors 7:00 PM)

SPACE Evanston IL
Fruition

$27.27 All Ages

Three songwriters. Five bandmates. More than 15 years together, building a grassroots audience with a combination of stacked vocal harmonies and collaborative, song-driven Americana. Fruition is proof that there’s strength in numbers.

How To Make Mistakes, the band’s first studio album in four years, showcases a reinvigorated group at the peak of its powers. This is American roots music at its broadest and boldest — a melting pot of rock, soul, folk, and pop. What began as a busking string band has evolved into something more eclectic, rooted not only in the unique delivery of three different singers, but also the cohesion of five friends who prefer their music to be homegrown and honest… mistakes and all.

“This is the first studio album that we’ve recorded entirely live,” says Jay Cobb Anderson, who shares frontperson duties with fellow multi-instrumentalists Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek. “We recorded 17 songs in 7 days, with everybody playing together in real time, and we didn’t overdub anything. The songs sound honest and real. They sound like us.”

Co-produced by the bandmates themselves, How To Make Mistakes restores the momentum that Fruition nearly lost in 2020, back when Covid-19 forced them off the road and into quarantine. At the time, they’d been playing some of the biggest shows of their lives, crisscrossing the country in support of their most recent release, Broken At The Break Of Day. The album’s lead single, “Dawn,” had even become a hit on Americana radio. Years of relentless work had taken a toll on Fruition’s mental health, though, and cracks were starting to show in the band’s foundation. “We were so deep into the tour hustle that a lot of our cohesive vision might’ve gotten lost,” Naja admits. “Like anybody in any work force, we’d all learned to put our heads down and keep moving forward, even if that wasn’t the best thing for us.”

When they reunited one year later for a long-overdue band practice, they took stock of everything that had changed during those 12 months apart. Some members had started families. Others had gotten sober. All of them had made the conscious decision to return to music. Fruition funneled that growth and maturity back into their new songs, which doubled as rallying cries for a band eager to chase down success once again. “We all had the time to ask ourselves some big questions like ‘Do we want to keep doing this?'” Naja adds. “The fact that we reunited in such a reinforced way after all that time apart… I think it says a lot about who this band truly is.”

Fruition

Fruition

Americana

The first time they ever made music together, Fruition’s three lead singer-songwriters discovered that their voices naturally blended into beautiful three-part harmonies. In the eight years since that impromptu busking session, the Portland, Oregon-based quintet has grown from a rootsy, string-centric outfit to a full-fledged rock band with an easy but powerful grasp of soul, blues, and British Invasion era pop.

On their new album Labor of Love, Fruition shows the complete force of their newly expanded sound, matching their more daring musicality with sophisticated, melody-minded song craft. The album subtly imparts the sense of being swept along on a journey, one reflecting an open-hearted spirit that sets in from the first notes of the dobro, mandolin and electric guitar driven title track, carries on to the sleepy soul of “Santa Fe,” and unfolds into the epic balladry of “The Meaning.”

“A common theme for all three songwriters is trying to embrace being out on the road all the time, but also feeling like you’re missing out on the everyday lifestyle that most people get to have,” says Leonard. Embedded within that tension is a wistful romanticism that imbues many of the album’s songs. “Most of the love songs are very much about those rare moments of getting to be with the people you love,” says Anderson. “And then other songs are about coming back to the people you love, and trying to deal with the strange ways things change because of being apart.”

After releasing their debut EP Hawthorne Hoedown in 2008, Fruition moved from busking on the street, to scraping their way onto the lower levels of festival lineups, to opening tours for bands like ALO and Greensky Bluegrass and onward, to being invited to play bigger festivals with ever bigger billing on those lineups.

Last year saw them appear at Bonnaroo, Northwest String Summit and Telluride Bluegrass where Rolling Stone cited their artful choice of covers and “raucous originals filled with heartfelt lyrics and stadium-worthy energy.” This year will see them share a Red Rocks bill with JJ Grey and Mofro and The Infamous Stringdusters, along with a full headline tour of the United States.

That breadth of touring experience has steadily reshaped the band and ultimately allowed them to achieve a sound they’ve long aspired toward. “We all tend to write on acoustic guitar and let things start in the same stripped-down, folky sort of way that we always did,” says Naja. “So where the songs come from hasn’t really changed much at all. What’s different is where we let them go from there.”

Please correct the information below.

Select ticket quantity.

Select Tickets

All Ages
limit 10 per person
Standing Room Only
SRO ADV
$27.27 ($20.00 + $7.27 fees, including tax)

Delivery Method

eTickets