As the year 2023 wound down, Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo House of Music was the place to be where Fruition, in its first area show in six years, gave an electrifying, and intimate, performance. From the opening notes of “Labor of Love” to the closing encore, “Boil Over,” the band had the near sold-out crowd dancing and singing along all night.

North Carolina-based Sarah Shook (“but you can call me River”) & The Disarmers hit the Wild Buffalo stage at precisely 8:30pm, opening the evening with their distinctive brand of country-punk rock and roll, on Dec. 28. River has come a long way since I first saw them perform in September 2018, not the least of which is the shiny red mullet they now sport.

Superficiality aside, though, the band performs with a self-confidence and muscularity that validates Shook’s focus on songwriting, recording, and performing (a conscious decision made several years ago when they got sober). By the end of the hour-long set, the previously sparse audience had transformed into a packed crowd, pressing the stage with heads bobbing and toes tapping.

By the time Fruition appeared, the crowd was primed for the headliner. Wasting no time, Jay Cobb Anderson’s expressive guitar sliced through and over the melodies laser beam-like as he took full advantage of the open stage, the music energizing his body as he danced, jumped, and exhorted the adoring audience to just have fun (“that’s all you have to do!”).

Sometimes Fruition is labeled a bluegrass band, but its music draws on a variety of influences: folk, country, rock, and blues. Anderson and bandmates Kellen Asebroek (piano, acoustic guitar vocals), Jeff Leonard (bass), Mimi Naja (mandolin, electric guitar, vocals), and Tyler Thompson (drums) brought a heat and energy that rivaled the best rockabilly (e.g., Reverand Horton Heat, The Blasters), but without the sense of danger those bands project. Rather, Fruition’s music felt much lighter, songs to dance to on sun-splashed afternoons (even if performed in a darkened Bellingham listening room).

Anderson mentioned a new album coming “sometime” in 2024, and the band played several new songs, but the night was dedicated to its extensive back catalog and songs from the last studio release, Broken at the Break of Day (2020). The Portland, Oregon-based band began as many do: as buskers. Asebroek, Naja, and Anderson discovered their affinity for three-part harmony performing on Portland’s streets back in 2008.

Since then, dedication, constant touring, and more busking, have earned the band a loyal national fan base has resulted in five full-length albums, several singles and Eps, and a live album (released in February 2022). As Asebroek explains on the Fruition website: “Something that has always tied our variable styles together is the honesty in the songwriting, the attention paid toward what is genuinely and deeply catchy, not superficially so. Vocal harmonies have also always been a unifying tool for our band. The Fruition sound has always been about being more than the sum of our parts.”

Stream Broken at the Break of Day on Spotify.

Those songs were indeed deeply catchy this night, Mimi’s mandolin a constant reminder of Fruition’s bluegrass roots, tempered by Leonard and Thompson’s rock-solid back beat, and sweetened with those gorgeous harmonies.

Watch Fruition perform “Labor of Love” live in-studio on the Bridge 909 on YouTube.

After opening with “Labor of Love,” “Take It Back,” with its warm, Americana feel, provided a perfect segue into the bluegrass energy of
“The Meaning.” “Let’s Take it Too Far,” the evening’s first ballad flowed into the light funk of “Santa Fe” with Naja on lead vocals. Anderson let loose on the explosive “I’ll Never Sing Your Name” with Naja sprinkling in some tasty lead guitar fills.

The bluesy “Driving into the Storm” (from the single, 45 Series, Vol. 2), with its “Keep on, keep on, keep on going” refrain gave Anderson an opportunity to address the crowd telling us just “to keep on going into 2024.”

As we headed into the final songs of the evening, we got a surprise cover from a local band (as Anderson noted). Performed as a simple folk ballad, Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You into the Dark” sparked a massive singalong and a fitting nod to one of the region’s beloved bands.

“Counting the Days,” with Naja taking lead vocals, helped close the evening with another lovely Fruition ballad. The set ended with “Can You Tell Me,” after which the band returned for a two-song encore: “Mountain Annie,” a spirited bluegrass number featuring Naja’s mandolin, and another joyful singalong. “Boil Over” finished the show on an energetic and positive note with lyrics that ask us to be better: “Rise up above, cause that anger is makin’ you ugly.”

Watch Fruition perform “Boil Over” on New Year’s Eve 2019 at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, on YouTube.

For information on future live dates, new music, and videos, please visit Fruition’s website.

Here are some photos of Fruition performing at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo House of Music on Dec. 28, 2023. All photos courtesy of and copyright Mark Caicedo.