Come On and Get In: Fruition in Portland, March 22
Review by Kara Wilbeck
Photos by Alexander Maso
Fruition is all grown up.
There’s something a little sad and nostalgic about watching a favorite hometown band leave on a huge cross-country tour and preparing for a summer full of dates at large national festivals. Not long from now, all of Portland will be reminiscing about the days when we could go see Fruition at a bar, and even have dancing room.
At the same time, there isn’t much that’s more interesting or exciting than a band that’s on the edge of a cliff — just on the verge of making it for real. Fruition’s songs have already garnered play time on Sirius XM radio’s “Jam On” station, and they’ve also been surprised to find themselves featured on the homepages of JamBase.com and JamBands.com.
Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek
In recent summers, fans battled to get Fruition a spot on the main stage at Horning’s Hideout. Now the battle will be for the band to earn itself a place on the main stages of All Good, High Sierra and beyond.
Before their departure on a massive tour, which started recently in Montana and will continue with dates in the midwest and northeast, Fruition made sure to leave Portland with a party of only the highest, rowdiest caliber. Bringing good friends the Dead Winter Carpenters on board, they took over Portland’s Star Theater for a night to play for one of their favorite crowds.
Dead Winter Carpenters
Fruition, while drawing a wild crowd of avid devotees whose fervor can almost be offsetting, brings a lot more to the table than a great party. Simply stated, they’re great musicians, and equally great songwriters. Trading writing and vocal duties among three members, mandolinist Mimi Naja and guitarists Kellen Asebroek and Jay Cobb Anderson, no clear frontman emerges on the stage. The songs are made fully danceable by upright bassist Keith Simon and drummer Tyler Thompson. Moreover, the songs are accessible upon first listen — they easily get stuck in your head, yet rarely wear out their welcome. This is one of the main indicators that Fruition has a pretty good shot at mainstream popularity.
Their sound is… jeez, for a string band, Fruition is awfully hard to define! They’re certainly not bluegrass… folk? No, that’s not it either. Fruition’s songs can be anthems of the road or heartbreaking ballads. They’re anything but traditional string band fare.
Fruition
Over at the Star Theater, which is on the smaller side of the legitimate Portland music venues (read: not bars), the walls are bursting at the seams. Fruition’s about overgrown its britches. The crowd doesn’t mind packing in, though. Most Fruition fans in Portland share the same tight-knit community, bound by a mutual love of music — and especially this band.
The night starts off with the Dead Winter Carpenters, a Tahoe string band that is also enjoying an increasingly high level of notoriety. This band can best be described as gypsy-pirate-grass, and they bring some serious energy to the stage. Led by the boisterous fiddler Jenni Charles, the Dead Winter Carpenters are at the forefront of a youthful generation trying to redefine what string music is and what it can do.
Not merely an opening band, the Dead Winter Carpenters fill up Oregon theaters on their own, so it goes without saying that by the time Fruition takes the stage, the crowd is well beyond warmed up. Fruition makes a point of starting every show with a high-energy number with a driving beat, jumping into their set head first and not looking back. In this case, that song is “Bent,” from the band’s 2012 EP “It Won’t Be Long.” ….. CONTINUE READING HERE