SILVERSTEIN / REAL FRIENDS / BROADSIDE / GREYHAVEN – LIVE
By Mia Palazzo
Silverstein brought their 25 Years of Noise (Part 2) tour to Hartford’s iconic Webster Theater for an incredible night of music. The 21-date tour features Illinois quintet Real Friends as direct support, with Broadside and Greyhaven, all well-known bands in this scene.
Fans arrived early at the venue to get a good spot on the barricade, with the venue packing in very quickly by the 6:30 p.m. start time that Greyhaven was set to go on stage. Immediately upon taking the stage, I was blown away by the crowd’s reaction to this band. The first song on their setlist, “The Welcome Party,” starts with a very technical-sounding guitar riff, then, mixed with Brent Mills’ vocals and the bass and drums, creates something of a perfect mix. The song, released in 2024, almost reminded me of an old school kind of Every Time I Die vibe, but a bit more technical. Greyhaven’s set was quick, with only seven songs. The songs spanned their entire discography, which I quite enjoyed. Their set ended with “Echo and Dust Pt. I” and “II,” which had a good amount of fans in the crowd singing along.
The next band up was Broadside. I will be honest, I’ve heard of this band a bunch through friends and peers and never took the chance to give them a listen, regrettably so, because their set was spectacular. The set opened with the song “Stranger,” the opening track to their 2023 album Hotel Bleu, which the band played a notably generous amount of songs off of, but with good reason, because it seemed that fans were grooving with the songs off this album the most. Broadside also played “I Think They Know,” a single they released on Friday (after the show), that really seemed to get fans excited. This set was also the first with crowd surfing, and set the barricade staff up for a long night of work. Another notable feature about this band live is that they will be grooving to their own music. The entire set, the vocalist was dancing along to the music on stage, which was rather engaging to watch.
Somehow, even though it in no way felt remotely close to possible, we were already on the third band, it was time for Real Friends. Even before entering the stage, fans began to cheer for the band in anticipation. One thing to note about my history with Real Friends is that I saw them years ago when I was just starting to get into this type of music. I had no clue who they were, but they were at an outdoor festival with some of my favorite bands at the time, and the fans went absolutely wild for them. I saw them on their last tour and expected nothing less from the crowd, even five years later, and they delivered. So naturally, for this show, I expected the same.
The band’s 40-minute set started with the song “Waiting Room,” which immediately had the crowd from front to back singing along. A pit immediately opened in the middle of the floor, and crowd surfers started flying over the barricade. During “Late Nights in My Car,” vocalist Cody Muraro jumped down off the stage and onto the barricade, singing along with fans and even going for a small crowd surf himself before returning back to the stage. This energy carried on throughout their set, with the band playing some of their biggest, most notable songs.
If you’ve seen Real Friends, you know that during the song “I’ve Given Up on You,” Muraro will make his way into the middle of the crowd. Of course for this show he did, and this had to be my favorite part of the entire set. With only the fans’ flashlights illuminating the room, they formed a circle around Muraro, packed in, and sang along with each and every word of the song. You could see the emotion not only coming from him but from the fans in the crowd, with some even shedding tears, and one mentioning that this song will be her wedding song. Back on the stage, the band continued through their set and even played a cover of “The Taste of Ink” by The Used, which absolutely had people in the crowd moving and excited. The set concluded with “Tell Me You’re Sorry,” and with that, it was time for Silverstein.
Anticipation for Silverstein was strong, and it succeeded after what felt like a very long intermission (it wasn’t long at all, I was just excited). They have a video they play before they come on, a little teaser of their coming up, thanking fans for their continued support that got the crowd cheering and excited, and with that, the band came on fast and immediately opened up into “Skin & Bones.” One thing I will always love about seeing a Silverstein show is that you get a show, if you know what I mean. The stage presence is everything with them. The light show is always spectacular, and their stage setup, formed with numerous layers and the drummer on a very tall platform, adds to the dynamic of their set designs.
Throughout the first three songs of me photographing the band, I had to have watched about 30 crowd surfers fly over the barricade, all of whom were singing along and seemed to be ecstatic. Everyone in the crowd had smiles on their faces as they screamed the words to the songs. And I mean a generous amount of people knew a surprising number of words to these songs, showing the impact this band has really had.
Silverstein played through just about the same setlist they did on the last leg of the tour, which I am not at all complaining about, because this is a setlist that is perfect for the fans.
The highlights of the setlist included “Infinite,” “The Afterglow,” and “Bad Habits.” The structure of their encore will always be my favorite, as they play “Smile in Your Sleep,” a very prominent song in their history, then walk off stage and in the encore play an acoustic rendition of “My Heroine,” which as always invoked such a strong sense of emotion from the crowd. This is followed by “Smashed Into Pieces” and “Bleeds No More,” the perfect conclusion for a very energetic night.
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