Formed in 2010 in Tinley Park, Illinois, Real Friends has long been a cornerstone of Midwest pop-punk, shaping the genre through several EPs and four studio albums. While the band grew up fueled by the intimacy of no-barricade club venues, they perform with the same passion and intensity on larger stages. On January 9, they played an electrifying set at the Salt Shed as a supporting act for State Champs’ Around the World and Back 10-year anniversary tour.
Real Friends is not a band you see once and move on from. Whether you’re a longtime fan or discovering them for the first time, this is a band that keeps pulling you back. What ultimately sets their live performances apart is how fully each member engages, transforming the show into an emotional exchange rather than a purely technical one. Each song tells a story built from moments, memories, and emotions pulled directly from the band members’ lives. It’s impossible not to feel like you’re stepping into the music, not only as an observer, but as a participant.
Vocalist Cody Muraro took command the moment he stepped onstage, shouting, “Let’s wake this room up, let’s go!” He moved with near-inexhaustible energy, one moment executing a high kick on stage left, the next spinning toward stage right before dropping five feet onto the barricade. From there, he thrust the microphone toward the crowd, pulling them into the bridge of “Late Nights in My Car.”
Muraro’s gesture was more than an invitation; it was permission for the audience to fully release their emotion as they sang one of the band’s most renowned lines, “If you never break/ you’ll never know how to put yourself back together.” The front of the stage erupted into chaos as crowd-surfers emerged from every direction. Seconds later, Muraro himself dove in, briefly crowd-surfing before seamlessly returning to the stage as the track ended. It was only their first song, and the room was captivated.
As the set went on, Muraro found ways to keep the audience involved. He jumped back into the crowd to perform “I’ve Given Up On You” from the middle of the general admission section and later asked “who here has never crowd-surfed before?” before encouraging attendees to do so during their performance of “Six Feet.”
While Muraro drove the set’s momentum, that intensity was met and sustained by the rest of the band, composed of bassist Kyle Fasel, drummer Brian Blake, guitarist Eric Haines, and guitarist and backing vocalist Brad Harvey (filling in for Dave Knox). Fasel, who is also the creative force behind most of the band’s lyrics, eagerly interacted with the audience throughout the show, sometimes singing along, or shouting “let’s go!” while motioning for the crowd to sing, jump, or open up a circle pit.
The connection Real Friends share with their fans goes beyond live settings and isn’t built on performative care or empty niceties. Instead, it is grounded in consistency and sincerity. Their appreciation shows up in small, intentional gestures that don’t go unnoticed: order merch from the band and it won’t arrive from the distributor’s warehouse; rather, the band members pack it themselves, often including a free sticker or pin, a handwritten note, or even a holiday card.
That sense of genuine care is reciprocated by fans, and it was perhaps what gave Real Friends the confidence to independently release their most ambitious full-length album, Blue Hour, in 2024. Beyond the logistical risk of moving forward without the support of a major record label (the band had previously been signed to Fearless Records, and later Pure Noise Records), the greater leap lay in the decision to let go of expectations and commit fully to making the album they wanted to make. The result was the band’s strongest and most cohesive record to date, earning praise from longtime fans while drawing in new listeners.
One of the album’s most intimate songs, “Waiting Room,” confronts loss with moving honesty: “After I knew there was only bad news/ your hospital bed felt more like a waiting room. And I had to leave before you left/ ’cause I was too weak to watch your last breath.” There’s no need for abstraction; instead, the lyrics focus on specific moments that often go unspoken. Though still relatively new in the band’s nearly 15-year history, the chorus filled the room as the crowd sang along to the line, “I thought time healed every wound ’til I lost you,” a testament to how deeply listeners connect to the emotional weight of those lyrics.
The set closed with a powerful performance of “Tell Me You’re Sorry,” a song that channels the need for accountability after experiencing betrayal: “Tell me, tell me that you’re sorry/ even if you’re lying through your teeth./ Tell me, tell me that you’re trying/ just to break the silence and put this behind us.” The song’s fast tempo and sharply articulated guitar riffs built the tension towards its final breakdown. As the instruments briefly pulled back, Muraro seized the moment to shout: “We’re a band called ‘Real Friends,’ bang your f*cking heads!” The band hit the final drop in unison, headbanging before the drums crashed to a dramatic stop.
A brief moment of calm hung after the final note, as if the room needed a moment to catch its breath after the high. As the waves of crowd surfers came to a halt, the audience exploded in cheers and applause. Nearby, echoes of attendees turning to friends and exclaiming variations of “wow, that was great!” broke through. Before walking off the stage, the band invited the crowd to pose for a picture, remarking the significance of this being a hometown show for them. As they gave the room one final glance, their faces lit with gratitude, pride, and, above all, a genuine love for what they do.
Real Friends might only be supporting a handful of Around the World and Back tour dates, but, late last year, they shared through their email list that they were “out of town writing new music.” What’s more, their annual holiday card promised “lots of new music coming [in] 2026.”
