found family – At United Center on Monday night, Alex Warren used his folk-pop songs—rooted in personal loss and homelessness—to build a room where fans could talk, cry, and feel seen. From a confetti button-pushing survivor of the July 4, 2022 Highland Park parade shooting
When Alex Warren walked into United Center on Monday night, the stakes didn’t feel theoretical. They felt like something you could lean into—like a place where people were finally allowed to stop pretending they were fine.
The leap from headlining House of Blues to United Center is a big one that takes most artists years to accomplish—if at all. For Warren, it took 13 months. But within a few songs. it was clear why the climb came so fast: the 25-year-old digs deep into the human psyche with a folk-pop catalog built around one of the most universal topics of all—grief.
Midway through the set, Warren gave the crowd a prompt that landed with the force of recognition. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever lost someone,” the Californian instructed before he and an eight-piece band launched into “Same Stars.” Nearly every single person threw their arm up in the air.
“Now look around. This is a room where you can cry, this is a room where you can talk about it, this is a room where you’re not alone. Everyone understands that feeling,” he said.
That wasn’t performance patter. Warren knows what those words mean. When he was 9, his father died of cancer. By the time he was a teen, his mother—who struggled with alcoholism—kicked him out of the house, leaving him homeless. She too passed away a few years ago.
Warren turned to music to cope and. over the years. found a groundswell of support on TikTok. where new talents are so often birthed. In 2025, he was one of the most-streamed artists. This year. he earned a Best New Artist Grammy nomination. after a much-talked-about performance on the telecast where he rode out audio glitches for a moment of glory and found an even larger fan base who fell in love with him for it.
The appeal came through viscerally Monday night in numbers that moved from tenderness to release. The soulful opener “Troubled Waters” set the tone. followed by the acoustic “Before You Leave Me. ” and then the slow build of “Save You a Seat. ” which wraps with a moving harmonica breakdown. Another standout was the country throwdown “Bloodline,” which espouses breaking generational trauma. Warren wrote it with Jelly Roll and debuted it live last May during Jelly and Post Malone’s tour stop at Wrigley Field.
Finding Family on the Road Tour is Warren’s first arena jaunt. Even so, he met the room with showmanship that cut through parts of the material that can feel a little too saccharine or overtly worshippy—like “First Time on Earth.”
Throughout the show. vintage home videos of Warren as a talented tot played and were lovingly narrated by his late father. tying the night together with a kind of family archive. Sweet as it was, the night’s stronger pull wasn’t the blood connection on screen. It was the non-blood tribe he was building in real time.
That became unmistakable when the confetti cannon turned into a form of remembrance. Beau Beasley of Highland Park was the designated confetti button pusher at Warren’s United Center show. Beau is a survivor of the July 4. 2022 Highland Park parade shooting. and he coped with the trauma by listening to Warren’s “You’ll Be Alright. Kid.”.
Before the show kicked off, Beau was seen outside in the UC’s parking lot singing 10 songs to raise $10,000 for Lives Robbed, a nonprofit that honors the students killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in 2022.
During the performance of Warren’s new song, “Fever Dream,” from his forthcoming album “Wildchild” out Aug. 28, Warren caught Beau’s poster earlier in the night. It said that Beau was raising money for young lives taken by gun violence. Then, as promised, Beau came to the stage to push the button that set off the cascading stream of paper.
The audience didn’t just watch; they brought pieces of themselves. On Monday, dozens of fans arrived with handmade poster boards, and Warren took the time to read them. One young adult shared that she too was kicked out of the house. “I’ve been there,” Warren replied. Another recently lost their dad due to pancreatic cancer. “Cancer got my dad too. we’re twinning. we’re trauma bonding if you think about it. ” Warren said. also trying to keep things light.
Beyond the sad songs, the night offered a range of upbeat, fully juiced rock numbers as well—like “Getaway Car” and “You Can’t Stop This”—giving the room a kind of breath between heavy moments.
Some fans brought paintings to match Warren’s artsy acoustic guitars, hand-painted by his wife. Another asked for an autograph on her body so she could permanently keep it as a tattoo.
The crowd included young fans like Beau, and plenty of men as well. Warren has become part of a growing trend in pop and folk centered on highly emotive. confessional male singer-songwriters—Lewis Capaldi. Ed Sheeran. and Noah Kahan included—because young fans are craving authenticity and vulnerability.
That message extended to the opener. Opener Noah Cyrus—Miley’s younger. goth-folk sister—won over the crowd early on with new Nashville numbers like “Noah (Stand Still)” written with her dad. Billy Ray Cyrus. and the gospel-tinged “Apple Tree. ” inspired by a hymn her grandfather wrote years ago. She also expressed how much being on the tour has helped her process her own grief after losing a close father figure earlier this year.
Both artists, in their own ways, carried the same theme through the night: family love that can surpass time.
For his final act, Warren returned to the stage decked out in a vintage Chicago Fire jersey for a defiant encore of “Ordinary.” It wasn’t just a song—it was a request. “If you take away anything from this show,” he said, “I ask that you just talk.”
The set list for the June 29. 2026 show at United Center ran as follows: “Troubled Waters. ” “Bloodline. ” “The Outside. ” “First Time on Earth. ” “Before You Leave Me. ” “You’ll Be Alright. Kid. ” “Passenger. ” “Never Be Far. ” “Eternity. ” “Catch My Breath. ” “Same Stars. ” “Heaven Without You. ” “Fine Place to Die. ” “Getaway Car. ” “You Can’t Stop This. ” “Carry You Home. ” “Save You a Seat. ” “Burning Down. ” “Fever Dream. ” and the encore “Ordinary.”.
Alex Warren United Center Finding Family on the Road Tour grief found family TikTok Grammy nomination Noah Cyrus Highland Park parade shooting Uvalde gun violence nonprofit folk-pop