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 Alex Warren, it took 13 months. But just a few songs into his set at United Center on Monday night, it was easy to see why. The soulful 25-year-old digs deep into the human psyche with his folk-pop canon, eloquently putting to song a candid conversation about navigating one of the most universal topics of all: grief.
He proved it halfway through the show. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever lost someone,” the Californian instructed the attentive crowd before he and an eight-piece band launched into the tearjerker “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.”
Warren knows from experience. He’s someone who’s struggled and won the fight and wants to talk about it. When he was 9, Warren’s 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, with 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.
This appeal came through viscerally Monday night on several numbers like the soulful opener “Troubled Waters,” followed by the acoustic burner “Before You Leave Me” and the slow build of “Save You a Seat” that wraps with a moving harmonica breakdown. Another standout was the country throwdown “Bloodline” that 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.
Warren’s Finding Family on the Road Tour is the budding star’s first arena jaunt. And though it may seem premature, Warren rises to the challenge with heavy showmanship that helps cut through some of the material that can feel a little too saccharine or overtly worshippy like the hokey “First Time on Earth.” Thematically, the show is tied together by vintage home videos of Warren as a talented tot that play throughout the night, all lovingly narrated by his late father. While sweet, it’s actually the non-blood tribe he’s binding together on the road that is taking over his scrapbook.
On Monday, dozens of fans showed up with handmade poster boards, which Warren graciously took the time to read. 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” that provided a nice buffer.)
Some other fans brought paintings to match Warren’s artsy acoustic guitars that were hand-painted by his wife. Another asked for an autograph on her body so she could permanently keep it as a tattoo.
But there was one little boy who stood out, 10-year-old Beau Beasley from Highland Park. He got the chance to be the night’s designated confetti button pusher. Each night, Warren picks someone from the audience to set off the cascading stream of paper during the performance of his new song, “Fever Dream,” from his forthcoming album “Wildchild” out Aug. 28. Warren caught Beau’s poster earlier in the night, which said that he was raising money for young lives taken by gun violence.
Beau is a survivor of the July 4, 2022, Highland Park parade shooting, and coped with the trauma by listening to Warren’s “You’ll Be Alright, Kid.” Before the show kicked off, the young boy 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.
The crowd was full of young fans like Beau and a good amount of men, too, as Warren even recognized. The crooner has become part of a growing trend in pop and folk that’s zeroing in on highly emotive and confessional male singer-songwriters like Lewis Capaldi, Ed Sheeran and Noah Kahan who fill a desire for authenticity and vulnerability that young fans are craving.
Opener Noah Cyrus (Miley’s younger, goth-folk sister) is one of them, expressing how much being on the tour has helped her process her own grief after losing a close father figure earlier this year. She 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. Both were in lockstep with the night’s overarching message of 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,” where he made a case for normalizing talking about our feelings. “If you take away anything from this show,” he said, “I ask that you just talk.”
Alex Warren set list for June 29, 2026, show at United Center
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
Encore
Ordinary