X Ambassadors band members Casey and Sam Harris, along with their drummer Adam Levin, gathered in California for a virtual performance for ETSU students on Aug. 29. Sam Harris donned an ETSU shirt as he led the concert via Zoom with his band mates.
The hour-long set included 11 songs, concluding with their two biggest hits “Unsteady” and “Renegade”. Sam Harris explained that this was the first performance they had done together since March.
“We basically had to evacuate to the U.S. because there were all of a sudden these border restrictions and we did not want to get trapped abroad,” Levin said. “We have not even been able to play together as a band until now.”
Two of the songs that Sam Harris described as taking up new meaning to him during quarantine are “Torches” and “Wasteland”. “Wasteland” is about Ithaca, New York, where both Casey and Sam Harris grew up.
“This time’s been making everyone a little homesick, so this song was written about our hometown, where Casey and I grew up in upstate New York,” said Sam Harris. “This kind of weird place in the middle of nowhere, and I have been thinking a lot about home recently.”
The band joked about the absence of applause and touring crew to help tune their instruments during transitions, but they also talked about how they missed the face to face interaction with fans.
“I just had a Zoom kind of meet and greet thing around the promotion of our new song ‘Zen’,” Sam Harris said, “I was talking to a young man, and he was telling me about how much [‘Unsteady’] meant to him. It was so moving to hear his story, and I feel like I am never going to take hearing those moments for granted.”
Following the concert, attendees were invited to attend their own meet and greet with the band, hosted by Carter Warden, the director of student activities and organizations, as well as ETSU Student Government Association members. Students were asked questions through the Q&A feature and got to talk directly to band members before concluding with a group Zoom picture. SGA president Shivam Patel finished the event by thanking everyone for attending and participating.
Welcome week activities continue this week with events such as a virtual trivia night and a drive-in movie showing of “Grease”. For more information, contact Student Activities and Organizations at sao@etsu.edu, or visit https://www.etsu.edu/students/sao/welcomeweek.php.
