X Ambassadors brought an intimate yet enthusiastic performance to The Canopy Club on Sept. 20. Their 75-minute performance had no lulls and kept the sizable crowd engaged throughout.
X Ambassadors is a pop rock trio from Ithaca, New York, composed of brothers Sam and Casey Harris in addition to Adam Levin.
The band broke into the music scene with their overwhelmingly successful debut album “VHS.”
The album contains two of their biggest hits, “Unsteady” and “Renegades,” which both went platinum numerous times.
The Canopy Club was a stop on their Townie Tour, surrounding their latest album release, “Townie.” A sizable crowd in the half-full pit section knew every word of every song.
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The show began with a bang as an acoustic guitar medley built up into a fresh version of “Renegades.” This song was instantly popular with the crowd, and frontman Sam Harris immediately went into a call-and-response chorus.
It was a bold and confident start for the trio, and by playing one of their most well-known songs at the start, they set the tone for an engaging performance.
“Renegades” transitioned smoothly into “No Strings,” a song off of their latest album. The band continued the momentum into this song and the crowd could feel it. During a bridge breakdown, drummer Adam Levin had an intense solo that built into a booming final chorus.
“Thank you so much for having us, Urbana-Champaign,” Harris said gratefully. “It’s been 10 years since we have been in the area. Thank you, Pygmalion, for hosting us.”
Harris continued to speak about his songwriting influences.
“This song is about driving around and smoking a lot of weed,” Harris said about “Smoke On the Highway.”
A slower acoustic start did not prevent a lively performance of this song. A steady drum beat delivered by Levin turned into a powerful guitar solo that caused a roar to erupt from the crowd.
The next two songs, “Boom” and “I’m Not Really Here,” kept a groove despite the lack of lyrical substance in the songs. Sam Harris took these songs as an opportunity to show off his dance moves as he frolicked around the stage and made exciting gestures to the crowd.
After this three-song streak, Sam Harris humorously said to the crowd, “One time I saw a meme that I was featured in along with Peter Griffin from Family Guy; That’s how I knew that I made it.”
From there, the band went into one chorus of “Home,” a song from the film “Bright.” The song normally features Machine Gun Kelly and Bebe Rexha, but they cut it short and went into an excitable rendition of “Hey Child.”
“Hey Child” contained more crowd work as Harris motioned to clap along and pointed the microphone into the pit section to provoke a singalong. The song contained personal lyrics about settling down and having children, and the crowd hollered at those milestones.
They continued with “Adrenaline,” a breathy song powered by an anthem-like guitar riff and more jumping around the stage from the frontman.
Harris took his next break from the music to deliver a powerful monologue that details the progression of “Townie.”
“This album is about growing up in upstate New York in a town not too dissimilar from here, a college town in the middle of nowhere,” Harris said.
Harris drew a parallel from Champaign-Urbana to Ithaca, New York, and continued to say “No matter how high I climb or how low I fall, I will always be a kid from that town.”
Harris dedicated the next song to “a teacher of mine who passed away a couple years ago — the man who convinced me to get up on stage and sing.”
An intimate rendition of “Your Town” followed this statement. This track was a slow acoustic ballad accompanied by convincing vocals and an emotional chorus. The crowd swayed side-to-side and was captivated by the end when they played a voicemail message that said, “I’m so proud of you. Keep going.”
After this heartwarming point in the show, they turned up the energy once again with “Ahead of Myself.”
Their next two songs tell the story of a passionate and loving relationship into a painful breakup and dealing with solitude. “Halfway” was a ballad which had all lovers in the crowd embracing each other.
The Harrises then ripped their hearts out with “Happy People,” a song co-written with Jac Ross and Grammy award-winning artist, Teddy Swims. This was another emotional song in which Harris fell to his knees while delivering a powerful vocal run.
Before going into “Friend for Life,” Harris gave a positive message to the crowd, advising them to “call up your best friend tomorrow and catch up.” Most of the crowd knew the words to this one, and it was done mostly a cappella aside from brief guitar chords in the chorus.
After this, a captivating and impressive keyboard solo from Casey Harris climaxed into “Unsteady,” and the crowd roared with approval. The falsetto of the chorus rang throughout the main stage with the crowd vocalizing in unison.
The empty-handed frontman delivered a guitar halfway through “Unsteady” and ended with a booming guitar solo.
As the song ended, X Ambassadors gave one last thank you to the supporters and marched off the stage. The crowd erupted and did not stop jeering for over a minute and chanted for “one more song.”
To the pleasure of the crowd, the band came back onto the stage and dueling guitars marked the intro of “Jungle.” An extremely powerful and rambunctious ending to the set left the crowd off on a high note.
The band met at center stage for an embrace and said a final goodbye to the crowd. They received a strong ovation — a testament to the energy of the set.
