Last Saturday, November 16th, Ashe performed a sold out show here in Oregon State’s own Memorial Union Ballroom. OSU was one of three shows that Ashe performed in the entirety of 2024. Two of those being at universities.

I had previously seen Ashe perform in 2022 for her Fault Line tour and was completely drawn in by the way she performs and connects to her audiences. Seeing that she was coming to campus made me ecstatic.

She recently took a year and a half off of music, canceling her previous tour, not knowing when she would return to the career. As one of few shows apart from her slow return to performance, she said to the crowd, “What better way and what safer arms to be with again after all this time away. You are the loveliest, most sweet, salt of the earth people and I just feel so lucky to play this show and to be with you tonight, so thank you.” After expressing her gratitude she proceeded to play a cover of, ‘I love you, I’m sorry’, by another widely popular artist, Gracie Abrams.

Among her setlist she played ‘Moral of the Story’ which was the song that started it all and kicked off her music career. With ‘Moral of the Story’ being released in 2019, it has now been streamed more than 850 million times, gaining its popularity from being featured in the popular film, ‘To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You’. Her discography has an artist’s dream roster of collaborations including songs with Niall Horan, Finneas, and Suki Waterhouse. She has now surpassed over 10 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

For the show, she kicked off her performance with, ‘Running Out of Time’, which is the second track off of her latest album, Willson. The atmosphere was perfect– for it being a sold out show with more than 500 tickets sold, Ashe didn’t fail to make it feel intimate. The set included a cute flower theme with vines on the mic stand, daisy shaped balloons scattering the walls, star shaped lights, and a disco ball.

Joined by a talented group of musicians in her band, she made sure to give each of them a heartfelt introduction to the crowd. Emma Harvey was playing guitar, Scooter Spicer was on the drums, and Jackson Dyson was on the keys. The way they all played together brought the crowd an abundance of optimistic energy, people couldn’t help but dance with those around them. I was happy to see so many people living in the moment and just listening to the music. The majority wasn’t consumed by technology and caught up in recording the entire thing. This way Ashe was able to connect with her audience and have more intimate moments with fans here and there.

A fun surprise was her cover of ‘Good Luck Babe’ by Chappell Roan. Which was her second to last song before ending her performance with her hit, ‘Moral of the Story’. When the first note of ‘Moral of the Story’ rang out, the entire crowd burst into cheers as for many this was the song they had been waiting for.

Personally,  my favorites she performed and that I highly recommend people listen to are her songs ‘Save Myself’ from her album Ashlyn, ‘Another Man’s Jeans’ from her album Rae, and ‘Please don’t fall in love with me’ from her album Willson. A fun fact I learned about her three albums she has released is that they spell out her full name, Ashlyn Rae Willson.

For those who couldn’t attend here’s the rest of set list: 

After the concert, I discovered that many who attended hadn’t previously listened to many of her songs, but Ashe walks away touching and inspiring those who went. Some people talked about feeling connected to her as an artist now. Students made comments like, “I can almost see how she performs whenever I listen on my phone now”, “I felt really connected with the way that she presented with the audience and I felt that her performance was really humanizing”, and “I thought it was really cool to see someone who seemed so appreciative of how excited the audience was to see her.”