As a rule, musician Adam Ezra ’99 never walks on stage with a setlist. Instead, he says, he simply reads the room.
“If you’ve ever talked to someone who knows all the things they’re going to say before the conversation starts, it can be a pretty uninspiring conversation,” says Ezra, guitarist and vocalist for the Adam Ezra Group. “I want our shows to feel as much like a conversation as a performance.”
That approach is central to how Ezra, whose full name is Adam Ezra Olshansky, and his band have built a following over the past 25 years — slowly, and almost entirely through live shows. What began in bars and small clubs has grown into a national following, with fans traveling across the country to attend concerts and annual gatherings celebrating the band’s music. In June the folk-rock group headlined Boston’s House of Blues — its biggest show to date — and released its latest album, Revelate, which draws on Ezra’s experiences as a touring musician and father.
The band’s rise began more than two decades ago in and around Boston, Ezra’s hometown. “I think we played every dirty, nasty bar in New England,” Ezra recalls, joking that the band “often outnumbered the audience.”
But those audiences grew. Listeners brought friends and over time, that loyal following became a community — and a defining part of the band’s shows. Fans, who refer to themselves collectively as “the Traveling Village,” don’t just watch; they participate. Some songs include call-and-response moments or well-timed claps, and over the years, fans have developed relationships not only with the band, but also with one another.
Their devotion is about more than just the music, according to Ezra. At a time when many interactions take place through screens, he says, people are hungry for genuine, in-person connection.
“I think there is a deep longing in us for connection. It’s at the deepest core of who we are as people,” he says. “[At our shows] it feels like we’re offering something that doesn’t exist much anymore.”
For a band that thrives on real-life interaction, the COVID-19 pandemic posed an obvious challenge. With live shows on hold, Ezra turned to livestreaming, performing nightly from home as a way to stay connected. Over 500 consecutive nights, fans tuned in as he tested new material, often sharing songs before they were finished and refining them in real time. Many of those songs went on to become part of Revelate.
The livestream series also inspired the band’s annual Winter Gathering, a multiday festival at Vermont’s Lake Morey Resort, where the group performs nightly and band members socialize and dine with fans.
Another opportunity for fans to connect — and give back — comes each August in Ashburnham, Mass., during The Ramble. Now in its 17th year, the pay-what-you-can festival hosted by the Adam Ezra Group and their nonprofit RallySound has raised funds to support veterans facing homelessness. Last summer’s event drew nearly 1,500 fans (“Ramblers”) and raised $161,000 for the New England Center and Home for Veterans.
“It’s a testament to the power of small communities when we’re able to come together to do a little good in the world,” Ezra says.
While Ezra welcomes the band’s growing audience and success, he acknowledges that it has also changed some of the dynamics that helped build their following in the first place. Larger venues come with radius clauses — contractual restrictions that limit how often an artist can perform in the same market — which means fewer shows in a given area and fewer opportunities for the kind of intimate audience connection that shaped the band’s early years.
Ezra, however, isn’t overly concerned. After all, he has spent 25 years learning how to connect with whoever is in front of him, whether it’s hundreds of people in a theater or a handful in a bar. No matter the venue, he says, the band still ends every show with “The Toast,” a song about appreciating the people around you and the moment you’re sharing together.
“I love how every show starts out feeling like we are a bunch of individuals in a room,” he says. “But by the end, if we’ve done it right, it feels like we’re a community, having experienced something together.”
One of the most personal tracks on Revelate is “Pocket Full of Seashells,” inspired by Ezra’s habit of collecting seashells during his travels to bring home to his daughters.
