X Ambassadors are a 4 piece alternative rock/pop band residing from Ithaca, New York. Starting in 2009, they've tour with artist such as LIGHTS. and eventually got picked up by Interscope Records in 2013. In 2015, they released their debut album, VHS, which contained radio single, Renegades. Having gaining so much radio success it's no wonder they've sold out most of the dates of their VHS tour. We had some time to make it out to the Pittsburgh date of this tour.

The original roster for this show had Skylar Grey opening, but due to scheduling conflicts, she couldn't make it. Luckily for the crowd, X Ambassadors had booked a very ecstatic band to open for them. The band in question is Avan Lava. Never have I seen so much energy come out of an opener. This band absolutely came out with the will to both hype up X Ambassadors and make new fans. The best detail I noticed about their show is they had practiced choreography for the entire set, making it very exciting to dance to. They blasted through about 8 songs in a 30 minute period and made a lasting impression on the crowd. Now that the crowd was sufficiently excited, X Ambassadors got ready to take the stage.    

X Ambassadors wasted no time starting promptly 15 minutes after Avan Lava's set. They rocketed into many fan favorites such as "Unsteady" and "Fear" (which originally featured Imagine Dragons)  . The sheer emotion that the band put out was tremendous. Every single song was a sing along with the band and many times ended with a big bang of both a guitar and keyboard solo. It was right after the band played the song "Renegades" and made their way off the stage that I noticed something interesting. Casey Harris (keyboardist) was using a walking stick to get off stage. Immediately, I realized what this meant: Casey is blind. After hearing such emotional and amazing music, I didn't expect such a shock like that. Casey has true talent and I could tell he's worked very hard to get to where he is today. The crowd roared for an encore and X Ambassadors came back on stage. They played the song "Jungle", this being one of their bigger songs since it features Jay Z.

I highly recommend you check out X Ambassadors and Avan Lava. Both bands show such an emotional dedication to their music and are very relatable.  X Ambassadors are actually headed out on part 2 of their VHS tour starting in March. You can find the tour dates here.