By: Andrew Meeker
On January 31st, Fordham University, Lincoln Center campus hosted singer Ashlyn Rae Willson, known mononymously as Ashe, for its Winterfest, an event held annually by its Campus Activity Board (CAB) in LL Pope Auditorium. Ashe burst onto the American music scene in 2020 when her single “Moral of the Story” was featured in the original Netflix film To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You and peaked at No. 71 on the Billboard Hot 100. This single and 2021’s “Till Forever Falls Apart” featuring Finneas were both certified Gold by the RIAA, and when she released her debut album Ashlyn that May, it entered the Billboard 200. After rolling out her sophomore album Rae in 2022, she took a break from recording and touring due to personal issues, but she returned to the scene in September 2024 with her third album Willson.
Currently, Ashe is opening up for Kelsey Ballerini on tour for the duration of February and is set to headline her own “Trilogy Tour” in May and June, which will celebrate her completed trio of albums. Fordham’s Winterfest, however, was Ashe’s first full show of 2025, and she thanked the audience for providing her with such a warm welcome for this momentous occasion.
Ashe, barefoot and tastefully dressed in a jumpsuit of a shiny blue velvet complemented with skinny black sunglasses, kicked off her set with “omw” (On My Way), a playful single from Rae. After tossing her shades sidestage (my friend has a photo of them stranded post-show), Ashe revisited old favorites from her previous projects such as “Emotional,” “I’m Fine,” and “Another Man’s Jeans,” steadily building up energy in the crowd with her strong vocals and stage presence.
One standout in the first half of her set was “Hope You’re Not Happy,” a spiteful ballad from Rae aimed at her ex-husband, who was also the subject of 2019’s wildly popular “Moral of the Story.” Ashe, as she told the crowd, wrote this song after a close friend commented on how she didn’t have any angry songs about her divorce yet. Cathartic and emphatic, this is my favorite Ashe song. I got goosebumps while she performed it because she was smiling the whole time; she didn’t seem hurt anymore. In July 2024, she got engaged to fellow musician John Canada, and while introducing her band to the audience, Ashe revealed that her drummer is one of her fiancé’s groomsmen. Having listened to Ashe unpack the pain that she has experienced from love and loss in the past, it was so heartwarming to see her so happy.
Later in the show, Ashe performed more hits about her divorce like “Save Myself” with similar resolve. I was pleasantly surprised by “Moral of the Story,” which she performed in a pop-rock style despite the studio version being a heartrending ballad. Time and time again, Ashe reinvented her heartfelt hits for this Fordham audience, (re-)introducing a hopeful and healed version of herself.
To show her current perspective, Ashe performed several tracks from 2024’s Willson including the lead single “Running Out of Time,” which she shared is about her move to Nashville out of Los Angeles at the end of her twenties after struggling with her mental health on the West Coast. She also thanked fellow singer-songwriter Suki Waterhouse for bringing her back to music, performing the pair’s high-spirited 2024 track “Pushing Daisies” after telling a sweet anecdote about Waterhouse encouraging her to come back out of her shell.
Willson makes it seem like the clouds have finally parted for Ashe. While her first two projects are pensive, this third album is positive and forward-looking, but still emotional and quintessentially Ashe. Before playing “Pull the Plug,” she joked about how her love songs are always morbid, proving that while the content of her music is now more uplifting, she won’t be letting go of the powerful metaphors that make her songwriting shine.
In the midst of these new tracks, Ashe performed covers of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and Gracie Abrams’s “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” the latter of which foreshadowing her announcement of joining Abrams on the Australia & New Zealand leg of her Secret of Us tour. With such a packed schedule, Ashe is set to return to the music mainstream triumphantly. I am lucky to have attended this show because this feels like such a pivotal moment in Ashe’s career. Willson is the first album that she released independently after parting ways with New York-based label Mom+Pop. After taking some much needed time to heal, it seems that Ashe is here to stay. Whipping her blonde locks around the stage and bubbling with charisma, Ashes performance matched and even surpassed the quality of the powerful vocals that distinguish her studio recordings. If this show at Fordham’s Lincoln Center is any indication of how she intends to proceed for her upcoming shows, Ashe is set to have an incredibly successful year.
