‘Sing-Songs, Song-Alongs, and Jumping, Jumping Jumps’: Student Bands Make Marvelous Moves at WHRB Concert

On Friday, Sept. 19, in the liminal space of Pennypacker basement — lit a moody purple and shimmering under the glow of fairy lights, multi-colored disco projectors, and a makeshift lamp — WHRB hosted a dynamic, electrifying, yet intimate program by student performers Eleni Paris, Time Being, and Droga.

While their main stint is operating the popular FM variety radio station, the team at WHRB also regularly curates a lineup of live weekend concerts throughout the year. Sept. 19 was the second concert of the season and organized by Molly E. Egan ’26, lead singer of Time Being and member of WHRB’s Record Hospital department, and Emil J. Droga ’26.5, lead singer and guitarist of Droga.

Egan and Droga named “Born to Run” as the central, unifying theme of the show; the energy of that statement was evident in the setlists and moshing crowd. The night started off on a sweeter note with Eleni P. Sekas-Dadian ’26, known artistically as Eleni Paris, sharing three original songs, the first two from an EP released last December: “Cry with Me,” “Minute of the Hour,” and “Gross.” The indie-folk singer-songwriter’s soulful voice, delicate fingerstyle guitar playing, and vulnerable thematic choices drew warm applause and murmurs from the crowd.

For Dadian, the WHRB space is a “true home base” and, as she claims, the best spot on campus for music explorations outside of the considerably more traditional-Harvardian institutions of a capella, classical music, and musical theater. To be clear, this sentiment extends past how WHRB represents a diversity of genres on air and describes how the radio team creates opportunities for Harvard’s student musicians to share their music on a bigger platform and connect with local artists outside of the Harvard bubble.

Dadian’s own experience playing a show for WHRB with a band of Berklee students exemplifies this view.

“Once you have kind of established yourself a little bit in the place that you want to establish yourself in, I truly think that the best thing to do is to move outside of Harvard and bring [outside musicians] in. Because I’ve done a lot of shows with BU and Northeastern bands at Harvard’s campus, and I brought them in as much as they brought me into their space,” she said.

She also spoke directly about the show she did at WHRB.

“The last time I played here was two years ago, and I did a show on air. So my family and friends were able to listen on the radio to me playing a live show. It was really fun and I did like a full hour set with a band playing my songs,” she said.

Following Dadian, the band Time Being — composed of Egan on vocals and bass, Max M. Jepsen ’26 on the piano and guitar, and Caleb K. Levine ’26 on drums — got the crowd up on their feet and grooving to “Is This It” by The Strokes and “Feeling Like I Do” by Superdrag, and their own mashup of Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids” with “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John. They ended with an encore of The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” while joking that “you can always count on the Time Being for an encore.”

The crowd bopped in time, spun each other around, and sang along with gusto, especially to the last two songs. Audience member Sandro M. Colacito-Bobadilla ’29 reflects on the ease of the atmosphere, the tech work, and active crowd.

“The space is pretty comfortable. There’s no space to get up. There’s no space to sit down. The acoustics sound really nice. Honestly, everything in there sounds really great. It feels really great,” he said.

After a quick set change, Droga stepped in to deliver pure Michael Bolton — eight thunderous songs that had people headbanging and moshing fiercely.

As Droga quipped at the end of the night, “There was a mix of sing-songs, song-alongs, some jumping, jumping, jumps, some marvelous moshing and modulations.”

Speaking as an audience member and enthusiastic mosher, Jepsen remarked on the flow of the night: “We had a beautiful first performance which brought everyone in. And then the openers kind of got the people going a little. And then Droga got us, you know, super hyped,” he said.

According to WHRB president Ashwin H. Sivakumar ’26, Friday night was the largest live show WHRB has had in several months, referring to the length of the concert — almost three hours — and the size of the crowd.

“Usually,” Sivakumar said, “these [shows] are Friday nights, Saturday nights, two hours, hour and a half.”

He continued: “Sometimes we have people from Harvard, like these guys — Harvard undergrad bands. Sometimes we have people from the Boston area, like recent Harvard grads who were in WHRB. Sometimes we have local Boston artists who come in, usually on the underground scene.”

But of course, their biggest event of the year is the annual Record Hospital Fest, a charity music event, which similarly invites acts from all over Boston and “sometimes even further afield.”

Sivakumar added, saying: “People are very eager to play here usually. There’s a sort of kinship between Boston live musical acts and college radio. There’s sort of an understanding that people will come in here to give us their music.”

The coordinators of the live shows, when they initially throw out the main concept behind the concert, “they’ll have a contact” as they typically also are local musicians themselves.

But instead of bringing in an outside act, Sept. 19 spelled out an effort to reconnect the rest of campus with the three music acts, especially since the concert was designed to be a homecoming for Time Being and Droga. Egan and Jepsen had studied abroad last semester, and Droga took a gap semester. In addition, the groups specifically looked forward to returning to WHRB, as an organization dear to their hearts.

“It’s lovely to be back in WHRB,” Egan said, “because WHRB is ‘the spot’ since freshman year,” with audibly fond emphasis on “the spot.”

“And now we can let out our frustrations,” she said jokingly, referring to the outpouring of energy that was the concert.

Egan continued in a light tone: “It’s really awesome to know that Droga’s on campus this semester to really provide us with some awesome on-campus stuff.”

Droga replied: “It’s funny because also it’s awesome that Time Being is now back on campus too.”

Jepsen finished: “And we’ve come back to take the campus by storm. You can quote me on that.”

The turnout of the Friday night concert and positive reflections from the musicians prove that Harvard undergrad bands continue to be a cornerstone of campus culture.