After playing their hits that included Man On Fire, All Wash Out and Home – not to mention a special treat in B.B. King’s Lean On Me – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros finished their set Monday night with a song specifically written for the night’s special attraction, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

The Bern, The Bern,
Feel the burn, feel the heat in our eyes.

The Bern, The Bern,
Feel the burn, feel the love in our eyes.

ESMZ frontman Alex Ebert says Feel the Bern, which was released via SoundCloud in October, is the first song he has written in favor of any politician. Trumpet player Stewart Cole joked that their support of Bernie is “the first thing that we’ve all agreed on.”

“We collectively support Bernie Sanders, entirely – each of every one of us,” Ebert said. “Speaking perhaps on behalf of us all, we feel that Bernie Sanders is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who is not just a politician, but a public servant at heart and someone that we just inherently trust and that galvanizes us to want to participate more.”

Monday’s rally for Sanders at the UNH Durham Whittemore Center comes just one day before the presidential primary election. “I hope by the end of tonight, New Hampshire will have told the country that we are no longer accepting establishment politics or establishment economics, that we want this country to move forward in a different direction,” Sanders told the audience.

During the band’s performance of Home Monday night, Ebert passed the microphone around to audience members, who shared their own stories of why they were at the benefit concert.

“I’m here for tomorrow,” one supporter said.

“I drove through a snowstorm with my best friends for this reason and I couldn’t be happier,” said another.

“I’m here because I love Bernie Sanders!” another student yelled.

“It’s a special feeling,” Ebert said. “It feels like home.”

Ebert wrote in a recent Facebook post that “ol’ Bernie Sanders is just the kind of humble fire I like gathering around.”

“He burns un-postured, plain as day. He walks free, un-bought – not from luck of wealth, but from the strength of honor,” Ebert writes on his Facebook page. “He stands, unkempt, unafraid of what he might say because there is nothing of him to hide. He runs for president free of presidential hair, free of prisoning pockets, free of cowardice. He speaks – ah, but don’t they all! (Anyone can shoot a few straight lines at your television screen – few can then refer you to a history of service that vouches for each word…Bernie can.) He sings…no, but on occasion I do – and I thought it about damn time ol’ Bernie had a song! Sing this song. Stoke the man’s fire. May the truth he bears torch his competition.”