Review: TEDDY SWIMS UGLY YOUR at Grand Casino Arena

Teddy Swims brought the UGLY Tour to Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul on Saturday, September 26, and the crowd was ready for him.

The night opened with Mac Ayres and MarcLo before Swims took the stage. By the time the lights went down for the headliner, the arena was full of fans who clearly knew what they came to hear.

Swims walked out and immediately made the size of the room feel a little less intimidating. His voice is the kind that doesn't need much help. It is powerful, rough around the edges and full of soul, and hearing it live gives his songs a different feeling than listening to them through headphones.

“Lose Control” was one of the biggest moments of the night. The audience knew every word, and for stretches of the song, the crowd was just as loud as Swims. It has become one of those songs that people seem to have a personal connection to, and that was obvious from the reaction around the arena.

The set moved between his biggest hits and newer material, including songs from his UGLY era. “Bad Dreams,” “The Door” and “Guilty” gave him plenty of opportunities to show off his range without turning the concert into a nonstop vocal showcase. Some of the best moments came when things slowed down and his voice was allowed to carry the song.

There is also something very straightforward about Swims as a performer. His songs deal with relationships, heartbreak, regret and the parts of life that aren't always pretty. He doesn't try to make those subjects seem more complicated than they are. That honesty seems to be a big part of why his audience connects with him.

The crowd in St. Paul was particularly involved throughout the night. People sang along to the familiar songs, held up their phones during the slower moments and seemed just as interested in the newer material. It was clear that this wasn't an audience that only knew one song from the radio.

This was Swims' first show at Grand Casino Arena, and the venue gave the performance plenty of room to breathe. The production was big enough for an arena show, but the concert never depended entirely on lights or effects. When Swims was standing at the microphone singing, there really wasn't much else he needed.

That's probably the simplest way to describe what worked about the show. Teddy Swims has a voice that can fill an arena, but his songs still feel personal enough that the people singing them back don't seem lost in the crowd.

By the end of the night, Grand Casino Arena was less a room full of individual concertgoers and more one very loud audience singing back to the person onstage.

For his first St. Paul appearance at the venue, Swims left with a crowd that clearly wasn't ready to stop singing.

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