Teddy Swims – Grand Casino Arena – St. Paul MN – September 26th 2026

Visa and White Claw present Grand Casino Arena presents Teddy Swmis

Review and photos by Kyle Hansen

Teddy Swims knows how to make an arena sound like a much smaller room.

On Saturday night, Sept. 26, the singer brought his UGLY Tour to Grand Casino Arena, delivering the kind of performance that depends less on elaborate production than on the strength of the voice at its center. Swims has one of those voices that seems almost too large for the microphone — raspy, soulful and capable of moving from a whisper to a full-throated roar in a matter of seconds.

The audience was with him from the start.

Swims opened with “The Door,” setting the tone for an evening that moved between soulful ballads, pop-rock numbers and the R&B-influenced songs that have become his trademark. He followed with a mix of newer material and familiar favorites, including “Hammer to the Heart,” “Bad Dreams” and “Gone Gone Gone.”

But the night belonged to the audience as much as the performer.

That was especially apparent during “Lose Control,” Swims’ breakthrough hit and perhaps the song most closely associated with his rise to stardom. When the crowd took over the chorus, Swims stepped back and let the arena carry the song. It was one of those concert moments that cannot be manufactured: thousands of individual voices briefly becoming one.

Swims also showed a willingness to slow things down. The quieter moments gave his vocals room to breathe and revealed the emotional center of songs that can sometimes get buried beneath their studio production.

There was plenty of personality, too. Swims spoke to the crowd with an easygoing humor, occasionally breaking the polished rhythm of the show and making the enormous arena feel a little more personal.

The production itself was relatively straightforward, keeping the focus where it belonged. The lights and stage design provided scale without competing with the music, while the band supplied the foundation for Swims to move freely between genres.

The evening’s opening acts — Mac Ayres, MarcLo and Freak Freely — helped build the atmosphere before Swims took the stage.

By the final songs, the crowd was standing, singing and, in plenty of sections, dancing. “All That Really Matters,” “Bed on Fire” and “Lose Control” provided a strong finish to a show built around emotional release rather than spectacle.

Swims is still growing into the arena-sized version of his career, but Saturday’s performance demonstrated why audiences have embraced him. His appeal isn’t complicated: He has a remarkable voice, songs that invite a response and an ability to make vulnerable material feel communal.

At Grand Casino Arena, that formula worked.

The building was full. The voices were loud. And for a couple of hours Saturday night, Teddy Swims made a very large room feel surprisingly close.