I used to write an end-of-year story reflecting on my favorite concerts. But with a 4-year-old son and 19-month-old daughter, I don’t really get out these days like I used to.
So instead of writing about my top shows of the year, here’s a look at some big music moments that happened in Utah in 2025 — ranging from rising stars to a band celebrating its 25th anniversary.
April 29 — Post Malone kicks off stadium tour
Last year, Post Malone formally introduced his country music side to fans with his “F-1 Trillion” album and tour of the same name.
According to a Deseret News concert review this past April, it was the country music that drew the loudest response when the singer performed hits from all phases of his career at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
It was a significant concert for Malone, simultaneously marking his first stadium show and a hometown show.
“Moving here to this amazing state was one of the best things I’ve done in my life, besides have a baby girl,” Malone told his cheering fans at a Utah show last year, according to a video shared by Salt Lake-based country radio station The Bull on TikTok. “ … I gotta say, Utah is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and I’m so grateful and so honored to be a resident here, ladies and gentlemen.”
May 3, 5 and 6 — The Used 25th anniversary tour
Following The Used’s first show, a 2001 gig at Johnny B’s Comedy Club in Provo, Utah, the band was “immediately asked to never come back again,” singer Bert McCracken recently recalled in an interview with the Deseret News.
“It was too rowdy,” Used bassist Jeph Howard added. “We had people jumping off the balconies. … And I think somebody got his front teeth knocked out, too.”
The band played just a handful of shows in Utah before they were signed by Reprise Records. Each place they played was one and done.
“They just weren’t ready for heavy music anywhere in Utah County,” McCracken said. “It was still kind of frowned upon, and we were definitely ostracized for our style of music.”
This past May, as part of their 25th anniversary tour, The Used returned to their Utah roots to do something that would’ve seemed impossible in their earliest days: play the same venue three times.
The band performed three shows at Salt Lake’s Union Event Center, each night playing through one of their first three albums.
May 3 — Forrest Frank; and Nov. 13 — Brandon Lake
Forrest Frank and Brandon Lake — two contemporary Christian artists who saw their fame surge in 2025 — both performed sold-out shows at the Maverik Center, pointing to a significant shift in the music industry this year.
“The Maverik Center team was excited to host two of the largest names in contemporary Christian music this past year,” Jeff Davis, general manager of the Maverik Center, shared with the Deseret News in a statement. “Contemporary Christian music is experiencing a rise in popularity, and we look forward to bringing more of the genre to the region in the future.”
Frank and Lake’s shows each sold more than 9,500 tickets, and attracted a passionate Utah fanbase.
“(Lake) gave people permission to worship, in other words, in whatever way, shape or form they wanted to,” Wilmer Lara, a Spanish Fork, Utah, resident who attended Lake’s Nov. 13 show, told the Deseret News. “I felt like that kind of took over the whole entire stadium. It was nice to see people hugging each other, strangers kind of just becoming friends, and then leaving the show a little more uplifted and with a better outlook on humanity, really.”
May 15-18 — Kilby Court Block Party
Kilby Court, the longest-running all-ages venue in Salt Lake City, turned 25 last year. This past May, the venue hosted its sixth annual block party — the largest indie music festival in Salt Lake City that each day draws in roughly 25,000 fans from across the world, according to the venue’s website.
The festival — which has grown over the years and now takes place at the Utah State Fairpark — features dozens of local and national acts each year. This year’s event saw Weezer, New Order, Beach House and Justice among its headliners.
The 2026 block party is scheduled for May 15-17, and features Lorde, Hayley Williams of Paramore and Modest Mouse among its top acts.
Aug. 29 — Randy Travis
A stroke in 2013 severely limited country star Randy Travis’ ability to speak and sing. The 66-year-old artist can no longer sing his hits of the 1980s and ’90s that remain staples today, like “Deeper Than The Holler” and “I Told You So” (which he wrote when he was 19).
But he can still be with fans and, more importantly, he wants to be with fans.
So with singer James Dupre acting as his voice, Travis is back on the road, mouthing along to the classic songs of his catalog and interacting with his original band members on stage and the fans who shout “We love you, Randy!” from the audience.
Thanks to Dupre’s baritone range that resembles Travis’ style, fans enjoyed the country star’s greatest hits at Kingsbury Hall in late August. But overall, the show was more about celebrating Travis and his career — and fans in Utah were eager to express their affection, giving the singer multiple standing ovations throughout the night.
Oct. 10-12 — RedWest Fest
In just its second year, RedWest, a new country music festival based in Utah, brought in some major headliners. But some severe weather and a tragedy on the second day of the festival dampened the excitement.
The opening night of the three-day festival welcomed country star and eight-time Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves to Utah State Fairpark. Just six months after his Salt Lake stadium show, Post Malone was supposed to perform the second night at RedWest, but the concert was canceled due to conditions at the festival that made it “unsafe to proceed,” RedWest said in a statement, as the Deseret News reported.
Noah Kahan, who was a 2024 Grammy nominee for best new artist, closed out the festival on the third night.
Oct. 8-9 and 11 — Benson Boone
Earlier this year, Benson Boone took some of the biggest criticisms people have hurled his way during his short career and transformed them into a hilarious storyline for his “Mr. Electric Blue” music video, which has more than 9 million views on YouTube.
To what is presumably the joy of millions of fans around the world, Boone seems to use the criticisms as fuel for his music, embracing them rather than steering clear of them.
And it quickly became clear during his first of three sold-out shows in October at the Delta Center that it’s a working strategy.
Because while the haters can be loud, the fans are much, much, much louder.
Boone — who discovered only a few years ago that he could even sing — put on three sold-out, high-energy, flip-filled shows at the Delta Center. It marked the only venue on his “American Heart” world tour that got three performances.
Dec. 11-13 — Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert
For the first time in the 25-year history of the Tabernacle Choir’s beloved Christmas concert tradition, the featured guest artists were married to each other.
Nearly 20 years after meeting while performing in a national touring production of “Wicked,” Broadway power couple Stephanie J. Block and Sebastian Arcelus performed together in the annual Christmas concert that brings tens of thousands of people to downtown Salt Lake City over three days.
Block performed a number of Christmas and Broadway classics, while Arcelus gave a stirring narration of the Apollo 8 mission that was defined, in part, by astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders reading the first 10 verses of the Bible (the creation story) to a global audience as they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968.
The recorded concerts will air next year on PBS and BYUtv.