Music and Comedy of 2026

Our little Idaho Falls is growing up! We have an actual event center and have been getting some amazing concerts to come through! We were able to get tickets to two concerts this year and can’t wait to see who else we will be able to see.

Jo Dee Messina

I almost skipped over Jo Dee Messina, but Nathan convinced me that I knew way more of her music than I was realizing, and he was right! To me, she is one of those artists where you know and enjoy a bunch of the songs, but never really think about who is actually singing them.

We convinced Nathan’s parents to join us for the concert, and we were excited to have our first experience at the Mountain America Center.

The opening group was great, and Jo Dee put on a pretty good concert as well. We were a little surprised when she spent a decent chunk of the show doing covers of other bands, but overall, it was still a good concert.

Unfortunately, we did have some other issues that we have since learned from! First, don’t get seats on the floor. We did not realize everyone was going to stand up and stay standing for the entire concert. While we could have stood, that is not really an option for Nathan’s parents, so it kind of ruined the experience for them.

Also, the sound system was being abused, and it was SO loud that it actually hurt our ears. I don’t want to be one of those old people, but damn. 😂

Neon Trees / The Goo Goo Dolls

Just a few weeks later, Nathan and I were able to get tickets to The Goo Goo Dolls at Mountain America Center as well. We learned our lesson and sat in the bleacher area instead, which was MUCH better!

Sound was still rough, but we learned that AirPods did a great job clearing things up and making it much more enjoyable!

Funny story though, the opening act comes out, and we are loving them! Their covers are amazing, and they are singing multiple songs we know. Service was rough with the crowded room, so we weren’t really able to look them up and see what their original songs were.

Well, towards the end of their set, they tell us a little story about the main singer’s coming-out story and how he wrote a song about it called… Everybody Talks. And who would have guessed that song went viral! The whole time we thought they were doing covers; they were actually all Neon Trees’ songs, and we didn’t realize!

I have clearly learned that while I love music and can sing along to most songs.. I have no idea who is who 🤣.

After that, Goo Goo Dolls came out… and they were ok. Kinda disappointing, to be honest, but we had such a great Neon Trees concert that we were happy.

Josh Johnson

While not quite a concert, and we technically went to SLC for this one, we did get to see Josh Johnson as well!

This time we went with parents and had a quick down-and-back trip to Utah.

While most people know him from The Daily Show, the comedy show was very different than expected. Combining improv music creation, dancing, drums, and comedy, it was a great show with a little bit of everything.

Unfortunately, no pictures of the show were allowed, and somehow we missed pictures of just us, so no photos this time! 🤷