The Driver Era • Thomas Day • March 26, 2025 • The Union Events Center
Reviewed and Photographed by Amelia Weyerstall
The Driver Era played a sold-out Union Event Center on their first U.S. leg of their Obsession tour. Cowboy hats, sparkly outfits, and handmade signs filled the excited crowd as they waited for Ross and Rocky Lynch to take the stage and give an outstanding and energetic performance.
Thomas Day
Thomas Day took the stage by storm, and the crowd matched his electric energy perfectly. Day captivated the audience with lyrics about past loves lost, and the audience could feel all his songs to their core with his emotionally filled vocals. The lyrics were pulling on their heartstrings throughout his set.
Thomas Day may have only released “Sleep When We’re Dead” two days before the performance, but the audience knew every single word of the song. It wasn’t the only newly released song that he played; Day also played “Underwear”, which got the crowd swaying along with their flashlights in the air. Day then shared, “Before this tour, I promised my mom I’d play her favorite song of mine; I used to play it back home, and she wasn’t able to see a show this tour… It’s unreleased, it’s called “We will Never be the Same”… I love you guys”.
The crowd listened intently to Day as he played the piano and held impressively long notes. Day decided to bring the crowd’s energy back up by playing yet another newly released song, “Sleep on the Jet,” where Day got the crowd jumping, dancing, and singing along. Just before the end of his set, Day said, “Salt Lake, I have one more song for you guys, it’s called ‘Pretender”,” his most popular and a huge hit for the live audience. The crowd was finishing his lyrics for Day and waved their hands along to the beat.
At the end of the song, the crowd gave a huge applause and many heart hands. Day responded by doing the same and saying, “Salt Lake, I love you guys so much, I love you, I love you!” while he walked off stage. Thomas Day was the perfect way to start the night off with a bang and get the crowd hyped up for The Driver Era.
The Driver Era
The Driver Era started out their set with a huge white curtain in front of the stage, only allowing the audience to see Ross Lynch’s silhouette as he played the beginning of “Touch”. When the beat dropped, the curtain fell, revealing the band behind the crowd to scream in excitement. They continued to play the rest of the song as the audience jumped along to the beat.
Ross Lynch was in the middle of the stage, wearing a very stylish green sweater vest and long-sleeved cream shirt. The first thing that the audience chanted was for Ross to “Take it off,” to which Ross replied with, “It’s only the beginning of the show at least buy me a drink first.” His bandmate and brother, Rocky, tried to pass Ross his drink as a joke, and it made the band laugh and the audience cheer more. The playful energy between the brothers made for a fun and energetic show.
Their upcoming album Obsession comes out on April 11th So it wasn’t a surprise when Ross said, “thank you for being with us tonight, its wonderful to be back in Salt Lake City, its a warm welcome and its much appreciated, this next song is off our new album “Obsession”… sometimes we play new songs, it’s always a little vulnerable because you never know how people are going to react but, this one’s called “Everybody’s Lover”. I hope you like it.” The crowd didn’t just like this song, but they loved it and grooved along the whole time.
All the songs from “Obsession” they played during the performance were massive hits with the crowd, people were singing along to the unreleased lyrics like they knew them by heart for years, creating a very special moment for the band.
Rocky Lynch had his own story to tell about one of the songs, saying, “We write a lot of f***ing music, um, but this one I was by a fire, with an acoustic guitar I think it was raining outside … and I was like I got to record this s*** stat. And so, what I did, is I took my acoustic guitar to the studio, and I put that s*** down and I grabbed an electric guitar. Anyway, it goes a little something like this.” before playing “Nothing Left to Lose” and jamming out with the band, adding different instruments throughout the song, it was an electric performance.
The band showed lots of love to their Utah crowd, saying “thanks for coming out tonight, honestly, we love selling shows out so thanks, thanks y’all… uh we got one show after this, it goes fast y’all, everything goes fast, remember that… seriously we love you all coming out this is dope” Ross later said, “You guys are a fun crowd, I like you guys” This was followed up by playing the throwback of “Natural” which the audience knew every word to.
The stage was set up like a bus stop, complete with a bench and payphone. The payphone started to ring, but Ross replied with, “y’all know I don’t like phones very much, I’m not answering that s***” to which the crowd cheered. The visuals behind the set also matched each of the song’s vibes perfectly.
Throughout the night the crowd kept chanting “take it off!”, Ross at this point was down to his cream shirt unbuttoned most of the way, before he said, “You know I’m a little bit of a rebel so… uh you know I’m just letting you know, letting you know.” and the audience screamed even louder.
Ross then said, “Who’s seen us before… (lots of hands raised) wow your kidding, who’s never seen us before, (even more hands raised in the audience) what’s up new friends!” Ross then proceeded to look around at all the signs and flags being held up by the crowd, “where did you guys get those flags” (3 pink U.S. flags with his face on them) Ross then said, “somebody told me today I don’t look good in pink… What do you guys think? Do you think they are lying?” The audience replied to his comments and said he looked great in the color, making a funny moment between the crowd and band.
Ross then proceeded to read off funny and very flirty signs from the audience making them cheer wildly to which Ross replied, “if there was a competition for most flirty crowd I think we would win, we got this team, we can do this all the way to the top, the song we are going to play next is the second song we ever released as the driver era… this song is about, being in afterglow.” The song “Afterglow” was a huge hit with the crowd and had them swaying along with their flashlights in the air.
The Driver’s Era had incredible crowd control and turned the slow swaying crowd into a huge party with everyone jumping along to “Malibu”. Towards the end of the song, Ross decided to go off the setlist and play “Preacher Man”, another hit with the crowd, but took both of his brother by surprise. Rocky said, “just want to say, I’m happy I know this f***ing guy right here, that s*** was tight… he pulled that s*** right out of his a** like, I’m serious we never tried that, not once.” To which Riker Lynch (on bass) said, “to clarify, that was not rehearsed, Ross just decided to do that.” Rocky then followed this up by saying, “ah look he’s humbled over there, anyway, let’s play another song” This whole interaction showed the brotherly love within the band and showed how much fun this band has while playing together.
Ross finally gave the audience what they were asking for when he jumped out playing an incredible guitar solo shirtless during “I’d Rather Die,” officially released the day after their concert in SLC. The crowd went absolutely wild, and the whole crowd pushed forward, wanting to get as close to the singer as possible.
When The Driver’s Era left the stage before their encore, a live video of the band walking backstage was projected onto the background. It was a very unique way to keep the audience excited right until the very end of their performance.
The encore started by playing their very popular song “Rumors”, with the lyrics flashing in time with the song in the background to help the audience sing along. Everyone was dancing feverishly. I’ve never heard an audience singing along to songs so loudly, but the crowd really brought the energy to this show.
The payphone on stage suddenly rang again and became the intro for “Get Off My Phone,” which was a very creative way to introduce a song. The crowd simply didn’t stop dancing. In between songs, Ross said, “Thank you so much, you’ve been wonderful tonight, we have one more” and played the playful song “A Kiss”. Ross somehow had obtained a white cowboy hat with pink hearts all over it and the background popped up with a kiss cam that showed couples in the audience. At the end of the song Ross left the stage by blowing kisses to the audience, making the crowd erupt into applause again. It was the best possible way to end the incredibly fun night.