I was looking at Twitter and saw that one of my favorite bands, Peter Bjorn and John, were coming in concert to Ogden, Utah at the Ogden Amphitheater as part of the Twilight Concert Series.
For those of you who perhaps don’t follow the band, Peter Bjorn and John are a trio hailing from Stockholm, Sweden who had a breakout hit called “Young Folks†that had everyone whistling in the summer of 2007.

The Twilight Concert Series started in 2005 and was Salt Lake City’s attempt to get really good artists to come during the summer and offer the show to fans for free. The event became so popular that they now charge fans $5 per show – which is still an incredible bargain.

At some point, Ogden also started a Twilight Concert Series as well.

Having never been to the Ogden Amphitheater, I looked online at the seating arrangement and noticed that they offered VIP tickets for $25 right up against the stage. I decided that it would be worth the extra expense and purchased the tickets.

About an hour later, I saw a tweet from a company called Thrillcall.

Thrillcall was offering an opportunity to meet Peter Bjorn and John simply by buying a $5 ticket to the show through their app. Of course, I had just purchased VIP tickets but figured at this point I may as well shell out the additional $5 to meet the group. I purchased the ticket through their app and Thrillcall emailed me the contact information for the tour manager to confirm the time of the meetup. I texted him and he replied that we would shoot for 8:15.

My wife and I arrived at the Ogden Amphitheater at around 7:50 pm and went to the Will Call area where I gave them my name. Our names were on the list with “VIP†next to it thanks to purchasing through the Thrillcall App. The lady radioed to someone else who came and gave us a VIP wristband and a VIP area wristband and told us to follow her. We walked back to the VIP area where she informed us that we could hang out here until the band was ready to meet us.

Someone came over and said that we could come meet the band. She took us past some security folks and towards the back door of the stage. Björn Yttling and John Eriksson came out and talked with us. It’s always a little surreal meeting someone famous because you don’t really know how they’re going to be. Björn and John couldn’t have been nicer. We chatted about Sweden’s poor showing in the Euro championships and how we were rooting for Iceland. They mentioned that Iceland’s team was coached by someone from Sweden and therefore they were rooting for Iceland as well. I also told them about my memories of the last time they were in Salt Lake City in 2007 and in 2009 in support of Depeche Mode.

The lead singer, Peter, arrived and we took a picture together and wished them good luck with the show tonight.

We walked over the VIP stage area and went up to the stage where we were about 2 feet from the microphones.

The band came on stage in jumpers each with their names on it.

They played a mixture of songs from their new album, their first album, and the other albums as well including “May Seem Macabre”, “What are you talking about”, “Amsterdam” and “Objects of my affection”.

The band left the stage and came back for a four song encore with “It’s Your Call”, “Young Folks”, “Second Change” and finished the show with “Up Against the Wall”.

I was really impressed by the energy of their show and was able to hear songs from their new album plus being able to meet the band made for a very cool experience. In the end, I ended up not needing the $25 VIP ticket that I purchased due to the promotion from the ThrillCall app, but was glad to have gone to the show.