Popular contemporary Christian music artist Lauren Daigle, performed Friday, Sept. 18th in the BYU-Idaho Center. Fans from Idaho and beyond attended the event, kicking off this semester’s round of BYUI Live! events.

Daigle, a Christian singer with 5.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify, performed songs from a variety of her albums during the concert. Among the fans was Teiya Egan, a returned missionary and fan of Daigle. Egan said she first heard Daigle’s music as she served as a missionary in Phoenix, Arizona.

“Day one, my trainer was playing it, and I was like, ‘What is this?’” Egan said.

Egan said that Daigle’s music was played throughout her mission and has become a way to unlock old memories.

“It just feels like this whole piece of your life that’s locked away.” Egan said, “I close my eyes and [I] remember biking through Phoenix and all the friends that I made.”

Friends Anna Riggles, Aleena May and Olivia Cross said they also listened to Daigle while serving their missions. Riggles, a second-year BYUI student studying social work, said she also gets taken back to the Texas Dallas East mission when she listens to Daigle's music.

Referring to the song "These Are the Days," Riggles said, "I heard that song after my mission for the first time ... and it just kind of brought me back to the days of my mission. I was like, 'Oh man, that's when I was most spiritually close to God up to that point in my life.' And every time I listen to it, I'm like, 'Yeah, those were the days!'"

Cross, a third-year student also studying social work, said that while on her mission in Little Rock, Arkansas she resonated with "Let It Be A Hallelujah." She said that because she served in the South, "... a lot of people were like, 'Praise Jesus, hallelujah,' and so I think it had that connection of 'Jesus is so real and He's just good', and I think that's a song that connected me to a better connection with my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ."

Cross added that the night was uplifting and said that in moments of hearing Daigle talk to the audience, in moments of praise, and hearing the crowd sing in unison with Daigle, she felt like they were "one in Christ."

Others came excited to see Daigle live and interact with the Christian music singer. Kyle Snell is a long-time Daigle fan. He says that he’s not only a listener to Daigle’s music, but also likes to work alongside his sister to create their own covers of her songs.

He had purchased a VIP pass for the evening, which gave him access to a Q&A with Daigle before the show. After the Q&A, he said his biggest takeaway was how real and authentic it felt. He said Daigle seemed like a normal, everyday person. Really down to earth.

Younger fans also had the opportunity to interact with Daigle. Simon Rogers, a fifteen-year-old boy from Boise, had heard about the concert a week in advance. Upon finding out, he told his mom, “I’ll pay. I’ll pay for the hotel. I’ll pay for everything.”

Rogers came to the concert wearing a shirt that challenged Daigle to a game of rock, paper, scissors in exchange for an autograph. Daigle took him up on the wager. After inviting him up on stage, she won the game but gave him her autograph anyway. He said after the show that being called up on stage was one of the most exhilarating feelings he may have ever felt in his life.

Connections weren’t just one-way with Daigle that night. Near the start of the concert, Daigle told the story of a previous, more dramatic visit to Idaho.

Her father, while spending some time in Jackson Hole, suffered a major heart attack. He was life-flighted to Idaho Falls, where Daigle said he was well taken care of by the medical personnel there. Daigle took a moment to thank Idaho and gave a special shout-out to the people in the cardiac unit who helped her father, saying that this visit to Idaho had been deemed “the Redemption Trip.”

By the end of the night, fans said that the concert was both spiritual and fun.

Aleena May, a former BYUI student who later transferred and became a nurse, described the concert as electric.

"It was great, and I don't like to dance, but [I was] grooving and moving," May said.

The concert is the first of this semester’s season of BYUI Live! performances. More BYUI Live! performances will include comedian Nate Bargatze, musician Jake Scott and the gentlemen's vocal trio Gentri later in the semester, alongside jazz-pop artist Emma Nissen.