Five For Fighting and Edwin McCain Turn Back the Clock in Layton
July 6, 2026

Some concerts are all about the lights, production and the spectacle. Others simply ask you to remember how you felt the first time you heard a song.
Last week at Layton's Ed Kenley Amphitheater, Edwin McCain and Five For Fighting closed out their first-ever co-headlining summer tour by doing exactly that. The two singer-songwriters transformed the amphitheater into a collection of memories, where every lyric seemed to take the audience back to a different chapter of their life.
Their songs have become the soundtrack to life's biggest moments. Weddings. Graduations. First dances. Long drives. Heartbreaks. New beginnings. It wasn't just another concert, it was an evening spent feeling the moments and emotions that those songs made for us in our lives.
Edwin McCain was first to take the stage, immediately making the crowd feel less like an audience and more like old friends gathered for an evening of music and stories. His easygoing humor filled the gaps between songs, as he told stories such as writing “Kool Miles” about when he met Craig Shields who joined the band telling Edwin he was only there for the summer until he went to law school and here he is still playing alongside him today. There was never a rush to get to the next song. Instead, every story gave the audience another glimpse into the man behind the music.
When McCain launched into "I'll Be," the reaction was immediate as voices echoed throughout the amphitheater, and for a few minutes the audience took over. Years after its release, the song remains one of the defining love songs of its generation, and hearing hundreds of people sing every word together was one of the night's most memorable moments. Songs like “I’ll Be” and "I Could Not Ask for More" only reinforced why McCain's music has remained such a lasting part of so many lives.
John Ondrasik and Five For Fighting carried that same feeling into the second half of the evening. There was no need for elaborate visuals or arena-sized theatrics. The songs were more than enough.
Throughout the set, Ondrasik shared the stories behind many of his biggest hits, allowing fans to experience familiar songs from an entirely new perspective. His conversational style made every performance feel personal, as if he were inviting the audience into the creative process rather than simply performing.
That connection became especially evident during "100 Years." The song has always been about the passage of time, but hearing it performed live among an audience spanning multiple generations gave the lyrics even greater meaning especially hearing them performed live now when we can appreciate the lyrics more. It was impossible not to look around and see parents, grandparents, young couples and kids all finding something different within the same song.
The emotion only continued to build with favorites like "The Riddle," and "World," before reaching the unmistakable opening of "Superman (It's Not Easy)." More than twenty years after its release, the song still resonates with anyone who has ever tried to stay strong while carrying burdens no one else could see. It wasn’t just performed by the band, it was shared.
What made the evening so memorable wasn't nostalgia alone. It was the realization that these songs have continued to evolve alongside the people who grew up with them and something that meant one thing at 20 somehow carried entirely different meaning decades later.
As the final notes faded into the night, the audience left with more than a collection of songs stuck in their heads. They left having revisited pieces of their own lives, reminded that great music doesn't just mark a moment in time, it stays with you.
For a tour making its final stop, there couldn't have been a more fitting ending.













