Ber at the State Fair: Minnesota indie-pop star will close out Bandshell

After a random run-in with Shawn Mendes while wearing a Target-brand dress at a glitzy Grammy Awards party in Los Angeles, Ber was hit with the idea for one of her best and most viral songs yet.

“He was perfectly normal and everything, but I just froze up,” the northern Minnesota native recounted of meeting the bigger pop star. “I literally couldn’t think of anything to say.”

That uncool moment was the inspiration for “Oh, To Be Cool,” one of several singles Ber has put out over the past year. It also reinforced Ber’s decision to stay in Minnesota instead of moving to L.A., where she has been writing and recording a lot of music of late.

“It was so stereotypically a case of the Midwest girl being in the big city,” she added. “I felt out of my depth.”

With candid and self-deprecating confessionals like that adding depth to her often heartache-y lyrics, Ber has become one of Minnesota’s most popular young songwriters. This weekend, she’s about to have a big coming-out moment at one of Minnesota’s most popular get-togethers.

Now based in Minneapolis, the 27-year-old singer born Berit Dybing is scheduled to headline the Bandshell on the last two nights of the Minnesota State Fair, Sunday and Monday. This is the same locally coveted slot that has been reserved for some of the Twin Cities’ top-dog rock acts in recent years, including Semisonic, Soul Asylum and the Jayhawks.

Then-breaking Minnesota buzzmakers such as Hippo Campus, Dessa and Yam Haus also have recently been given two-night Bandshell slots — a category in which Ber now squarely fits. Especially after she decided she’s too square to move to L.A.

Raised near Walker with a musical upbringing, Ber did not really start writing songs until she relocated to England after high school to study music at Leeds Conservatoire. She landed a management deal and record label interest for her budding songwriter career while still in England and recorded her first viral hit there, “Meant to Be” — a single that is still earning her new attention three years after its release.

An unusually sweet breakup song — featuring one of her British chums, Charlie Oriain, for a duet partner — “Meant to Be” was prominently featured this summer in a pivotal romantic scene in the season finale of the hit Netflix series “Ginny & Georgia.”

“To see the show’s stars making out to that song was kind of weird, because it’s not a love song,” Ber said of the scene. “And yet, it worked perfectly, I thought. I loved it.”

While she admits she’s “completely disassociated” with the real-life heartache that inspired “Meant to Be,” she said, “It’s the song that gave me my career.

“And it keeps on giving, so it means a lot to me that way. I don’t think I’ll ever play a show without playing that song.”

She worked with her Minneapolis crew on her second of three EPs, “Halfway.” With songs like “Boys Who Kiss You in Their Car,” “Your Internet Sucks” and “Slutphase” wryly chronicling the impact COVID, screen addiction and other Gen Z woes have had on dating, “Halfway” garnered Ber more viral traction as well as radio play at the Current and other modern rock stations.

“I didn’t expect it, but I wound up meeting some of my favorite collaborators here and getting a lot of really meaningful support here,” Ber said of moving back. “It’s a big reason I’ve stayed in Minnesota.”

Hale has remained one of Ber’s chief co-writers as she spent much of the past year focused on woodshedding songs for her first full-length album, which she expects out early next year. Further details are still under wraps and/or pending.

Ber said the record would have come out sooner, but she scrapped about half of the tracks she intended for it. And for good reason.

“I met my boyfriend about halfway through the writing of the album, and that changed how I felt about a lot of the songs,” she said, admitting the sidelined tunes were largely still stuck in the heartbreak category.

Fans got a teaser of this changeover last month when Ber posted a TikTok video featuring an unreleased tune, “Who’s This?” It’s her most Minnesota song to date, contrasting the boredom of winter being offset by the thrill of falling in love.

“There’s nothing to do here except drink and maybe eat cheese curds at Bull’s Horn,” she sings (a nod to a south Minneapolis bar and grill), and then adds, “My friends think I’m different since I met you.”

So does this mean the old down-and-out Ber is a thing of the past?

“I’m sure I’ll still have my moments,” she quipped near the end of our interview. Yep, she’s full-fledged Minnesotan.

At the Bandshell: 7:30 p.m. Sun. & Mon., free with fair admission, mnstatefair.org.