As the oldest theater in Washington, DC, the Miracle Theatre was the site of its own miracle when John Moreland performed to a packed house last Tuesday, May 7th. With a seated capacity of just under 400, the aging red vinyl on the vaudeville-era theater seats eagerly awaited the growing audience. The low, buzzing murmurs soon turned to a steady static of concert-goers catching up with friends and fellow fans ahead of a moody and memorable night.

Fellow Oklahoma native, Ken Pomeroy, opened for Moreland on Tuesday. Her folk and roots sound immediately reminded me of Portland-based trio Joseph, while more indie-pop in recent years, they still share velvet voices and listful lyricism. With an ease and grace onstage rivaled by more years of experience than she is even alive, she roused the audience with stories like her “beef” with Ricky Skaggs and explanations behind her “not a love song” “Flannel Cowboy,” remarking that it’s about hating someone that loves you then joking with the crowd, “yeah f*^k that guy.” Before her song “Galvladi (Grey Skies),” which was partly sung in Cherokee, she spoke of her Indigenous roots and her role in a language revival program for youth in her home state.

Pomeroy is always moving and growing and writing, which has paid off since two of her songs have already been featured on Hulu’s Reservation Dogs about Indigenous youth in Oklahoma scheming and getting into mischief while they try to leave the reservation. While mostly a comedy, there is a haunting truth to the plot, which is why Poemroy’s raw sound aligns on multiple levels. The gentle flow of her voice yet the rapids of her lyrics is not what you would expect from the person you see on stage. At only 22, she summons feelings in grown adults that more seasoned veterans couldn't access in a decades-long career. Catching up with Poemroy at her merch stand, I was able to gush over her performance and buy one of her shirts. She mentioned what an honor it was to open for Moreland because he is one of her most influential artists, especially as a fellow Oklahmoan.

After a pandemic-era hiatus at the end of 2022 and after his album Bird in the Ceiling, John Moreland is back on tour through the end of the year. Taking more than half a year to unplug and disconnect from distractions and the outside world, Moreland started by switching to a flip phone. A surefire way to get offline and back to nature and himself.

As we sat in the Miracle Theater, I thought to myself how miraculous it was that a room full of 350 or so people could all have the same thought on a Tuesday evening and volunteer to hear songs that will make you think and feel in ways that, especially living in DC, we choose to ignore daily on account of their inconvenience. That’s what Moreland and his music does. He doesn’t just make you feel something with his music, he makes you want to feel something; and that is exactly what we did–we reveled in the anguish, sadness, hope, frustration, and general malaise of our time as his words and chords freed the binds of our minds. 

With only himself, his guitar, a collection of harmonicas, and a Waterloo water, his acoustic set was met with an electric applause with each final chord. Like a stare off into the distance, his music is thought manifested: a visceral sensation and an accumulation of anything that is knotted and twisted in your brain and body. Like being stuck in a thought, holding steady until we can orient ourselves to move, he unwinds you and guides you to a place where you can settle. Befitting and bespoke of the 100-year-old theater itself, Moreland’s music feels as natural and ancient as the redwoods whispering to the wind or the waves engraving the shore. As deeply rooted as our bodies are to the earth and the universe, John Moreland frees our bound emotion with a single string leaving a feeling of familiarity when he plays as if his songs were never not here. 

His newest album Visitor showcases his trademark honesty not only within himself but with his surroundings, but he takes ownership of his role in it all instead of taking the easy way out. In an interview with The Oklahoman, he clears up the mystery of the protagonist in his new song “One Man Holds the World Hostage,” “That song's about me. People keep asking me who it's about. It's about me. They're all about me….The song I want to write is not some finger-pointing accusatory (expletive), but just describing, 'I know I'm capable of less-than-cool things when I don't know how to deal with my feelings. And so is everyone else. And that's kind of like why the world is (expletive)."

Like watching a Sarah Mclachlan commercial or going to a haunted house, witnessing Moreland bring his music to life is an emotional experience. One that you would be remiss to miss. Catch him while he’s on tour throughout the country and at the very least, draw a warm bath, light some candles and let Moreland visit you.