Mirah
Comet Ping Pong, Washington DC, April 7, 2026
I’ve seen
Mirah in concert more than almost any single musician, save Mary Lou Lord. Based on my own count, this month was the ninth, or maybe eighth-and-a-half, time I’ve seen her in concert, and there’s almost no one for whom I’d make that much of an ongoing effort. It’s a testament to her continued musical exploration that I continue to find new ways to experience her music; Back when I lived in Portland, I saw her at VFW halls and all-ages indie scenes, and since then at
punk clubs,
ornate shows at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, quiet shows in the
homes of her fans, and last year
with a harpist at a distillery. I’ve also written
a lot of words about her music, although I’ve rarely exchanged more than a few words with her at a time.
Anyway, this month, she was scheduled at Comet Ping Pong in northwest DC, in support of her first album in quite a few years,
Dedication. She’s been a prolific songwriter and collaborator for many decades, since the late 1990s in the Olympia scene, but this slowdown was driven by her motherhood and the pandemic coming in close succession, which left her relatively isolated and out of the music scene for several years.
I don’t think
Dedication is one of Mirah’s better records, but it does feature a complete outlier of a track: “
Catch My Breath,” almost a pure 80s pop number with extensive elaboration by Jenn Wasner (Flock of Dimes/Wye Oak). It’s such an atypical song for her that when it was released last October, I wondered if it might portend a radical change of pace for her musically. Not so, however. Most of
Dedication, which Mirah featured in her set, is her typical mode: heartfelt, emotional, intimate. As it turned out, to my surprise, this was intended as a full band show, but she and her bandmates all got COVID, and only she recovered and tested negative in time to drive down from Brooklyn for the set. (What is this, 2021?) So she was in almost solo-busking mode, but she’s a truly accomplished guitarist, and has one of the best and most supple voices in indie music, so it was fulfilling on its own, even if the song selection was heavy on the new material.
Indeed, she did all ten songs off of
Dedication, beginning with “Ballad of the Bride of Frankenstein,” although she didn’t exactly follow the track list of the album. The performance of “Catch My Breath” proves that the song works just as well solo as it does with full pop orchestration, and her songs about motherhood (“Mama Me”) were more effective and affecting in concert than they are on record, where they could be a bit cloying. And unfortunately, around halfway into the Mirah set, my wife was flaming out. Comet Ping Pong is most renowned (if you’re not a QAnon supporter) for its live shows, but they don’t clear the table tennis equipment out until after the dinner crowd, so it was well after 11:00 pm by the time she took the stage, and my wife loves Mirah but lacks my tolerance for late nights in rock clubs. So I missed about half of the set (thus the 8 1/2 count in the first graf), including a few covers from her collaborative album with Thao Nguyen,
Thao + Mirah, released back in 2011 on Kill Rock Stars. Based on the set list, she completely omitted some of her most beloved records, like her debut
You Think It’s Like This But Really It’s Like This and
C’mon Miracle, reaching back into her catalogue only for “Mt. Saint Helens,” from her second album,
Advisory Committee.
Because everything starts so late at Comet, we did see the full sets from both opening acts. Openers for the show were
Dim Wizard, led by DC promoter and impresario David Combs, who is also a former member of Bad Moves and does a lot of bookings in DC, and
Jane O’Neill, a DC-area singer-songwriter in the process of relocating to New York. (Hilariously, her name led to some audience member confusion with the long-standing indie-folk songwriter and artist
Tara Jane O’Neil, formerly of Rodan, who has collaborated with Mirah in the past.)
I have seen
Dim Wizard a few times, usually at Comet, and
Combs made a point to play a more subdued and chill set than he usually does in the context of Mirah as the headliner. It was still pretty loud, however; fuzzy guitar-pop anthems. I found myself paying more attention to the Dim Wizard show than I had in the past; Combs is a thoughtful guy and he spoke with genuine affection for Mirah (with whom he has no obvious aesthetic linkage), especially in an elliptical reference to one of her finest songs, “Jerusalem,” for “singing about the genocide in Palestine from a Jewish perspective.” As a Jew who’s lived in Israel and has typically conflicted opinions about the Israeli state, it certainly got my attention; Dim Wizard presumably is the first band to write a psychedelic power pop song about the Palestinian cause from a Jewish perspective. Otherwise, the Dim Wizard Live Rock and Roll Experience is all grooves and hooks and fuzz, akin to Superchunk or The Clean, or maybe Dinosaur Jr. in less shredding mode.
Jane O’Neill, conversely, was aesthetically closer to Mirah with sturdy folk-rock Americana songs, and might have fit in better sonically, but her songs were a bit wan in comparison. It was well-sung and ably performed but the songs just didn’t stick.
Full set list by Jeff M Hunt, the same dude who somehow attends all the shows I attend but whom I’ve never met.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2026 11:35AM by zwirnm.
