Even after his untimely death in 2013 at age 39, Jason Molina remains the flagship artist of Secretly Group, the Bloomington, Indiana-based record label that has grown into one of the largest and most respected indies today. Molina played a major role in that rise, releasing an astonishing but not impenetrable amount of material, from ghostly, sparse folk to jagged guitar rock, and his influence has only grown since his passing.
You can hear the DNA of his sound in the current crop of country-tinged alternative artists, even if he isn’t explicitly name-checked. Artists like MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Squirrel Flower, and Wild Pink have cited him as an inspiration, and many have recorded covers of his songs. Earlier this year, a documentary about his early years, You Fuckers Figure It Out, began to make the film festival circuit.
While Molina was from Ohio, Bloomington plays a key role in his story, since he lived there during the late 1990s and even stayed with Secretly Group founders Ben and Chris Swanson. He also recruited several collaborators from the local music scene.When Molina passed away in 2013, the Bluebird, a bar in Bloomington, Indiana, that hosted many Songs: Ohia and related shows, hosted a tribute show featuring an array of band members and guest singers performing Molina’s songs. That fact alone made this an emotionally charged evening. It was the first time the group played Molina’s songs there since the funeral.
Recently, Will Johnson, who recorded a collaborative album with Molina released in 2009, has been playing shows with Molina’s surviving band members as Magnolia Johnson Electric Co., celebrating Molina’s legacy and focusing mostly on Molina releases that bear the Magnolia Electric Co. band name or album title.
The night’s lineup, the first concert of a four-night festival commemorating the label’s 30th anniversary, included Magnolia Johnson Electric Co., June Panic, who was the first artist signed to Secretly Canadian, and Early Day Miners, another early success for the label. Other nights featured Sharon Van Etten, Durand Jones and the Indications, Kevin Morby, and Jensen McRae.
The homecoming vibe was evident from the moment I entered the Bluebird. It was filled with old friends greeting each other. Jason Molina fans, from those with graying temples to those who were newly able to attend a bar show, packed the space. Some had likely seen Molina dozens of times over the years, while for others, it was the only way they would experience these songs live.
While the crowd clearly focused on seeing Magnolia Johnson Electric Co., the show kicked off with June Panic, the first artist signed to the label. The label’s first release was a reissue of his album Glory Hole. Since then, June Panic have played with Bon Iver, Low, and Dave Bazan, and he also toured with Molina in the early 2000s. A one-person act, Panic told a lot of stories and played several songs on acoustic guitar from that release and others. The crowd received him warmly, perking up for one of the highlights, a cover of Warren Zevon’s “For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer”.
Next up were Early Day Miners, another early signee with Bloomington roots. The band ran through a set that drew heavily from a more recent record with a fuller, more muscular sound than the slowcore of their early albums. Durand Jones joined them for the closer, “Offshore”, and it was the highlight of the set. The audience received them warmly, too, as the band also has a history with the town.
Finally, it was time for Magnolia Johnson Electric Co. to take the stage. Guitarist Jason Groth was tearing up before the band started playing. He later revealed that Molina’s wife texted to wish them well. Before the set began, a voice from the crowd yelled, “Welcome back!” and it pushed Groth further into waterworks. The group have been playing together for a while, and they released an EP of songs to introduce the project in 2025.
How else could the set open but with “The Dark Don’t Hide It”? That now-iconic riff opens the live album that introduced Magnolia Electric Co. as a band. It was my introduction to the band way back when it came out, and I instantly fell for Molina’s voice and his barbed wit mixed with profound observations.
Opening with “Dark” was also a great way to introduce Johnson’s vocals. While it would never be possible to replace Jason Molina, Johnson’s not even remotely interested in trying. He acts more as a vessel to pay tribute to these brilliant songs, and his bandmates sounded as good as they ever have; Groth tore into that solo with abandon, an early sign that this would be more than a tear-stained revue of a singular artist’s greatest hits. I saw Molina and the band in 2005 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and it was a transcendent show. Sadly, it was the only time I saw Molina perform live. Musically, this was at least as powerful as that.
Throughout the night, Johnson and Groth, along with several surprise guests, handled vocals. It was a wise choice, balancing the set and letting Johnson rest his voice now and again while also giving him the songs that suit his haunting vocals best. Besides, as haunting and inimitable as Molina’s vocals are, he often shared the spotlight on his records with other vocalists.
The setlist was stacked with most of the songs a diehard Jason Molina fan would want to hear from the Magnolia Electric Co. era. Some songs took on an even more powerful layer, years on from Molina’s death. “Hard to Love a Man”. In its original form, it is a powerful warning to a lover, but this evening, it felt almost like the band was singing it to him, despite their palpable love for him. It was goosebump-inducing.
Groth took the lead on engaging the crowd, sharing Molina stories and recollections of his time living in Bloomington. One particularly amusing anecdote had Molina stopping by for Monday karaoke and doing “Mr. Bojangles”, a song Groth said Molina loved. He also talked about bassist Evan Farrell, who passed in 2008. These memories were moving, adding to the evening even for those who weren’t there. While many of Molina’s songs were wracked with sadness and despair, he was known for his humor.
The band transformed “Wooden Heart”, the delicate, reflective closing track from the Magnolia and Johnson collaborative album released in 2009, into a full-band rager, one of the highlights of the evening. They also performed “Twenty Cycles to the Ground” from that album, and the audience ate up every note. Vocals became a full-band affair when Dan Rice sang a handful of tracks, including “Hot Black Silk” from Axxes & Ace, as well as What Comes After the Blues highlight “Leave the City”, and delivered a powerful vocal on “Lioness”. Bassist Pete Shriner sang “North Star”, a key track from the live album Trials and Errors.
One of the most powerful and memorable songs of the night was Magnolia Electric Co. bonus track “The Big Game is Every Night”, which is a bonus track from the expanded reissue of the Magnolia Electric Co. album. Dan Sullivan took over on vocals for this track. The recorded version is a haunted dirge, and that night it became a cathartic wail. It was hard not to be moved as Molina’s lyrics reference his attempts “to become a better me.”
The last few songs of the night were some of Jason Molina’s best-known, including “Big Beast”, which raged with Johnson back on lead vocals. As any diehard might expect, the final songs included “Farewell Transmission”, “Riding with the Ghost”, and “The Old Black Hen”, some of the most beloved tracks in the Molina songbook. And the final song of the night was “Whip Poor Will”, a perfect way to end the set, with lyrics that felt like a chorus for those of us who still miss Molina.
Lines like “Some of us down here ain’t doing very well” and “Once for everybody who got left behind” sung by the crowd, seemed to be singing to him. It was a powerful close to a night that was mostly celebratory and moving. It is a testament to Johnson and Molina’s bandmates’ dedication. Playing what could be callously dismissed as a tribute set could go all kinds of wrong, but in their hands, another classic Jason Molina line is more appropriate: “It ain’t hallelujah, but it might as well have been.” We were dismissed just in time to see a lunar eclipse, which would have made Molina smile.