FIRST AVENUE PRESENTS:JOHN CRAIGIE Spring 2026 with special guest Lou Hazel

First Avenue presents

Thursday, March 26, 2026 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM

All Ages

Standing

This is a standing show. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our .

Ticketing for this show goes through First Avenue's ticketing system: AXS. If you are in need of accessibility ticketing assistance with this platform, please contact .

For over a decade, John Craigie has made music that brings people in. Not with spectacle, but with sincerity and songs that feel like conversations.

Much like community, music nourishes us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It also invites us to come together under the same roof and in a shared moment. In similar fashion, John Craigie rallies a closeness around music anchored by his expressive and stirring songcraft, emotionally charged vocals, lively soundscapes, and uncontainable spirit. The Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer invites everyone into this space on his 2024 full-length album, Pagan Church. Following tens of millions of streams, sold out shows everywhere, and praise from Rolling Stone and more, he continues to captivate.

“The music is always evolving and devolving with each new record,” he observes. “With my last album Mermaid Salt, I really wanted to explore the sound of isolation and solitude as everyone was heading inside. With this record, I wanted to record the sound of everyone coming back out.”

In order to capture that, he didn’t go about it alone…

Instead, he joined forces with some local friends. At the time, TK & The Holy Know-Nothings booked a slew of outdoor gigs in Portland and they invited Craigie to sit in for a handful of shows. The musicians instinctively identified an unspoken, yet seamless chemistry with each other. Joined by three of the five members, Craigie cut “Laurie Rolled Me a J” and kickstarted the process. With the full band in tow, they hunkered down in an old schoolhouse TK & The Holy Know-Nothings had converted into a de facto headquarters and studio, and recorded the eleven tracks on Pagan Church.

To learn more about JOHN CRAIGIE:

• Visit his website here

Lou Hazel grew up along the Allegheny River, where New York meets Pennsylvania and Northern Appalachia slips into quiet obscurity. In a landscape of cold towns, blue-collar fatigue, and early brushes with hardship, music wasn’t inherited. It was uncovered. There were no venues, no mentors, no real sense of a scene... just whatever you could scrape together with curiosity and a cassette deck.

That absence of direction, guidance, and art shaped Lou’s songs as much as any influence. His music echoes the loneliness of those forgotten towns and the strange resilience it takes to create something where nothing was planted. Blending folk, indie, and an eye for the overlooked, Lou writes like someone who’s learned to pay attention. His songs are spare, vivid, and weathered with warmth.

After years of solo touring and home recording, Lou found grounding in Durham, North Carolina, where a vibrant music scene and chosen community have helped shape his recent work. His latest record, Riot of the Red, captures the urge to get away from it all—the noise, the headlines, the weight of a world gone sideways—and find stillness in the simplest things: a long drive, a bare sky, a familiar chord. Lou Hazel makes music for those who had to teach themselves how to listen.

To learn more about Lou Hazel:

Visit his website here

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Host or Publisher The Cedar Cultural Center