Review | Tapping Into the Sublime with Friendship at Ojai Deer Lodge

“When will I meet my creator? Will I meet my neighbors?” ponders artist Dan Wriggins, lead singer of the band Friendship. These lines from Friendship’s new song “Workhorse” kept swimming through my mind at their show at the Ojai Deer Lodge on Tuesday night.

Prior to heading to the venue, that afternoon, friends and I plotted our usual rat race to Ojai. Who would drive? What time can you get out of work? How late should we stay? When we got to the Deer Lodge, it was almost eerily quiet. As we made our way out to the charmingly rustic and removed patio, taking our first sips of a cold Made West Pale Ale, I felt a collective exhale as we released ourselves from the daily grind, locked eyes, laughed and took a moment to really land. 

“When will I meet my creator? Will I meet my neighbors?” Wriggins’s lyrics often combine both the transcendent and the ordinary. Holding two seemingly juxtaposed ideas in tandem, we see that the mundane and the revelatory might not be so far apart. As we strive for success or a greater purpose, are we still making time to connect with those around us, to meet our neighbors?

Gathered around the thankfully air-conditioned and startlingly intimate Deer Lodge stage, we danced, or I should say, vehemently bobbed, in joyful proximity to our neighbors. The Philly-based indie rock/alternative country band played in perfect cohesion, gracing the audience with tracks from their latest two critically acclaimed records including, Love the Stranger and 2025’s Caveman Wakes Up.

Highlights included the classic “Dusky,” in which Wriggins proclaims to the sound of twangy guitars, “Blessed is the front porch / And your six-packs / Your feet on the milk crate / And your hands in your lap,” recited in poetic simplicity. This type of mundane yet striking imagery encapsulates Wriggins’s sharp eye for those everyday moments we might just take for granted. Maybe “the creator” is closer than we think.

As the band tenderly played through a variety of tracks off of Love the Stranger, including the magnetic “Alive Twice” and “St. Bonaventure,” I grinned unabashedly at almost everyone around me, thrilled to have a band put words to the little victories, private struggles, and glimpses of revelation amidst the quotidian that taken together, create a full life.

New tracks such as the entrancing “Free Association,” continue with a focus on observation. Wriggins described the single to Stereogum as,  “Another one about love and other people and how the only hope we’ve got in the search for meaning is to make it up.” However similar his thematic through-line may be, each song has its distinct personality and this one wholly hypnotized me, with the catchy drum pattern from Michael Cormier-O’Leary and pulsing bass from the talented Jon Samuels, who shook his long hair from side to side, flowing in the groove. Guitarist Peter Gill provided sweet harmonies alongside Wriggin’s assertive yet vulnerable vocals, which allow for both guttural growls and quavering cracks. “Field of Love,” also from their latest album, showcased their sonically adventurous talents.

“And on good nights, trading our fixations / A couple unwitting agents / In a million combinations / Free association,” Wriggins sang. That night at the Deer Lodge was a good night, proving the power of  “free association.” If we can find the sublime at a roadside tavern off a dusty dirt path, where else can it be?