Josh Meloy goes big at home: The Criterion on Feb. 12

The Oklahoma country songwriter, raised on the state's Red Dirt sound, headlines Bricktown's 3,500-capacity room on a Friday night in February.

There is a moment in an Oklahoma songwriter's career when the hometown show stops being a favor to friends and starts being a statement. For Josh Meloy, that moment has a date: Friday, Feb. 12, 2027, at The Criterion.

The show was announced Nov. 3. It starts at 8 p.m., and tickets run $25 to $125 through Prekindle. The Criterion holds about 3,500, which makes this a genuine headline swing for an artist who has spent years working his way up through clubs and support slots.

Meloy is an Oklahoma country singer-songwriter whose music grows out of the Red Dirt country-rock tradition of his home state. He released his debut album in 2018, followed it with the album Oklahoma in 2020, and kept the singles coming, including "Can't Put the Bottle Down" and "Devil's Den" in 2022. Sources place his roots in small-town Oklahoma and his base later in Stillwater and Oklahoma City, which is to say that a Criterion headline date is about as close to a hometown show as it gets.

He has been on the road steadily to earn it. His 2026 calendar ran from a March show at Heartwood Soundstage in Gainesville, Florida, to Rose Music Hall in Columbia, Missouri, in May and the Showboat Saloon in Wisconsin Dells in June, with more dates through the summer and fall. He has also spent time on bigger stages as support, sharing bills with acts like Whiskey Myers in amphitheaters.

A Criterion headline date is about as close to a hometown show as it gets.

The genre tags on this show are country and folk, and that's a fair read of his sound: songs built for a singalong but rooted in the storytelling side of Red Dirt rather than the polish of country radio. That is exactly the kind of artist this state has a habit of rallying behind, and a big Friday-night room is where that rally usually happens.

The Criterion is the right test. The Bricktown venue has become Oklahoma City's go-to room for touring acts that have outgrown the clubs, and a Friday night in February gives the local crowd every reason to turn out. A wide price range, from $25 at the low end to $125 at the top, also means there is a way in for most budgets.

Tickets are on sale now through Prekindle via the link on this page. Hometown headline shows in rooms this size tend to sell from the floor up, so don't wait for the week of.

Then go and be loud about it. That's what hometown crowds are for.

Sources: Josh Meloy - Last.fm biography (last.fm); Josh Meloy - Apple Music (music.apple.com); Josh Meloy - Viberate (viberate.com); Josh Meloy - Shazam (shazam.com); Josh Meloy w/ Trenton Fletcher, March 19, 2026 - Opendate (app.opendate.io); The Josh Meloy Band at Showboat Saloon - Wisconsin Dells (wisdells.com); Prekindle: Josh Meloy at The Criterion (prekindle.com); JamBase listing (jambase.com)