Love. Loss. Police Brutality. Privilege. Humanity.

Baltimore-based musician and artist Dan Deacon blended all of these elements into his set at Landmark Music Festival with an interactive group meditation that deeply moved the mostly Caucasian crowd.

Near the finale of his set, Deacon asked everyone to raise their arms, join hands with the people next to them and close their eyes. He invited them to think about someone they care about, and dwell on how that person made them feel. Then to picture someone who they’ve lost, and the feelings associated with that. What he did next trigged an audible “Oh” almost in unison from the crowd.

“I want you to think about the face of the last person of color who was killed by an authority figure,” Deacon said. His message to the crowd was a simple, yet often forgotten one: We’re all humans.

The crowd holds hands at Dan Deacon's set. via Charles Reagan Hackleman (Charles Reagan Hackleman)

Deacon was on tour when Freddie Gray was killed by the Baltimore Police Department. His friends back home filled his social media feeds with positive messages of unity and support so he was shocked to see the media label the Baltimore Uprising simply as “riots.”

“You could see the propaganda machine and the intentional bias toward what was happening and the muddying of the message from everyone that wasn’t attached to it,” Deacon tells The Independent. “I kept thinking, ‘Should we postpone the tour? Should I go home? What can I do?’”

He frequently incorporates a group meditation or other interactive activity into his performances, and knew this was how he could convey this message to his audience in a way that would resonate.

“I didn’t want to think about Freddie Gray as just a face,” Deacon said.

Despite his missive, the political atmosphere at the inaugural music festival on the National Mall, which has played host to some of the most powerful and iconic demonstrations in American history, was lacking.