Concert Review: Indigo Girls in Seattle
Indigo Girls – Woodland Park Zoo – Seattle – July 26, 2009
Indigo Girls’ annual stop at Woodland Park Zoo has, it may be fair to say, become a local tradition. Regardless of how recently they’ve released an album, the duo has reached a point in their career where they have literally hundreds of songs to pull from for their annual 90-minute sets. While they almost always close with either “Closer to Fine” or “Galileo” (this time, the former closed the main set, the latter the three-song encore), what happens aside from that is anyone’s guess.
Any band which lasts 20 years will go through its ups and downs, will write songs that feel like they’re pulling in opposite directions at times. No doubt there have been some records where Emily Saliers’ propensity for navel gazing does little more than balance Amy Ray’s affinity for rocking out. Their latest effort, however, strikes a more solid balance. It’s now clear – both on record and onstage – Indigo Girls are not just adept at their instruments and nailing their often tortured observational tunes, it’s the harmonies which drive it all home.
In an interview earlier this year, Emily Saliers told me that, while she and her musical partner Amy Ray have been collaborating for twenty years, they still put most of their work into vocal arrangements. You can hear it when they sing, and sense it in their shows. Even though these two have been singing together for so long, the thing which sets them far apart from any other songwriting duo on the scene these days is the attention they pay to their harmonies. Even as some of their newer material may come off like something we’ve heard a decade hence, the moment the other voice comes in, the song grows by bounds.
This weekend at the Zoo, they were joined by two additional ably voiced collaborators – incidentally both Seattle natives. Though Julie Wolf has long since left Seattle to play with almost every notable woman on the contemporary folk circuit (Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams, Kris Delmhorst, Amy Ray in her solo incarnation, etc.), she started her career here. Wolf is, indeed, a terrific keyboard and accordion player, and her chops added plenty of subtleties behind Indigo Girls’ guitars and voices. Then came local singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile – who, remarkably enough, kept toward the bottom of her rather large range, bringing nuance more frequently than roar (though she unleashed the power a few times when the timing was just right).
Together, these four women delivered fresh-sounding turns on some of the Girls’ most classic material. Obsure-ish tunes like “World Falls” and trademark songs like “Galileo” soared farther with the additional voices. Ray and Carlile gave about as rocking a rendition as two voices and one mandolin can muster for “The Tale of Johnny Rotten,” and he three of them, sans Wolf, delivered exquisitely on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.” Which isn’t to say that Saliers and Ray alone can’t hold the stage steady. Their delivery of crowd favorite “Power of Two” was just as tight, and “Sugar Tongue,” from their latest Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, was another easy early highlight.
Though Poseidon just dropped this spring, the set list wasn’t as heavily focused on selections from it as one might have expected. To polish off what was one of their most spirited and well-rounded performances at the Zoo of late, they dusted off several older numbers for the occasion. Among them were “Hope Alone” (Become You, 2002), “Kid Fears” (Indigo Girls, 1989), and “Hammer and a Nail” (Nomads, Indians, Saints, 1990) which was dedicated to the victim of the recent South Park murder and the organization for whom she volunteered, Seattle’s Compass Center.
The duo has always been active in their community in Georgia, as well as with indigenous communities, environmental and social issues. They announced their alignment with a number of organizations present at the concert. In addition to the Compass Center, these included Amnesty International, Home Alive, and Rock for a Remedy.
Setlist
1. Love of Our Lives
2. Sugar Tongue
3. Power of Two
4. Rosalyn
5. What Are You Like
6. Ghost of the Gang
7. Get Out the Map
8. World Falls
9. Second Time Around
10. Hammer and a Nail
11. Shame on You
12. (?)
13. I’ll Change
14. Driver Education
15. Hope Alone
16. Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright
17. Closer to Fine
18. Kid Fears
19. Midnight Train to Georgia
20. Galileo
This review originally written for SoundNW.com.