The Aerie
The Indigo Girls performed last night at the State Theatre in
Minneapolis. It was a good concert and a fun crowd -- I was
unfortunately too upset by unrelated job issues to enjoy it as much as
I should have, but I tried hard to eat the strawberry[1]*.
Lisa Loeb opened for them, and she was certainly entertaining. Getting
LL as an opener for the Girls was a special treat. She was very
personable. When someone requested a song off her new album, (the song
"Kickstart") she warned that she was still a little rough on live
performances of that song and that its performance might constitute a
"very special occasion." But she did it anyway and sounded fine.
After her performance, Lisa Loeb went out into the lobby and signed
CDs during the intermission. She seemed like a very "southern" woman:
both charming and classy, and sometimes playing off that for jokes
(regarding having annoying neighbors for fireworks viewing the night
before in Chicago she stated sweetly, "They were very special
people... it was like... well God damn it!")
Then the houselights dimmed for the Indigo Girls, and it was nonstop
action from the moment they stepped on stage. They played the
following set list in two straight hours of sound:
Bitterroot Faye Tucker Least Complicated
Ozziline Watershed Chickenman
You've Got to Show Moment of Forgiveness Virginia Woolf
Shame on You Closer to Fine[2]** Starkville
Power of Two Yield Galileo
Become You Collecting You Encore: Saving me
Get Out the Map Laramie[3]*** Encore: Go
The highlight of the concert had to be Amy Ray's absolutely intense
energy. She was grinning like a fool almost constantly, and
practically glowing. Emily definitely took a back seat during this
concert, and on the songs featuring her voice she sounded a little
scratchy, so possibly Amy was doing fill-in duty. If so, she did an
exceptional job, really burning a hole in the stage.
As usual their costuming was eclectic: Emily was wearing jeans with a
T-shirt underneath an open denim buttondown. It took about half the
concert before enough of the T-shirt was exposed to read its block-
lettering logo: "Don't Ruin This With Words". Amy was wearing a simple
black tank-top with an odd pair of tartan kilt-pants: regular
tartan-patterned bellbottoms with tartan flaps hanging down in front
and back making a skirt over the pants. Topping off the oddness, a
matching tartan belt was tied like a hobble across her legs, one end
tied just below each knee. I have no idea what any of this meant.
I can't say that I was a fan of the acoustics of this performance. It
was the first time I've seen them in the State Theater, and the sound
was very "messy" to my untrained ear. There were also points during a
couple of songs where I couldn't hear the vocalist's words due to the
sound of the instruments. Additionally it was just damned LOUD. We
were in main floor row O, center, so we weren't right UNDER the
speakers, but it was astonishingly loud. It was so loud in fact that
after the concert ended my wife and I were talking to another couple,
and we all commented that we sounded like the Chipmunks to each other:
we couldn't hear any sounds in the lower register!
The music, as mentioned, was nonstop, with instruments for the next
song arriving as soon as the last song ended. Despite its nonstop
nature, the Girls performed for two solid hours. During one of the
conversational breaks between songs Amy Ray revealed that she'd spent
the afternoon in Minneapolis bicycling along the paths next to the
Mississippi river. This meant that at some point she passed within two
blocks of our house! I can't imagine what my reaction would be if I
were strolling down the River Road and saw Amy Ray ride past me...
Probably something embarassingly fannish, such as attempting to keep
pace with her bicycle while asking for an autograph!
One big upside: at the last TWO concerts we've stood just behind the
same woman. This wouldn't have been such an issue except that she
stands about six-foot-two and enjoys the music by rocking side to side
with such vigor that it was impossible to see the stage from our
vantage point. This time she'd scored third-row tickets somehow and
wasn't blocking our view.
As much as I love the Girls, by the time the concert was over I was
ready for it to be over. My ears were ringing and I was tired from two
hours on my feet (which doesn't begin to compare with the last
concert, their album debut at First Avenue, where we stood for two
hours before the concert even began.) Hopefully their next concert
will have better acoustics!
Unless they make a special promotion for a cause like Honor the Earth
it will probably be a few years till they come back, but when it
happens we'll be waiting!
*My wife reminded me about the Buddhist proverb where snarling tigers
chase a man off a cliff. He falls and grabs a protruding branch that
begins to break. Looking down he sees sharp, deadly rocks below;
looking up are tigers and a breaking branch. Then in front of his nose
he notices a strawberry growing out of the cliff. He eats it and it's
delicious.
**Lisa Loeb joined the Girls on Closer to Fine and sang the third
verse. At times she seemed a little overwhelmed by the energy of both
the audience and the other performers.
***Off Amy Ray's solo album, 'Stag'. While the entire concert was an
Amy performance and therefore almost punk in its intensity, this song
was right over the top and not as well received. A lot of people took
their seats during this one.
[4]Last
Posted by Albatross at July 6, 2002 12:00 AM