I adore the Indigo Girls with all of my heart. My parents danced to some of their songs at their wedding, their music was a huge part of my childhood, and even now those songs and albums hold a very special place in my heart. They may be my favorite group of all time. But it’s fair to say that the duo has eras, and that their music has changed greatly in the last 35ish years they’ve been performing. What started as folk-punk has transitioned to more mellow country, feel-good type music. My parents prefer the older stuff, it’s what they grew up with and it reminds them of their counter-culture college days. I love those older albums, but I also hold a special place in my heart for their newer stuff.
Recently the group came to my college for a concert, returning after 30 plus years. Annie Humphrey was opening for them, coincidentally the same artist that opened when my mother last saw the Indigo Girls. She joined me for the concert, as well as a full weekend here in the mountains. The venue, an auditorium that seats 1600, was more packed than it was for bbno$ or a performance of Carmina Burana, in a college town thats a huge achievement. The crowd was mostly my mom’s age and their kids, and a large number of concert goers were queer in some sense, myself included. The Indigo Girls are, after all, lesbians themselves, only adding to the cool factor.
While I have listened to every one of their albums up to a point, I’ve only listened to one of their newest, Look Long, which I thought was OK. All That We Let In is about the newest of their songs I know by heart, and that album is as old as I am. Including the encore I only recognized 4 of the songs played, and I love that. The rest of the theater was singing along to their newer material while my mom and I went along with the good vibe. And age hasn’t worn down their fighting spirit, either, the backdrop for the stage was a shelf full of banned books, and frequently throughout they talked about civil rights issues between songs. There was also a violinist accompanying them, whose name I’m kicking myself over not writing down because I can’t seem to find it online. She was phenomenal.
The concert was an incredible experience that I’m glad I got to be a part of, but none of the songs they played came from All That We Let In, so what gives? Well I wanted to talk about the band, but not through the lens of nostalgia. I hadn’t heard anything of All That We Let In until I was in high school, when I bought a copy of a concert dvd thinking it was the album. I later found the album at the same thrift shop. The songs on this album have a certain positivity to them, the fight has gone down a little but the beliefs are still strong, if that makes sense. It’s clearly going for more of a country thing as opposed to folk, but it works.
I wouldn’t recommend someone starts with this album if they’re new to the Indigo Girls, I think I would recommend Swamp Ophelia or Look Long, depending on their tastes, but All That We Let In sits comfortably in the middle of a change in the group, I think a change for the better. Nobody wants to do the same thing for 40 years, even if that thing means a lot to them. They have to innovate, try new things, listen to what others have to say, go with the times. Those old songs are still there, they rotate them in and out pretty frequently and of course the old albums are still out there in tapes and CDs, but give the new stuff a try, too. Maybe you can appreciate both. This album and all others by the duo are available for purchase and streaming wherever you listen to music. Oh, also, it is true that they swap out guitars between every song because they play them that hard.
This review is going up alongside a review for Annie Humphreys Eat What You Kill, click here to read that review!
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