Indigo Girls concert at Hanover Theatre brings reverence and pure joy to rapt audience

WORCESTER – “How long 'til my soul gets it right?”

That was the question that haunted the Indigo Girls concert Dec. 1 at The Hanover Theatre & Conservatory for the Performing Arts. In part because “Galileo,” in which the line appears, is one of the folk-rock duo's most famous and beloved songs, but also because it was the question that seemed to permeate the whole set.

The packed house hung on every word sung by musicians Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, accompanied by violinist Lyris Hung, evoking a joyous, festival-like atmosphere. Clearly, most of the audience knew every word to every song and recited them like catechism. The reverence in the room was palpable.

But much like prayer, there's something deeper in the Indigo Girls' music beyond the sense of connection in the room. In a lot of ways, the duo's music is spare, driven mainly by acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies. It's music that asks the listener to open themselves up to it, and if one does so, there are layers upon layers to be found within, including — perhaps above all else — a sort of honest vulnerability, as they hold past hurts, heartaches and moments of joy up to the sun to share.

'It's Alright'

After a quirky and endearing opening set by indie musician Bitch — Boston Public Radio said the artist's name on the air not long ago, so one supposes we can do so, too — the Indigo Girls, accompanied by Hung, casually took to the stage to thunderous applause, launching into their song “It's Alright.”

“And it's alright if you hate that way,” the duo sang, Saliers taking the song's higher range, with Ray taking the lower, a classic harmony combo that would define the band's vocal polarity for the rest of the show, “Hate me 'cause I'm different/You hate me 'cause I'm gay/Truth of the matter come around one day/It's alright.”Of course, it isn't alright, but what they're instead saying is that they're not responsible for the hate in other people's hearts. “And it's alright if I feel afraid,” they continue, “My plans in pieces/My plans mislaid/It's the will of the way … The will of the only way that could have brought me here today/And it's alright.”In a turn, a simply structured song that entails a social justice stance and an assertion of self-esteem becomes a reflection on the pain it took to get to that place of self-understanding, an admission that it wasn't an easy road. Throughout the set, the Indigo Girls' songs reflect on the past, pushing past the glow of nostalgia to find real aches of loss and pain. They stab at the listener like pinpricks. It's only when you pay attention you realize they've drawn blood. The theme was picked up immediately in the second song, “Become You,” with Ray switching to harmonica and Saliers' gorgeous voice keeping to a slow burn: “It took a long time to/become the thing I am to you./And you won't tear it apart/without a fight, without a heart.”The set's pace intensified with the gorgeous, Southern-styled “Elizabeth,” with its recollection of being “barely kids,” but “old enough to drink in Louisiana,” and the observation, “I shake my head to think I made it out alive.” The song revisits an old love, but the song's persona has the sense to realize that it's a love best left in the past, even if it still burns. This, also, was a theme throughout the set: a sense of burning, of being pushed away from flames that, against all sense, one still wants to touch, and of being pulled instead to unknown horizons.

'To rise above just being cruel'

After a brief anecdote about visiting the Miss Worcester Diner that morning, and being highly impressed by the woman behind the counter, they played “Howl at the Moon” and “When We Were Writers,” before escalating the evening's pace with the Ray-led rendition of “Faye Tucker,” delving into the reverberations of the death of the first woman sentenced to death in the United States in more than 135 years.

"I thought I heard the angel's bells,” sings Ray, with a gravel in her voice that gave the lyrics weight, “But they were just the hounds of hell/What did you learn Faye Tucker/What will you take from this world/Well mercy could prove us/But nothing would move us/To rise above just being cruel.” In a world where casual cruelty and a deficit of empathy seems to haunt the media and political discourse, it was a powerful statement, one which reverberated through the audience.

From there, the Indigo Girls dug into a set that included “Fleet of Hope” and “Making Promises” before launching into a raucous rendition of their hit “Kid Fears,” which brought the audience to its feet, singing along gleefully. The song, which originally featured R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe on the single, reverberated from every corner of the theater, Hung's violin and the chorus of audience voices filling out the harmonies. It's odd to hear such a deeply personal song, one that's at its a core wistful and nostalgic, being sung so thunderously, but it was an immensely powerful moment.

By this point, the room was supercharged with energy, and songs such as “Lay My Head Down,” “Shit Kickin,'” "Get Out the Map" and Ray's solo rendition of “Sure Feels Good Anyway” and an absolutely jaw-dropping violin solo by Hung. By the time the band got to the riotous “Shame On You,” one could feel the energy of the refrain being targeted at every mean-spirited politician or pundit out there, especially with lines such as “There'll be blue lights flashing down the long dirt road/When they ask me to step out/They say, 'We be looking for illegal immigrants/Can we check your car'/I say, 'You know it's funny/I think we were on the same boat back in 1694.'”The result was absolutely cathartic, as was the response to songs such as “Nashville” and “Go,” the latter of which had much of the audience up on their feet and dancing. By the time the Indigo Girls got to the main set's closer, “Closer to Fine,” what had started as a slow, smoldering flame of a show had completely erupted.

'Closer to Fine'

“Closer to Fine” has had a bit of a renaissance lately, thanks to its appearance in the movie “Barbie,” but as it's the Indigo Girls' most famous song, that probably made very little difference to the audience's unbridled enthusiasm. The arrangement was interesting, though, with the “doctor of philosophy” verse being thrown to the audience, and the band not singing at all, and Bitch taking the vocals solo on the “went to the bar at 3 a.m.” verse. Hung's violin rounded out the sound, and the result was a rapturous musical moment that seemed to solidify sense of connection in the room.

Ray, Saliers and Hung returned to the stage for a two-song encore of the beautiful “Share the Moon” and, perhaps most anticipated, “Galileo,” and in a night in which the claimed duo opened their hearts to the audience with a sense of love and fearlessness, in which a sense of restlessness and discovery permeated everything, the song's central question resonated long after the show's end:

“How long 'til my soul gets it right/Can any human being ever reach that kind of light/I call on the resting soul of Galileo/king of night vision/King of insight.”

As the audience spilled out onto Southbridge Street and the new Francis R. Carroll Plaza, there were still no answers to that question, but in allowing their souls to shine so brightly, the Indigo Girls made that nigh-impossible goal feel well in reach.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Indigo Girls deliver depth and joy at Hanover Theatre concert