Tuesday 19 February 2013

INDIGO GIRLS STILL FRESH AFTER 30 YEARS ON THE ROAD

The Indigo Girls are touring North America, with stops in Toronto and Montreal.
(All photos by Jeremy Cowart, courtesy Indigo Girls)
Richard Burnett's interview with The Indigo Girls originally ran in Xtra

Amy Ray remembers the day she and her Indigo Girls musical partner Emily Saliers opened up for the Grateful Dead in front of tens of thousands of Deadheads.

“We’ve been touring for [nearly] 30 years, and that really remains the most memorable concert for me,” Ray says. “I looked over to the side of the stage and there was Jerry [Garcia] watching us. The stadium was full and the crowd loved us. The experience was so surreal, it was a formative experience for me.”

Today, almost two decades later, the Indigo Girls are back on the road with a full band – The Shadowboxers, a young Atlanta five-piece – headlining concert halls across North America, including Toronto (Feb 20) and Montreal (Feb 21).  “We’ll play songs from every record, and because the band has three really great vocalists, we’ll have rich vocal harmonies.”

That’s a long way from when the folk-rock duo first met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in suburban Decatur, Georgia.