Indigo Girls play in Provincetown after busy pandemic years + 5 more concerts worth a listen

Musicians and fans are happy to be back at concerts this summer, but the Indigo Girls was one group that found the pandemic shutdown to be a busy time. Read their story below as they prepare for a concert at Provincetown Town. And here are some other concerts worth considering this week:

► Entrain, a six-member, multi-genre band based on Martha’s Vineyard, will perform a free concert for listening and dancing at 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19 at the Bandstand at Mashpee Commons, at the corner of routes 151 and 28. Entrain has been playing and performing for nearly three decades, and this show is part of the area’s series of free events. Information: www.mashpeecommons.com.

► Robbie Pate will perform a tribute to the music of Stevie Wonder at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19 at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, 317 Old Main St., South Yarmouth. Pate is a jazz vocalist and pianist who has performed at several venues throughout the Boston area, and with a variety of bands as well as the Boston Symphony Pops Orchestra and the Zac Brown Band. Pate will be accompanied by Stephen Byth on saxophone, Eric Falter on bass and Avery Logan on drums. Tickets: $25; www.cultural-center.org or 508-394-7100.

► The current incarnation of the long-celebrated Blind Boys of Alabama will perform a show of their mix of traditional and new gospel and roots music at 7 p.m. Aug. 20 at Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro. The 70-year-old group has won five Grammy Awards and been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Tickets: $28-$45, $25-$42 for members; https://payomet.org/.

► Blues/roots singer/songwriter/harmonica player Peter Harper and his band Midwest Kind will return at 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20 at the Music Room Gallery & Wine Bar, 541 Main St., West Yarmouth; https://musicroomcapecodtickets.com/. Harper has won multiple awards, released 10 albums and his music is described as “a rich musical stew of ‘50s rhythm and blues, a ‘60s message of love and unity, and ‘70s funky soul.”

► Comedian Bob Marley’s Aug. 20 show in Hyannis became so popular with local audiences that it sold out, so a second one has been scheduled for later that night. That 8:30 p.m. Saturday show will take place at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, 51 W. Main St., Hyannis; $49.75; https://melodytent.org/.

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Indigo Girls to play in Provincetown

Most musicians found their activities curtailed during the pandemic. For the Indigo Girls, the past two years have been a particularly busy season.

The duo of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray in May released a livestream project, “Look Long: Together,” that took a year and a half to complete; they’re the subject of an upcoming documentary film; and had their music reinvented for the upcoming movie “Glitter & Doom.”

Saliers has been writing music for two stage musicals and Ray will soon release a new solo album.

That’s quite a busy schedule, even for an act like the Indigo Girls, who have been consistently active since releasing their first album, “Strange Fire,” in 1987. Most bands that debuted around that time — if they’re still together — now only sporadically make albums (if at all) and are considered heritage acts. That’s not the Indigo Girls.

“We still feel like we are a working band. We tour and we make albums and we work, and that feels good,” Saliers said in a recent phone interview. A tour will bring the duo on Sunday, Aug. 21 to Provincetown Town Hall as part of producer Mark Cortale’s summer series. (Tickets and information: https://provincetownarthouse.com/.)

An album and lots more

This latest spate of activity for the band has come on the heels of the release of the 16th Indigo Girls’ studio album, “Look Long,” which arrived in May 2020. A stirring effort, “Look Long” not only features the highly melodic folk-pop (on songs like “When We Were Writers,” “Look Long” and “Sorrow And Joy”) that has always been an Indigo Girls signature, but rhythmically creative songs that touch on hip-hop (“S**t Kickin’”), Caribbean music (“Howl At The Moon”) and catchy upbeat rockers (“Change My Heart” and “K.C. Girl”).

But by the time “Look Long” was released, the pandemic had scuttled plans for a full-band tour to support the album. Now Saliers and Ray, along with long-time violinist Lyris Hung, are making up for that lost tour, following up some 2021 shows with an extensive tour this summer in support of “Look Long.” Saliers said the shows will feature about five songs from the latest album along with a generous selection of back-catalog material, all featuring the unique contributions of Hung.

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“She’s a force,” Saliers said of Hung. “She has such a musical palate and all different sounds on her violin and her fingertips, and (she’s) just a remarkable musician. She really elevates our show every night.”

Next year, the Indigo Girls hope to do a full-band tour.

“Some people like the band and some people like us acoustic or just stripped down,” Saliers said. “We just haven’t had the opportunity to tour with the band because of COVID and we really miss that. So it was good to put out the streaming concert and it will be great to get back with the band next year.”

A streaming show and 2 musicals

That streaming concert, “Look Long: Together,” debuted May 8 on the VEEPS platform. It’s a unique concert special that features performances of a career-spanning set of songs – some of which feature appearances from guests Becky Warren Tomi Martin, Trina Meade and Lucy Wainwright Roche — combined with commentary segments about the songs from Saliers and Ray. Because of the pandemic, performances had to be woven together from separate film shoots to create full-band live versions of songs.

The first step in the process was filming Saliers and Ray playing songs as a duo.

“On some (of those) tracks, we sent them to the players and they listened to our version and played their parts live. Then that all got mixed together,” Saliers said. “Then on other versions, the rhythm section went in first, at least on the recordings, then Amy and I played to the rhythm section live.”

After the footage was complete, extensive editing followed.

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“Amy and I spent hours and hours watching it come together, making suggestions, ‘Let’s do a split screen here,’ ‘The lighting needs to be fixed (here),’ ‘This camera angle is no good, let’s use this shot,’ all these meticulous choices you have to make,” Saliers said. “In the end, we worked so hard on it, we were actually a little discouraged at the eleventh hour. And then watched it and were really pleased with it.”

The year and a half of work that went into the livestream took up some of the pandemic-forced downtime. Saliers also spent considerable time working on two musicals that she hopes might eventually get to Broadway.

“One of them is tentatively called ‘Country Radio,’” Saliers said. “It’s the story of a young queer girl growing up in the South and her journey. And she’s also a writer and has a friend who is an incredible singer, and it’s her working through her love of the Southland that she knew and grew up with and all of the struggles involved with that. Then the other one is tentatively called ‘Starstruck.’

The latter musical, Saliers said, chronicles the efforts of a park ranger and her town to be designated as a dark sky reserve while integrating a love story involving the ranger and an NPR podcaster whose arrival shakes up the town.

Handling current events

One thing Saliers has not done yet is write for another Indigo Girls album. Considering that “Look Long” was completed before the pandemic, there should be plenty of inspiration for lyrics from Saliers and Ray, both of whom have long been involved in a wide variety of social causes, including LBGTQ issues, Native American rights, immigration reform and climate change. But Saliers said she’ll need time to process the pandemic to even know what to say about the experience.

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Saliers and Ray might also have to consider how to respond lyrically to what may be a sea change of conservative initiatives, the biggest of which so far is the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion.

Like many pro-choice advocates, Saliers didn’t think Roe v. Wade would be overturned and is appalled at its demise. Legal access to abortion had been established law for decades with multiple subsequent Supreme Court rulings that affirmed the Roe decision. Plus, polls have consistently shown a solid majority of Americans didn’t want Roe overturned.

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“But the truth is there has been a concerted effort (to overturn Roe),” Saliers said, noting that conservative politicians and activists and certain parts of the evangelical community are among those who have mounted a strategic plan to gain the power in various levels of government and the courts that was needed to target Roe and other progressive issues. “It’s been going on a long time. So while the thought before was shocking, it’s easy to understand how we’ve come to this place.”

Both Saliers and Ray are gay, and Saliers fears the conservative movement will next seek to repeal rights that the LBGTQ community, as well as minorities, have gained over the years. She and Ray plan to be active in efforts to preserve (or restore) abortion rights and to support politicians who support such causes.

“As a gay person who’s married, I’m like ‘Is this my country?’ And that’s like a big question to ask,” Saliers said. “I understand the complexities of history and how things, the pendulum swings and reactions, I understand that. But when it affects peoples’ lives and there’s this huge disconnect between this small group of zealots making decisions because they’re so removed from the reality of peoples’ lives, it’s a lot to take in and a lot to live with and a lot to manage.”

To see the Indigo Girls

When: 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21

Where: Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St.

Tickets: $75-$200

Reservations and information: https://provincetownarthouse.com/; https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/5387661

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod concerts: Indigo Girls play in Provincetown after busy years