Indigo Girls Concert
Yesterday I got out of work early (around 2:30pm) so I could get home as soon as possible and get ready to go out – we were off to see the Indigo Girls in concert at Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC). I’ve been a fan ever since they released their first album, and introduced Jac to their music. She now loves them almost as much as me. :)
We arrived at FAC a little after 6pm and easily found street parking. The concert was to be outdoors on the lawn, and people brought along rugs and blankets to sit on- we used a sarong. Food was available for sale at the venue, but many people had brought their own nibblies and picnics, quite a few had barbecue chicken and salad. One woman walked in carrying four pizza boxes. Next time, that might be me. Well, maybe with only one pizza box.
The food for sale included chicken satay, noodles, curry and rice from the Bunga Raya Satay stall, and kebabs, hot lamb rolls and nachos from another stall. The kebabs were loaded with salad and looked quite healthy. The satay stall also sold hot chips and dagwood dogs, which was quite interesting! There was a bar too – Jac bought herself a Little Creatures Pale Ale, which went down very well. Not knowing what would be available at the venue nor whether it would be a rip-off (neither of us had been to the FAC for a concert before), we’d had a quick dinner of sandwiches at home, but with all the delicious smells in the air I fell easily to the power of suggestion and grabbed some noodles with chicken satay (AU$6.50) from the satay stall. I was tempted to also get a curry puff but decided that would really be greedy! Heheheh, but yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever written about a night out at a concert without including some sort of food.
The support act was Toby. According to the Toby website: “‘Toby’ can range from Toby being solo, up to fourteen players at once. Toby has carefully selected her musicians, and only plays with the best. Showcasing strings, brass, woodwind, percussion, keys, harmonica, drums, bass and guitar.” On stage last night was Toby the singer, Jessica the violinist and Jean-Guy the harmonica guy player. Both women had lights on them, but Jean-Guy stood mostly in the twilight and didn’t photograph well as a result.
I saw the Indigo Girls perform at the Perth Concert Hall over ten years ago – my sister CW and I got to the box office really early in the morning and scored seats in the second or third row (I forget which, all these years later). They were fantastic. Last night, they were just awesome. They sang sweetly yet powerfully and harmonised perfectly. I guess they’ve had years and years of practice! Over the course of the performance, they played different guitars and the mandolin; Emily played banjo (during Get out the Map) and Amy the harmonica (during Dairy Queen). Emily’s guitar, mandolin and banjo plucking and solos were amazing. I reckon it’s easy to forget who’s playing what instruments when you listen to CDs. Watching them perform right in front of you, you really can’t help but feel in complete awe of their musical talents. Should I use some of my tax return to get a new guitar? Last night may have just inspired me to do that.
I’d found it easy to take good photos of Toby, but the lighting of the Indigo Girls made it a lot trickier. I took photos for the first few songs, and then put the camera away to relax and enjoy the rest of the performance. We were maybe 30 meters away from the stage – my camera’s 10x zoom came in very handy. There were many people recording the concert on their cameras and mobile phones – I could’ve done the same on my camera but wanted to get lost in the performance, rather than spend the time worrying about whether I was keeping my hand still, you know?
It was actually quite difficult to take good photos of Amy, as she moved on the spot and around the stage much more than Emily.
A few more photos are available here, at my Indigo Girls concert at at Flickr.
They sang a good selection of songs from their different albums – the playlist included (not in order, and not the complete list) Pendulum Swinger – which they opened the concert with, Love’s Recovery, Land of Canaan, Fill it Up Again, Dairy Queen, Three Hits, Galileo, Chickenman, Get out the Map, Shame on You, The Wood Song, Go Go Go, Closer to Fine, and my favourite song of theirs, Power of Two.