McKinney -- To borrow a line from "Closer to Fine," Indigo Girls came crawling on our shores Friday night to the delight of a standing-room-only crowd at McKinney Performing Arts Center.
From the lilting, tightly woven harmonies of "Power of Two" to the stirring encore delivery of "Galileo" that had the crowd on their feet and swaying to the beat, this was a special night to see the Grammy Award-winning musicians Amy Ray and Emily Saliers doing what elevated them from the nightclub scene in Atlanta, Georgia to the national limelight in 1987 -- harmony on a level very few have ever approached combined with socially relevant poetry that spoke to a generation.
On this night, there was no backing band and no need to rush. As Ray and Saliers settled in for an evening of acoustic music in the remarkable intimate venue of McKinney Performing Arts Center, their professional musicianship was rivaled only by the unpretentious, down-to-earth charm of two very real people who stared fame down and didn't blink.
The music business is a very different world today than the one that spawned Indigo Girls 25 years ago, but the advent of Sirius Satellite Radio has cemented this duo's reputation with a whole new generation. If you listen to coffee house music on Sirius, there is a good reason the mix of John Mayer and Jack Johnson includes Indigo Girls classics "Least Complicated," "Closer to Fine" and "Galileo." The last duo that enjoyed this level of success was Simon and Garfunkel. Before that it was Lennon and McCarthy. And before that, it was the Everly Brothers. Not bad company.
The crowd in McKinney occasionally called out for "Romeo and Juliet," Amy Ray's scorching cover of a ballad written by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits -- a request that unfortunately went unrequited -- but for the most part this audience was happy to go wherever the set list took them. And Indigo Girls seemed very happy with the set-up at McKinney Performing Arts Center.
"This is a great space and I respect your community for making it happen," remarked Ray.
