[ATTENDED: February 22, 2024] Indigo De Souza
This was the seventh time since Jan 2022 that I might have seen Indigo De Souza.
She had a show scheduled for Union Transfer which was postponed twice. She was scheduled to open for Lucy Dacus–a show I didn’t get a ticket for because I was seeing Indigo headline (cancelled). She finally played her Union Transfer show but I couldn’t make it. Then she was supposed to open for Rainbow Kitten Surprise and that whole tour was cancelled.
I wasn’t even really sure I still wanted to see her after all this time, but the show was nowhere near sold out, so I grabbed a ticket.
There were a lot of die-hard fans there which is hit or miss. This crowd was very respectful of her, which I liked. There was some singing along but it was mostly quiet until it called for loud sing alongs.
I was honestly surprised at how subdued she was during the set. I’ve never seen her before, but all of her promotional material makes her seem like a wild performer. And she was absolutely not that tonight.
But her voice was beautiful and she was very sweet and engaging. She played about an hour and the crowd was enraptured.
She opened with the mellow “Be My Love,” and I was so happy that the crowd was silent as she sang the quiet, sad song.
Her guitarist Maddie Shuler played a lap steel that I couldn’t even tell what the instrument was at first, it was small, plastic and portable. It looked like a keyboard, but was clearly a guitar.
After this mellow floaty song, drummer Avery Sullivan and bassist Landon George kicked in for the first of the brand new songs, “All of This Will End.” I really enjoy her vocal delivery and also her way with lyrics like
Nobody hears me, now I’m talking to myselfI’m talking to God or something
But the crowd loves to sing along to lines like
Who gives a fuckAll of this will end
Most of her songs are short. There’s not a lot of soloing or anything. The only solo moments tend to come from Indigo singing wordless parts (which make the crowd scream, so you can’t hear her).
The band could certainly rock as with “Wasting Your Time,” a short heavy blast of distortion (with Shuler standing up to play normal guitar while de Souza screamed).
“Parking Lot” got the crowd dancing and then she played one of two songs from her previous album. “Bad Dream” was the first actual long song–a slow stomper of a song that stretched for nearly 5 minutes. De Souza’s voice soared to impressive heights as she pleaded, “please send help to me.”
Not bad for only 20 minutes of a show.
After a pause the dance beat of “Smog” started. The song has a bouncy boppy chorus about coming alive in the nighttime. But it also features the rather surprising lyric:
I don’t think I deserve itI don’t think anythingI just sit down and shut upAnd hope they don’t notice me
De Souza is not afraid to be direct in her lyrics. Like the sad but catchy “You Can Be Mean” which she told the crowd that this was a song about breaking up with an asshole.
Thank you for trying to be polite
But, babe, I think we’re already past that
You can be mean to me I’m not gonna stop you
You can be a dick to me
It’s what I’m used to
I can’t believe I let you touch my body
I can’t believe I let you get inside
You know what you did
You know what you took from me
It makes me sick to think about that night
I’d like to think you got a good heart
And your dad was just an asshole growing up
But I don’t see you trying that hard to be better than he is
“Good Heart” seems like the logical follow up to this song about hoping a guy has a good heart.
Then she asked if she could play a new song and apologized to people who hate that. But the crowd was up for “Be Like the Water.” It seems like her newer songs are going to be even more mellow if “shit together” and “kissing ppl” are any indication.
But she delighted everyone by playing “How I Get Myself Killed” a song that many people sang along to.
There was a guy who was very loud during the show (before the show he asked me if I was super stoked, bro and said that Indigo is in his Spotify top 5 for the last four years.
During a lull he spoke clearly and asked for “17.” She said that this was a new band and they didn’t know that song. It was a good explanation and way of getting out of saying I wrote my own setlist jackass. Because she’s been with this band for a pretty long time as far as I can tell.
“Always” is a pretty, quiet song in which her voice soars more. And just when you think the whole song is going to be mellow, the whole band bashed out five brash chords and Indigo screamed at the top of her voice. It was excellent catharsis.
After one more new song (the really good “shit together”) the band quieted down (with Shuler on piano) to play the lovely (and of course sad) “Younger & Dumber” which everyone around me sang (quietly) along to. Although as it build to its huge edge, the loud guy to my right and his new best friends were bent over singing at the floor very loudly. I noticed that many people were giving them a wide berth at this point.
I was quite certain that she was ending all of her shows with “Kill Me.” In fact, if I hadn’t seen that she seemed to be ending all of them with the song I might not have gone. It’s the one song I wanted to hear and it was awesome.
I don’t know what is popular, so I didn’t know if this was a song that everyone else loved too. It is. The reaction was immediate. The song starts slowly then adds a great bass line. But its the way the song builds to the bridge “I know you’ll follow” and the rocking ending “tell them that I wasn’t have much fun.”
After the song, Indigo signed some things for people in the front row, but I had to book it out of there for fear of getting towed (I didn’t).
It was a fun, short set and I’m glad I finally got to see her.
- Be My Love ¥
- All of this Will End ⊗
- Wasting Your Time ⊗
- Parking Lot ⊗
- Bad Dream æ
- Smog ⊗
- You Can Be Mean ⊗
- Good Heart ♥
- be like the water §
- How I Get Myself Killed ♥
- kissing ppl §
- Always ⊗
- shit together §
- Younger & Dumber ⊗
- Kill Me æ
§ new (2024)
⊗ All of This Will End (2023)
æ Any Shape You Take (2021)
¥ single (2020)
♥ I Love My Mom (2018)
I Just Read About That... 
Leave a comment