Pop Music Review : Indigo Girls Trip on Compulsion to Be Profound

Serious intentions in pop music are praiseworthy, but it’s also helpful to remember the importance of being not too earnest.

For singers like the Indigo Girls, a fresh, young, Georgia-based folk-rock duo that may be constitutionally incapable of being anything but earnest, it’s vital to avoid getting too caught up with life’s big profundities.

Playing for a worshipful packed house on Wednesday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, the undeniably talented Indigo Girls were full of spirit and serious intentions, but they tripped on their compulsion to be profound, and their inability to get at Big Truths through humbler, simpler storytelling.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers were clear and forceful when it came to putting across the earnest feelings in their songs. But those emotions often came draped in the self-consciously lofty and abstract verbiage that the songwriters seem to think is required if you’re going to say important stuff. “Skipping stones, we know the price now, any sin will do.” “Feeding the cancer of my intellect, the blood of love soon neglected lay dying in the strength of its impurity.” Say what?

Despite those ponderous lyrics, and some diffuse melodies, Ray and Saliers often were able to lift the 90-minute show on musical merits alone. Saliers, the one with the blonde hair and the torn, baggy overalls, has the sort of rangy, supremely confident voice that can make virtually anything sound listenable. She played a pretty forceful acoustic guitar, too, tossing off dexterous lead licks that put an extra kick into many a song.

Ray, with her low, husky singing and basic guitar strums, was the more limited, but still capable, partner. Her main weakness was her habit of laying on a husky near-growl whenever she wanted to add emphasis. Together, the Indigo Girls (who headline the Wiltern Theatre tonight) provided a good strong whiff of coffeehouse heaven with their close harmonies and ambitious strands of counterpoint.