New York, NY (Top40 Charts) One of the most successful folk-rock duos in history, Indigo Girls, comes to Los Angeles for one night only on Saturday, June 24 at The Luckman Fine Arts Complex in unique presenting partnership with The
Soraya at Cal
State Northridge.
Currently on an international tour, the multi-Grammy Award-winning Indigo Girls-Emily Saliers and Amy Ray-have a career spanning more than three decades and have recorded 16 studio albums, sold more than 15 million records, and built a dedicated, enduring following across the globe. Accomplishments that have earned the phrase "ideal duet partners" from Rolling Stone.
Together Saliers and Ray write, arrange, record, and perform music that has become a vital part of life for the devoted fans they've made over the years. Released in 2020, Look Long was the band's first new album in five years, and is described as a testament to the band's acclaimed career.
"With 11 songs covering themes from romance and parenting to family memories, gun culture and gay identity, Ray and Saliers do their best to rinse the salt out of a few wounds, gently dress others and also attempt some preventive care," the Associated Press wrote. "...a passionate and tuneful collection on which the combined voices of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers sound as instinctive and magical as ever."
Look Long was recorded in England at
Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, it's where they made 1999's "Come On Now Social," one of their most memorable albums. Though Look Long received high praise from critics, a tour for the album was halted during the pandemic in 2020. The
Soraya is proud to partner with Cal
State LA's Luckman Fine Arts Complex to present Indigo Girls with their full band on Saturday, June 24, 2023 in Los Angeles. Tickets are $48-$83 and subject to dynamic pricing.
For more information visit www.TheSoraya.org or call the Luckman's Box Office at (323) 343- 6600. For media tickets and interview requests, please contact The
Soraya Communications Associate Marie Estrada, or PR Consultant Gary Murphy.
On their 16th studio album, Indigo Girls tell their origin story. They have reunited with their strongest backing band to date to create Look Long-a stirring and eclectic collection of songs that finds the duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers chronicling their personal upbringings with more specificity and focus than they have on any previous song-cycle. The eleven songs have a tender, revealing motion to them. Saliers and Ray are tackling the mechanisms of perspective.
"We're fallible creatures shaped by the physics of life," says Saliers. "We're shaped by our past; what makes us who we are? And why?"
In this moment of delirious upheaval, Look Long considers the tremendous potential of ordinary life and suggests the possibility that an honest survey of one's past and present, unburdened by judgement, can give shape to something new-the promise of a way forward. With the energy of an expanding, loyal audience beneath their feet, a weather eye toward refinement, and an openness to redefinition, Indigo Girls exemplify that promise.
Plans for Look Long materialized over morning tea with producer John Reynolds (Sinéad O'Connor,
Damien Dempsey) on a stop during the duo's recent, sold-out tour of the United Kingdom.
"We were talking about life and music and by the end of breakfast we'd reached the conclusion that it was time to make another record together," says Ray.
The duo's relationship with Reynolds dates back to the summer of 1998 during the second Lilith Fair Tour when a shared main stage headlining slot with Sinéad O'Connor and her formidable backing band featuring Reynolds on drums, bassist Clare Kenny, keyboardist Carol Isaacs, cellist Caroline Dale, and lead guitar player Justin Adams blossomed into deep, mutual admiration, friendships, and eventually, collaboration.
The group recorded Indigo Girls' next album, 1999's Come On Now Social, with Reynolds acting as both producer and drummer, before embarking on a worldwide tour together. Twenty years later, with the addition of longtime touring violinist Lyris Hung, Look Long marks the complete return of the lineup Saliers calls, "our musical compass."
A similar magic unfolded in 1989 when their eponymous major label debut shifted over two million units under the power of "Closer to Fine" and "Kid Fears" and turned Indigo Girls into one of the most successful folk duos in history. Over a decades-long career that began in clubs around their native Atlanta, Georgia.
Collaborations with a new generation of devoted peers like Brandi Carlile, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver),
Sierra Hull, and
Matt Nathanson continue to bring newcomers to Indigo Girls' audience.
Committed and uncompromising activists, Ray and Saliers work on issues like immigration reform (El Refugio), LGBTQ advocacy, education (Imagination Library), death penalty reform, and Native American rights. They are co-founders of Honor the Earth, a non-profit dedicated to the survival of sustainable Native communities, Indigenous environmental justice, and green energy solutions.
As Indigo Girls close in on nearly 40 years of "pulling heartstrings musically" (Chicago Daily Herald), fans will be excited to know that "It's Only Life After All," a documentary offering an inside look at what the last four decades have been like for Ray and Saliers-premiered this year at Sundance Film Festival.
Directed by award-winning cinematographer Alexandria Bombach, the project took nearly three years to complete, and weaves Ray's personal audiotape and camcorder footage with interviews and archival footage.
"It's Only Life After All" is "intimate, fun, and filled with great music," and "allows Ray and Saliers to look back on their musical partnership, personal demons, and careers spanning three decades with self-criticism, humor, and honesty," according to the film's synopsis. To watch a first look of the film, click here.
"It's weird to watch it on the screen, I may have watched one too many times, because you start watching and then you're like, I could have said this or I could have done this with my life," Saliers joked in an interview with the
Chicago Daily Herald. "But it was really well received. And it was exciting to be at Sundance. It was quite an honor."
