Review: Indigo Girls show staying power

It wasn't your glitziest Cincinnati Pops concert.

There were no sequins, no costume changes by the headliners. There was little banter between songs. In fact, the two performers never wandered more than 3 or 4 feet from their center stage microphones.

But then, this was a one-night-only performance by Indigo Girls, the genre-defying duo who hit the semi-bigtime in the late 1980s and never left. They're still touring, still releasing albums – the next one's due June 2 – and still singing impassioned songs about issues dear to their hearts, everything from women's and LGBT rights to the environment and plenty more.

They've never needed the accoutrements that other performers seem to bask in. For Indigo Girls, their lyrics say it all. And for the enthusiastic, near-capacity crowd at Music Hall Sunday evening, that was just fine. All they wanted was to hear Amy Ray and Emily Saliers sing and play.

The nearly two-hour program wasn't exactly a "best of" playlist. Rather, it stopped off in various eras of their 30-year recording careers, with songs that ranged from 1989's iconic "Closer to Fine" – it was the show's closing song – to 2011's "Able to Sing."

With many performers, revisiting decades-old material can be embarrassing for an audience. Time has moved on, but the performers haven't. That's not the case with Indigo Girls. Their music was never rooted in musical trends or popular fads. It was built around ideas and lyrics that verged on the poetic, a formula that has given their songs great staying power.

In some ways, in fact, their performances have grown better. Ray may not bounce around the stage as much as she did at one time. But the pair's presentation has grown pithier and, in some cases, more eloquent.

Indigo Girls' lyrics are filled with messages of confidence and encouragement and occasional questioning of the world around us. Those messages remain powerful presences with songs like "Galileo" and "Go" and "Power of Two."

Even songs about love dig deep. Consider the lyrics in "Mystery," from 1994: "So what is love then? Is it dictated or chosen? / (Handed down and made by hand) / Does it sing like the hymns of a thousand years / Or is it just pop emotion?"

These are not lyrics that lose their power over the decades.

The evening's only real problem was the orchestrations, by Stephen Barber and Sean O'Loughlin. They were busy and distracting and tended to overwhelm the singers rather than enhance the performances.

You can't really blame the Pops. Well, perhaps you can when it comes to volume. But performers supply their own musical arrangements. The irony here is that the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra was being conducted by Steven Reineke, a masterful orchestrator who creates far more skillful arrangements than the ones the orchestra was saddled with.

But in the end, it didn't seem to make much difference to the crowd. They were in the presence of singers they'd listened to for years. And how reassuring it was to know that their messages and their spirit remains as inspiring as ever.

Email davidlyman@gmail.com.