“Indygo” challenges the digital age with asceticism in rock music

Recommends “a damn good rock album”

To begin with, the main reason why the “Indygo” concert “Palladium” took place at all – about the album. The cheerful and always smiling Mārtiņš Vater rock group “Indygo” already has a substantial beard, that is, it has existed for many years (more than 20 to be precise), and each of its new studio albums is awaited and welcomed with interest, but also with a little concern – what will it be, Latvian or English, what style will dominate this time, what will Vaters & Co. have thought up again, good or bad? “Saturated with music and emotion, just a damn good rock album! We are pleased with what we have done!” after the release of “6”, the modern rock trio “Indygo” or Mārtiņš Vaters, Miks Riekstiņš and Māriņš Leja announced their damn good feelings in a damned laconic manner.

The previous “Indygo” album “The Result Of Everything” was released in 2019, and it was entirely in English, while its predecessor, “Stars”, released in 2015, was in Latvian. “Decoy” released in 2013 – ostensibly in English, but it also included the group’s probably biggest hit of all time “Minutes and Hours”. The new album was created during the last couple of years, collecting the songs made during the rehearsals and sifting out the ones that are suitable for this work – this time again in Latvian.

A step away from the “underground” scene

The very first new piece put into wider circulation (collaboration with Māri Žigat and Arti Dvarionas in the song “But you hurry” does not count) “Skats pa logu” thoroughly scared us – we don’t need “Indygo” so melodically “milky”! Fortunately, there are also songs in more playful and rockier tones, but there are also compositions with which Vaters approaches the song survey “Muzikalā banka”… The song “Idiots”, also endowed with “groove”, can apply for the “Indygo” gold fund “Lost Heart” and the grandiose “Doorbell”, however, the average score is the more radio-friendly direction of “View from the Window”. Unfortunately.

Of course, everything is played and sung with high quality – “Indygo” has always been able to guarantee that, the songs are melodic and maybe even more understandable for a wider audience than the old “Indygo” works, thus this album can also be called a step forward, but the group’s biggest trump card is (was?) exactly the most “underground” untamed sound. “Musically, the album is very colorful, which electrically lifts the fingertips and makes you sit down deeper on the sofa or in the seaside dunes and, observing the various movements of the vast waters of the sea, find something very personal and lasting in this music,” Indygo philosophises.

The joke played in “Morning Panorama” did not help

Here, and with such not very good thoughts about “6”, the reviewer went to the “Indygo” big concert.

Already with the first song “Sapņu pils” (by the way, from the debut album released way back in 2005!) Vaters & Co took the rock bull by the horns, and it’s good that it – “6” with its polished sound could scare many people and probably was ar’ scared, because there were unforgivably few people in the public hall – it’s even hard to remember when you’ve seen such a half-empty “Palladium”. Vater was trying to tell himself and the others that everything was fine and that “we were already s***ed up that we’d be up on our asses renting the Palladium, but there’s so many of you!” but, eh? it really looked that way to him from the stage, or he tried to encourage himself. In the end, this minus started to seem like a plus, because you could listen to a good rock concert without being pushed and shoved, and without even being doused with beer or any other drink. A large part of those gathered were “Indygo” colleagues and/or peers from the musical circles, the audience was also mostly rock fans of this or a similar age, so Vaters could ironically say that everyone’s retirement is only a week later, so this was the best place to come.

Vater’s sense of humor has always been on point, and it sparkled this time as well.

Thanks to it, well, at least we know that the song “Shut Up!” is actually about a physical education teacher who decided to focus on the career of a porn actress – at least that’s what Vaters said. It’s true, how seriously can you take people who became known all over Latvia in one fell swoop, simply by connecting two guitars with one cable in the LTV “Morning Panorama” recording…

With surprises, but without brilliance

Returning to the concert, this time the “Indygo” program was completed only from Latvian pieces – probably the right move. There is nothing superfluous in the stage setting – three men and austere lights. In fact, it was not clear why the group needed the “Palladium” hall, if they practically did not use its spaces – the performance of one dancer (twirling around the bar) does not count. Vater joked that they needed it so he could “draw” when changing guitars – well, let’s face it. However, those who were at Mika Galvanovski’s concert the next day in the same hall probably compared the two, and this comparison was in Mika’s favor.

The guests were also few, but memorable. If it was easy to predict that Artis Dvarionas will take the stage – he has the song “Bet tu že” together with “Indygo” (its third member Māris Žigats was busy at a concert in Mārupe), then the original of Indygo’s favorite song “Versiju vulkāns” the appearance of the author Ilvars Jansons on the stage was a complete surprise – the former leader of the groups “Herlis” and “Citrus” has only been heard talking about films in recent years, although he recorded almost every third one. But the biggest and also the most pleasant surprise – collaboration with the group “Omerta” in the song “Eneids norimis”. Oh my lord, how the “Omertians” “cut” the guitars, shaking the guts from the top to the very other end of the body – this piece alone was worth visiting this concert!

Thoughts worth listening to

Of course, there were also other pleasant moments, which were mostly connected with the rockiest manifestations of “Indygo”. It also seemed that songs like “Minutes and Hours” were more to the heart of the audience than the lyrical part of the new album (minus “View from the Window”), during which the highlight was sound man Mar Branson running across the stage to replace the batteries for the Vatera in-ear monitors. On the other hand, the data of the streaming service “Spotify” shows something different, because there the listeners of the new album with a convincing majority of votes recognized the already mentioned “Skats pa logo” (almost 24,000 listens) as the best, as well as “Cita pasaela” ( around 8300) and “A simple man (at 4200), which are the most boring of the new masterpiece. Maybe streamers don’t come to concerts at all?

The trio itself was obviously satisfied with the evening spent. “It’s hard to put into words how incredibly happy we are after being together with all of you at the Palladium concert event yesterday. Now we will be able not to take meal breaks, because we will feed on the accumulation of positive and still some energy charges – thank you!” Vaters expressed on social networks the very next day. True, after a few days, Mārtiņš Leja published a slightly different recording, forcing you to read between the lines: “Judging and wondering how it was, starting with the first chords and rehearsals almost 25 years ago, when there were no digital channels and the information environment was at a completely different level , in which the music spoke for the artist at concerts. For a time when it was not primary to create tactics, which can be observed today, how to develop the following bases, bringing to the fore an often artificially created concept even before the music itself, in order to sell itself as a product to the widest possible audience. About tours and concerts, driving and flying outside the homeland, where young ears and eyes are amazed by fresh and previously unheard news, because word of mouth recommendations are still a much more powerful result than paid advertising in today’s dynamic digital age. About the textual message and co-responsibility in what you want to convey and what evidence you leave behind. For how it was then, how everything has transformed today and at the end of the day – continuing to do and create, besides, together with those with whom I have breathed in the same rhythm for years, I am now overcome with immense gratitude to all the forces that not only during all these years brings back to a full concert hall those for whom we are important with “Indygo”, and those who have been coming back for several generations. Nothing warms the heart more than that and thank you everyone for being there! How to say stylishly today – it’s just the beginning!”

Returning to the mood of the late 80s

Looking at the stage and listening to the songs of “Indygo”, the imagination wandered all the way to Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s – that’s probably what “Nirvana” and its peers looked like at that time, three men and real, true rock. Vater, who was raging to the point of insanity, with his light and fluttering hair, with his behavior and appearance even reminded Kurt Cobain from a distance, Mick Riekstiņš also went crazy on drums like Dave Grohl, and only Mārtiņš Leja on bass looked significantly better than the determined Chris Novoselic. If at the end of the concert, while performing “Minutes and Hours” for the second time, Vaters had smashed his guitar, which seemed like a completely obvious final chord of the concert, then probably everything would be exactly as it was then.

Live “Indygo” have always been at the level and they were also this time, only “Palladium” is probably a bit too big for their scale. But maybe it seemed that way only because there was an opportunity to compare – this concert hall has recently been more crowded than ever before. On the other hand, “Indygo” – they promised to show up again and again, leaving only to follow the news on their own “invented” Internet. We will do so.

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