New Songs Gain Richness as Indigo Girls Turn Up the Power

You might associate the Indigo Girls with heavy-handed lyrics, but it was the heavy power chords played by Emily Saliers and Amy Ray to open their first of two nights at the Wiltern Theatre on Thursday that sent the strongest message. “Go,” which also opens the Georgia duo’s new “Come on Now Social” album, could well have been Neil Young with Crazy Horse, the way the pair and their four-piece band churned. And they hardly let up for two hours.

Of course, rockin’ out can cover a multitude of sins. But even the most facile of the duo’s character portraits gained richness from the energy, with the new album’s “Ozziline,” a tale of a rural female survivor, particularly effective. And isolating the older I’m-OK-You’re-OK anthems “Least Complicated,” “Closer to Fine” and “The Power of Two” in three separate acoustic slots watered down the daily-affirmation platitudes.

Still, it was those literally least complicated songs that drew the most enthusiasm from the loyalists, who sat during the dynamic new material but stood to sing along on the folkie favorites. Fortunately, Saliers and Ray were undaunted in their drive.

Opener Vonda Shepard was in a rocking mood too, opting for what she called her “non-’Ally McBeal’ set” and investing her sometimes seductive textures with more power than usually allowed on that TV gig.