Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, and Mother Earth highlight Water is Life concert
September 06, 2022
With two of the country’s biggest folk-based singer-songwriter acts headlining and a supporting cast dominated by women-led artists, another woman ruled the state’s most politically vocal music festival of the year: Mother Earth.
Blue skies, sunshine, and a cool Lake Superior breeze served as a glorious backdrop to the Water is Life Festival at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth on Sunday, Sept. 4.
Organized by Honor the Earth, a longtime Indigenous environmental awareness group, with support from Minneapolis-based music production company First Avenue, the 10-hour, 11-act spectacle drew close to 5,000 people to the waterfront setting. Colorful tents bordered the stage, children flew huge fish kites, and the grounds swarmed with giant puppets including a black bear, an orange butterfly, and a red rooster.
The annual event serves as a platform to celebrate Native American culture and raises funds to protect Minnesota waters from corporate threats like mining, oil production and pipeline development.
During her introduction of the night’s final act, Indigo Girls, Honor the Earth co-founder Winona LaDuke said the country needs more hemp farming to replace harmful petroleum-based production methods. She called for a “new green revolution.”
“I’m tired of coming to Duluth and seeing how beautiful it is and looking over (to Superior, Wis.) and wondering when that Husky refinery is going to blow up again,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of watching the average corporation strangle the Great Lakes. Late-stage addiction is a bitch, isn’t it?” The crowd roared in agreement.
LaDuke said she founded Honor the Earth with Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers 30 years ago. “We fell in this love with each other, for music and politics and spirit and Indian people and every kind of people working together for Mother Earth,” she said.
Perhaps the moon hanging over the towering Bayfront stage was a sign Mother Earth was pleased with the efforts.
Indigo Girls proceeded with a speedy but entertaining six-song acoustic set that featured just Ray, Saliers, and whirlwind violin player Lyris Hung. The trio opened with back-to-back crowd-pleasing sing-a-longs “Shame on You” and “Galileo.” The song “Go” featured a screaming fiddle/guitar duel and a lyric made for the rebellion: “Did they tell you you’d come undone, when you tried to touch the sun? Undermine the underground.”
The uplifting and timeless 1989 hit “Closer to Fine'' ended the set with a stage full of musicians singing the chorus and dancing with the band. As the lights went down and the crowd began to filter out over a grassy hill, the stage became home to an evening-ending drum circle featuring all Native performers.
Prior to the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco slammed through a compelling seven-song solo set that even made sound issues entertaining. Perhaps because crews hurried to beat a city-imposed curfew, DiFranco was strapped with a dead monitor on her first song. Her edgy guitar playing cut off and on erratically as a stagehand scrambled to fix it. “I don’t think I read this part in my folk singer manual,” quipped DiFranco. She then abandoned the guitar and rapped the lyrics to her 1993 song “My IQ,” featuring the line: “Every tool is weapon if you hold it right.”
“I don’t know if that (stuff) holds up a capella,” she said after finishing. It did, and the crowd let her know with big cheers. DiFranco ended her set with three new songs including “The Thing at Hand,” which called out a list of natural wonders including crickets, loons, pine trees, and the ocean.
Throughout the event, rapper Thomas X of the Red Lake Nation served as a between-act host. He encouraged the audience to support environmental issues, introduced artists, and turned in a fantastic guest vocal during a set from Keith Secola. With about 10 musicians on stage jamming to Secola’s classic anthem “NDN Kars,” Thomas X took the microphone and switched up the lyrics to fit the day — singing about a “water protector” bumper sticker that holds his vehicle together.
Also guesting during the fantastic Secola set was Minneapolis restaurateur (Owamni) and Duluth-reared singer-songwriter Dana Thompson, a group of traditional dancers, and Native vocalist Joe Rainey Sr. A flock of geese even flew low over the crowd searching for a place to land.
Other main-stage highlights included the blazing guitar work from New Mexico-born, Bemidji-based Native bluesman Corey Medina. Medina sings like an angry Jim Morrison and plays a heavy wah-wah foot pedal that could knock over Jimi Hendrix. Canadian actor Gary Farmer, currently starring in the television comedy/drama Reservation Dogs, joined folk songwriter David Huckfelt and his band on the harmonica, adding a little star power to the seven-song set. Duluth-based Low delivered 25 minutes of guitar thunder and sweet harmonies, performing five songs including three from its 2021 album Hey What.
Singer-songwriter Annie Humphrey opened the concert and rapper/singer Dessa turned in a buoyant 10-song set with a three-piece band and a guest sax player.
Gaelynn Lea and Joe Rainey Sr. performed on a side stage as well as 23-year-old TikTok star and First Nation Canadian vocalist Tia Wood, who delighted with a memorable, wide-ranging set. Accompanied by a guitarist, Wood hit some impossible notes in a soulful version of “I’d Rather Go Blind,” did two songs in the Native Cree language, a love song to a now spurned boyfriend and a delightful country romp. “I’ve never been to Duluth,” she said. “Duluth — is that how you say it? — it’s beautiful.”
Note: Singer-songwriter Allison Russell was forced to cancel her appearance at the Water is Life concert. In an Instagram post, Russell said doctors advised her to take a break from performing to deal with a nagging vocal node issue.
