Indie rock singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza took the stage at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City on Friday night for Mission Creek Festival, performing to a crowd of over 100 attendees who happily chose to attend her set over the Iowa women’s basketball final four game.
De Souza, one of the headliners for this year’s Mission Creek Festival, amasses over 700,000 monthly listeners across all streaming platforms, with hit songs like “Boys” and “Take Off Your Pants” grossing a total of nearly 30 million plays combined. This was De Souza’s second visit to Iowa City for Mission Creek; her first time playing was in 2022 as the opener for Lucy Dacus.
The musician was joined on stage by guitarist and keyboard player Maddie Shuler, drummer Lila Richardson, and bassist Landon George, who, during De Souza’s last song of her set, “Kill Me,” took off his overshirt to reveal an Iowa Hawkeyes jersey underneath.
De Souza was punctual to her show, arriving on stage at no more than a few seconds past her designated start time of 9:45 p.m. Immediately, the singer commanded a density of standing attendees that grew with each step she took toward center stage, a feat rare for the seated theater.
While on stage, the clouds from the smoke machine danced around her as if constructed to do so and, paired with De Souza’s iconic lightning bolt decal on her electric guitar, the singer was in herself a symbolic double rainbow following the city’s recent streak of stormy weather.
Though she didn’t come donning a costume or prepared with cross-stage acrobatics, De Souza’s voice was a force that didn’t require physicality to dominate the venue.
Likewise, her perfect pitch entranced the audience, most of whom sang along to her songs; When De Souza wanted silence, silence followed. When she bounced to the repeated clash of a cymbal, the sea of her fans bobbed with her.
The artist’s ability to blend sounds that induced synchronized headbangs with ones that induced gentle sways was a visual indicator of her impressive, cacophonous range, which in her music is often met with the most delicate, controlled string of wordless vocalizing which never fails to fester like a beautiful wound.
Though the audience’s energy was palpable, De Souza’s discomfort was as well. She was quick to begin playing without greeting the audience, which first appeared as a creative decision but was later contradicted as De Souza’s eagerness to conclude the show was apparent.
Before her last song of the performance, De Souza told the audience she was “feeling out of body,” and, therefore, her 2021 hit “Kill Me” would be her last song. No encore followed.
However, two attendees, Maddie Mickelson and Lan Livermore, who drove from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to see De Souza and opener George Clanton live in Iowa City, felt the nearly five-hour drive was well worth the trek.
“I’ve never seen Indigo De Souza, I know a few songs by them, but [her show] was really amazing — and sad,” Livermore said after the performance. “Very, very touching and relatable.”
For Mickelson, seeing one of their favorite albums of 2021, De Souza’s “Any Shape You Take,” was a full-circle moment.
“That album was it for me that year,” Mickelson said. “[De Souza’s] music is really good at reflecting back very real things that a lot of us are experiencing.”