Melissa Etheridge does a hometown victory lap at Starlight, with Indigo Girls along for the ride

Indigo Girls & Melissa Etheridge
Starlight Theatre
Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025

Kansas City loves a hometown hero.

When Melissa Etheridge took the stage at Starlight last week, the love shown to her was palpable, and it was also reciprocated in full.

The Leavenworth native took the stage wearing a Kansas City Current shirt under her signature black leather jacket, roared the team’s rallying cry of “KC Baby” into the mic, and cycled through a series of teal guitars. “This is my hometown,” she declared. “You like your hometown.”

She likes her hometown so much that she chose this show to debut the first single of her next album, titled “Don’t You Want a Woman.” (Pause for a knowing chuckle from the crowd.) It was the song’s world premiere, and they were also filming part of the music video, and Etheridge was, by her own admission, really nervous. But once she started playing, you could not tell one bit. Etheridge dominated the stage, stomping and shredding with full ’90s rocker energy as she bellowed out “Don’t you want a woman who can rock your soul?”

The new single, by the way, absolutely rips. It’s the kind of instant hit that the audience was singing along with halfway through their (and the world’s) first time hearing it.

Deploying a roster packed with ‘80s and ‘90s mega-hits, it could have been easy for Etheridge to rest on nostalgia and be the kind of performer who churns out rote recitations of the work that made her famous.

She did play all the old favorites, in addition to the world premiere of her new single, but they were far from rote. Between songs, she offered commentary on the trajectory of her career and the fun she’s had along the way. [In the ‘80s, with the lack of cell phones and internet, you could get away with anything, she tells us before absolutely shredding “Don’t You Need.”] She played around with her biggest hits, mashing up “I Want to Come Over” with a bit of fellow local girl Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova.”

She was having a blast, and she brought us along for the ride.

Etheridge and The Indigo Girls have been alternating headlining spots every night of their Yes We Are Tour.

At Starlight, The Indigo Girls took the stage first, though even as openers, they played a full 90-minute set. Arriving early meant I had about 30 minutes just to pore over the details of the band’s stunningly creative set design.

The band played against a backdrop designed to look like a school classroom that had been taken over by MAGA propaganda. A sign celebrating the vast spectrum of gender ideology had all but male and female crossed out in red marker. The same marker was taken to a map of the United States to label the Gulf of America. A collection of notable banned books has been locked away behind chicken wire. A mouse cage has been hand-labeled “For transmice only,” in a deep-cut reference to Donald Trump’s assertion that scientists are working to make mice transgender.

In the center of the stage, a chalkboard was filled with lines of “Don’t say gay” written on it, though it appeared someone had come along and scrawled over it the iconic line “Stand up for the Lookout.” That message—of (as I read it; this line has always invited plenty of different interpretations) standing up for those changemakers putting themselves on the line to fight for progress—carries through The Indigo Girls’ entire catalogue of work.

They’ve built a career on hits advocating for immigrants, for Native rights, for standing up for the lookout in its many forms.

The crowd attending a Melissa Etheridge/Indigo Girls concert is extremely into that message. This audience was belting out every lyric to “Chickenman” and “Shame on You.” I don’t know how many people carried that energy back into their daily lives—let’s hope many—but at least for that night, things felt electric.

All these decades after their inception, The Indigo Girls still know how to set people’s hearts on fire.

Indigo Girls Setlist:

Faye Tucker
Fill It Up Again
Shit Kickin’
Power of Two
Shame on You
Trouble
Sinner Hang On
Get Out the Map
Fugitive
Least Complicated
Midnight Train to Georgia
Chickenman
Deconstruction
Laramie
Galileo
Kid Fears (with Melissa Etheridge)
Closer to Fine (with Melissa Etheridge)

Melissa Etheridge Setlist:

Bring Me Some Water
If I Wanted To
You Can Sleep While I Drive (with Indigo Girls)
Don’t You Need
I Want to Come Over / Red Wine Supernova
Nowhere to Go
No Souvenirs
Don’t You Want a Woman
Come to My Window
I’m the Only One
Like the Way I Do