Mothers and daughters: Rachel Platten brings her Set Me Free tour to Eagles Theatre in Wabash on Saturday, April 19. 

Joining her that night will be Jojo Dodge and Ben Abraham.

Showing another side

Of course you know Platten from her 2015 smash hit of female empowerment, “Fight Song.” You might be excused for thinking of her as a one-hit wonder, despite the more than a decade she spent as a songwriter building her career up to that breakthrough.

Platten was 33 when “Fight Song” won her an Emmy and her major-label album Wildfire went gold. But after the follow-up album Waves, in 2017, she took a break for marriage and motherhood.

Her latest album, I Am Rachel Platten, released independently last year, marks her re-emergence as a mature artist. It’s an unflinching self-portrait and testimonial about grief, anxiety, depression, and overcoming them.

“I started therapy and I started looking at myself and realizing how much I was spiritually bypassing,” she said in a press release. “The world has only seen this one side of me, this strength — empowering, positive, loving, warm, everything’s OK — and it wasn’t fake by any means, but it was just only one part of me.

“For a while I’d gotten so used to dimming my light for other people, but on this album, I got to heal by using music as my outlet.”

Exchanging pop for honesty

Platten has moved past the uncomfortable phase of being made to be a teen idol, steered into TV-ready pop songs. 

As much fun as it was to hear her romp through those funk-inflected tunes in those days, the songs on I Am Rachel Platten are something else. She’s written brutally honest songs and is fearless in naming and addressing issues with mental health and postpartum depression. 

I wouldn’t call her songs triumphant. They are about doing hard work, keeping her faith, and coming through a stronger woman.

As she says in her press bio, “(A) lot of this music was me developing my relationship with my creator and with God.”

Tracks “I Know,” “Mercy,” and “Surrender” make up an “unintentional holy trilogy” of faith-seeking and healing songs, “a hero’s journey of someone wrestling with their demons,” as she puts it. Her voice and pen became a conduit, Platten says, a vessel for the lyrics and messages handed down to her from a higher place.

Even though this is an independent release, the production values on I Am Rachel Platten are just as high as her major-label work from a decade ago. She’s working with some of the same high-profile hit-makers, including Gian Stone and Jon Levine, and writing with A-list collaborators. The sound won’t be unfamiliar to her legions of fans from her earlier era.

Vocally, she isn’t reluctant to belt it out with a powerful voice. But what the listener yearns for is those frequent quiet and intimate moments. While neither her music nor her singing style are “country,” when she’s in that mode, Platten has an emotional “catch” in her voice, not unlike the great country singers of old.

Instrumentally, despite the ever-present pop sheen, these arrangements are more direct, anchored in piano and acoustic instruments and less with samples or loops. And out of nowhere a choir of singers swell up time and again to underscore Platten’s voice.

Oh, and the album closes with a duet with the great Michael Bolton.

New kind of show

The concert experience on this tour, however, is something altogether different. 

In recent appearances Platten, accompanying herself on acoustic grand piano and guitar, has been backed by newcomer Tiger Darrow on cello and vocal, and her longtime touring drummer Craig Meyer. It’s just the three of them.

We’ve always known Platten can play as well as sing, but this is quite a contrast to the heavily produced and choreographed TV appearances and arena shows she was doing with a full rock band and backing tracks a decade ago. Which is the point, really. Platten is 43 years old and owning it. She wants to make music directly for her audience and hear them sing along with every song. Playing new arrangements of her fans’ favorites from the previous decade is part of the fun.

There are two opening acts on the bill.

Dodge is a 21-year-old folk-pop singer-songwriter from Idaho. She’s been releasing singles in collaboration with established producers and songwriters in the Los Angeles scene. She cites Fleetwood Mac, Carly Simon, and Brandi Carlile as influences.

Abraham is an Australian singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. His eponymous debut album in 2014 earned critical acclaim and featured appearances by Sara Bareilles and Gotye. After co-writing songs for Grammy, Tony, and Emmy Award winner Ben Platt, Abraham went on to release his 2022 major-label follow-up album Friendly Fire. In addition to his own output, he’s written songs for artists such as Kesha, Demi Lovato, and The Chicks. Look for him to join Platten on stage for a duet.

Fans who buy the VIP package will not only get the expected meet-and-greet, photo opportunity, and merch bundle. Before the concert, Platten will also lead VIP ticket holders in a guided meditation session.

Summing up, here’s another quote from Platten’s press kit bio: “Now I have the maturity and the wisdom and my own connection to now invite my listeners in to feel their own connection, whatever that looks like, not what I think it should look like. I call it God. You can call it whatever you want, whatever is you getting back to your identity. I feel why I’m on this earth is reconnecting people to their identity, their truth, to their purpose, to their power.”