Tegan and Sara… apparently they’re twins and it’s not just clever use of mirrors. Having trudged through many an interview to differentiate which was which it became clear that at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. Having proved themselves internationally as being excellent Canadian exporters of indy/pop/rock they have certainly earned themselves a definitive fan base here in the UK.
Given that they know this they took full advantage of treating the audience to a lot of new songs - something that would have been more of a risk to a band who had less knowledge of who they were playing to. Certainly most of the audience enjoyed the new stuff, but it became clear about mid way through that even they were beginning to lose patience and wanted to hear more of their popular records.
Eventually Tegan, or perhaps Sara, burst into one of their better known numbers from the critically acclaimed album The Con and the crowd picked up their momentum again but it was short lived as they treated us to more songs off their new album.
Despite the crowd's variance of appreciation they certainly put on a good show. Tegan (?) spent a great deal of the gig recalling stories related to their childhood and discussed the nature of how they produce the songs. One thing can be said about them whether you like their musical style or not - they’re very charismatic and it’s hard not to find their anecdotes amusing. However after the fifth story it did become apparent that even the most ardent fan was eager to just hear the next song. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, play the next number” (to the left).
The musical performance lacked variety overall - a great deal of their new songs sounded very alike and it appeared the only break from furious strokes of the guitars were when they played previous album material like Soil, Soil and Floorplan.
However, they’re profound lyricists and the sentiment behind many of their songs so compact with sentiment really does justify the repetitive wrist straining they must encounter while performing.
Over all a pretty good performance although a little lacklustre and repetitive. One suggestion would be to play a smaller venue next time and really make use of their acoustic qualities rather than struggling to fill an auditorium.