Tegan and Sara show off pop smarts, new-wave sound
Tegan and Sara/Rachel Cantu/Darren Hanlon
Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 30, 2004
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in The Boston Globe, December 2, 2004

Tegan and Sara’s fiercely devoted fans know by now that reinvention is a recurrent theme in the career of the Quin twins. 2002’s If It Was You showcased a skewed pop act fascinated by melody and harmony, a far cry from the wordy, rhythm-driven Ani DiFranco imitations they explored two years earlier on This Business Of Art.

Tegan and Sara didn’t play anything from the latter album at the Middle East on Tuesday night, possibly because its verbosity wouldn’t work particularly well with the new wave sound of the recent So Jealous (Vapor). The new direction isn’t a matter of changing things up simply to be contrary, though. Using the meat-and-potatoes drive of Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” as a touchstone rather than the synthetic distance of many Duran Duran-inspired new wave revivalists, Tegan and Sara revealed an increasing mastery of pop dynamics. “You Wouldn’t Like Me” and “Speak Slow” both fairly exploded when drummer Rob Chursinoff joined in at full power, and the three-guitar “I Bet It Stung” churned up a nicely effective little storm.

Older songs also benefited from the Quins’ newfound sensibility. The opening “This Is Everything” slowly swelled with a muted electric guitar pulse, keyboards and reverbed vocals. A few selections from If It Was You were also refurbished with some early-’80s touches; “Monday Monday Monday” gained a synth-like guitar line and dancable beat during the bridge, and “Living Room” became more aggressive, with a quasi-reggae punk groove that might have fit on Combat Rock.

If the live setting brought Tegan and Sara’s pop smarts into sharp relief, it unfortunately muted their marvelous split harmonies, which sound like cloned Alanis Morissettes singing the Everly Brothers. Instead, a type of prickly harmony was provided in their stage banter, which often built on the twins’ affectionately contentious relationship. The best bit involved Sara explaining her absence at the start of the show, when the band took the stage before realizing that she was missing, as the result of a situation innocent enough to be repeated here but embarrassing enough that it won’t be.

Openers Rachel Cantu and Darren Hanlon each played variations of the acoustic troubadour. Hanlon, looking like Russell Crowe’s little brother, came off as an apolitical Billy Bragg. Local singer Cantu seemed more polished, but the crowd seemed evenly split between enthusiastic applause and apathetic chatter.

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