Tegan and Sara at the Lisner Auditorium

Washington DC (11/24/07)

Photo by Autumn De Wilde (special thanks to Dackel Photography)

On Saturday, November 24th the nation’s capital hosted the 2007 Pre-Scene Dyke Prom. Okay, not quite, but Tegan and Sara did put on a sold-out performance at Washington DC’s Lisner Auditorium, and surely Lyke Magazine cannot be the only LGBT publication to not feature an article on the mulleted, Canadian twins. On this evening, the George Washington University performance space was filled with girls of all ages: single-digit females with their mothers or grandmothers, hipsters in striped scarves, and middle-school-aged girls basking in what is presumably one of the only public environments that would allow them to embrace their same-sex partners.

Since the release of the band’s latest album, The Con, the Folk-meets-Punk duo have made the move from too-big-to-be-hip clubs to full-blown theaters. Unfortunately, even with a full live band, this transition doesn’t quite work for the Quin sisters. The sea of padded and bolted metal chairs that is the Lisner Auditorium didn’t prove to be the best environment for a pop music performance. Even after several hundred fans made their way to the stage the second the lights went out so they could be closer to their Pop Dykons, the feel of the room never got quite right. Those down front did little aside from stand and stare, and those in the back sat and lost themselves in the music, looking down on the stage in a dazed stupor. None of these things make for the liveliest gig.

Not helping the lack of emotion promoted by the venue was the fact that the group’s set relied heavily on tracks from their latest album, whose slow, somber sound doesn’t lend itself to a live setting. Lo-fi numbers like “Relief Next to Me” and “Call if Off,” along with the excruciatingly melancholy sounds of “Floorplan” and “Like O, Like H” are all lovely for when you’re sitting on your couch and brooding over how you wish you would’ve gotten the phone number of that girl you met in the coffee shop that was next to your old apartment, who commented on your Bratmobile T-shirt, and how somehow that would have made your current life more emotionally complete. But they’re a little dull for stimulating nearly 1,500 people. The only song from The Con that especially aroused the crowd was “Hop a Plane,” the albums angriest, yet most upbeat, track.

It also must be noted that about 1/4th of the show was dedicated to the telling of stories that were cute, but far less entertaining than if they had been replaced with “Underwater” or “Downtown.” These ramblings included the adventure of Sara searching DC for a McDonald’s suitable for vomiting in, yearning to be able to cover Bon Jovi songs, and a tale of peeing on sod to keep squirrels from uprooting it.

With 2000’s This Business of Art and 2002’s If It Was You almost completely ignored, the set’s highlights came from 2004’s So Jealous. This included singles “Speak Slow” and “Walking With a Ghost,” along with the bouncy “Take Me Anywhere” and “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” a poppy take on somber. Unfortunately, these numbers were confined to a brief oasis in the middle of the show and the encore, amidst the aforementioned less engaging tracks.

While The Con is far from disappointing, it has moments that could make the Cocteau Twins sound cheery, and lacking the intimacy of a club, where one is close enough to feel the emotions drip out of the sisters’ pores, it comes off as drab. And the fact that the girls seem to be forgetting their back catalogue didn’t add to the show’s excitement. We will, however, look past this and acknowledge that they have produced some of the best music of the decade and seem to be the last in a dying breed of twin, mulleted, Canadian lesbians. -Izzy Cihak

Question to Reader: Which of the Quin twins could you see “ten or twelve times a day?” Personally, I have to go with Sara, if only because she has cooler tattoos and claims to listen to Atari Teenage Riot, but let us know what you think.