"There's a teenager in the crowd," said Tegan Quin as she finished singing her opening tune 'Dark Come Soon' with her sister Sara on the Enmore stage. Greeted by "We love you, Tegan!" and "We love you, Sara!", Tegan coolly replied, "Sara loves you too. She told me", before quickly launching into 'You Wouldn't Like Me', a song that welcomed their backing band on stage, which seemed to satisfy the crowd and perhaps quieten them down a little.
The girls - Tegan in white with her acoustic guitar and Sara in black with her electric guitar in tow - are far more different than press interviews and shots had captured them. Instead of a classically identical existence, Sara is a lot quieter than her sister in terms of banter stage, but her voice certainly isn't, with Sara often dominating the tunes with her harsher, louder voice, while Tegan's voice is far more soft and sweet.
The house lights came on for their classic tune 'Walking with a Ghost', and crowd participation was demanded by the girls for the chorus in a terrible karaoke attempt by excited fans. The girls seemed to be able to pump out one hit after the other, with people singing along as if they were desperate for the girls to pay attention to them, raising the intensity amongst the punters.
The anthemic 'Nineteen' then blasted through the speakers, with Tegan and Sara changing guitars and keyboard roles throughout a whole host of their songs. Their harmonies were brilliant, with a few imperfect moments that just seemed to endear the girls to the crowd further.
After they told tongue-in-cheek tales of their first "tragic" days at junior high school when they wore cartoon jumpers and were shunned by their peers, the girls launched into their final few songs. 'Call It Off' was a beautifully spoken tale of love and loss, a thematic consistency throughout the girls' catalogue. A spine-tingling rendition of 'The Con', the title track of their latest record, was welcomed by the crowd, and inspired a lot of hand-holding and group hugging.
Finally the girls, genuinely overwhelmed by the response the Sydney crowd were giving them, returned for an encore of a few Sara-led songs, including a brilliant cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark', before closing with the ultimately infectious 'Back in your Head'. Before disappearing backstage, the girls farewelled the crowd with the promise "We'll probably be back in a year!" Let's hope so.
Carrie Dennes
|
|