Tegan & Sara at the Riv
Canadian pop duo brings medium energy to rapturous crowd
Thursday night’s Tegan & Sara show at the Riviera Theatre set a new standard for punctuality. Local promoter Jam—and the Riv’s marquee—listed a 7 p.m. start time for the show, which featured openers City And Colour and Girl In A Coma.
When Decider showed up at the Riv at 7:20ish, City And Colour—a.k.a. singer-songwriter Dallas Green—was already two-thirds through his set. (According to Jam, Tegan & Sara wanted to play longer, so they moved the start time up 15-20 minutes, though it seems like more than that.) For the audience, who was clearly eager for Tegan & Sara to begin, it worked out pretty well; the Canadian twin-sister duo was on stage less than an hour later. For anyone who wanted to see California pop-punkers Girl In A Coma—like Decider—it was a bit of a bummer. The show itself was over before 10, though, making it a friendly gig for a school night, and a healthy contingent of the audience looked young enough to have been skipping out on homework to see Tegan & Sara.
After City And Colour’s quiet set—Green performed by himself with an acoustic guitar, and thus competed for volume with audience chatter—Tegan & Sara took the stage to The Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” as white paper lanterns ascended the wall behind the stage. Surprisingly, they opened with two songs from 2004’s So Jealous, beginning with “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” then “I Bet It Stung.” Unfortunately, the PA mix was off, with the lower frequencies of the bass and kick drum booming over the guitars and vocals. It improved as the night went on (if you didn’t have earplugs), but it’s always annoying when bad sound nearly sabotages the opening songs.
The duo moved on to last year’s The Con with “Burn Your Life Down,” their set focusing mostly on that album and So Jealous—all of it played with a workman-like medium energy. With 10 days remaining in their lengthy tour, which ends with a four-night stand in L.A. Oct. 19, Tegan & Sara were looking tired. And a little grumpy. Six songs in, just before “Give Chase,” Tegan told a long story about renting a crappy apartment in Vancouver that inspired the song. In a room with a 2,500 capacity, you can’t expect an audience to hang patiently on every word of a story that takes its sweet time to reach the point. When a few people in the audience yelled something, Tegan grew slightly irritated and shushed them.
It happened again during the encore, though this time Sara ordered the house lights up—despite Tegan asking her not to—so she could single out the people who were yelling. Their slight antagonism was odd, considering the crowd’s enthusiasm, and they weren’t being heckled. But the night began that way. After “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” Tegan and Sara implored the crowd to take it easy and be considerate of people being pushed up front. But the crowd, though enthusiastic, was pretty docile. From Decider’s admittedly limited perspective, there was no shoving, barely any jumping around to speak of. Maybe Tegan and Sara were striking pre-emptively.
Still, their set was enjoyable, if lacking in energy. Things picked up toward the end with “Nineteen,” and then the last song before the encore, “The Con.” For the encore, Tegan re-emerged with Dallas Green to play a quiet acoustic song together. Most of the encore felt subdued, at least until the last chorus of “Fix You Up,” which segued into closer “Back In Your Head.” “We played Chicago a trillion—a trillion times for this record,” said Sara before “Back In Your Head.” “We’re going home to write a new one.” And hopefully get some rest.
