Not many people see the world with the same amount of blissed out joy as Jessica Parker. Reading this review of Monday’s Tegan & Sara show at Terminal 5 makes me wish I was getting lost with her on the subway and then holding her hand during “Living Room.” Click More for her review and photos!

Finally! I’ve been a Tegan and Sara fan for years, but I’ve never seen them live. In January, my friend Sean (who is an equally nerdy fan of the Canadian twins) e-mailed me to remind me to buy tickets. Last night, I was at last on a train to Terminal 5 for my first show.

And then the train stopped. The conductor told us to get off. And then the next one did the same thing. And then I almost freaked because I had paid fifty bucks for a sold-out Tegan & Sara show and I had left late cause I was trying to be cool and maximize stuff like “time” and didn’t care to catch a band called An Horse and now I was stuck on the wrong side of the East River. My co-showgoers Sean and James quickly calmed me down and hailed a taxi just as I was about to start stomping my feet in frustration that we were going to be late and just why did Terminal 5 have to be on the Upper West Side??

When we got there, I fast-walked into the venue after security, trying to familiarize myself with the place I’d never been to before. Luckily, Tegan and Sara hadn’t started when we arrived, but just as Sean, James and I hit the beginning throngs of the crowd, the lights went down and Tegan and Sara appeared as the lone figures on the stage and started strumming acoustically to “Dark Come Soon.”

FINALLY!

Though stuck in the back of the crowd, and having to stand on my tip-toes when tall people got in the way, I enjoyed pretty much every minute of the show. Tegan and Sara are just about the cutest and funniest twin lesbian songstresses around. Between the truly epic live song renditions (more on that in a minute), the girls constantly thanked the audience and related stories that ranged from weird dreams, picking up girls, and feeling lonely because nobody would restock a kleenex box. They were completely endearing.

The audience laughed along with them, even though when I took a moment to look around, I was suprised at the diversity there. Maybe it’s because I’m used to going to either strictly indie or strictly pop or strictly emo shows, but there were people there from every category last night. I was rocking out next to older men in leather jackets, girls with askew haircuts holding hands, total bros, a woman with a toddler, and that girl who was definitely only there to drink and sing along to the songs that were featured on Grey’s Anatomy. I enjoyed the crowd, and the solidarity live shows can bring to them. (Except: the shorter girl in front of me who kept shaking her hair dangerously close to my mouth - I didn’t like you.)

The rest of Tegan and Sara’s band came out with their second song, “The Con,” and the cavernous venue boomed with their tight and powerful playing. Besides the slight echo of Terminal 5, they sounded flawless. I was kind of in awe of how well the instruments played off each other live, and even more so of how Tegan and Sara’s voices did. Tegan’s voice is much stronger, but the way it interacts with Sara’s own high-pitched vocals is kind of their thing, and I’m glad they’ve never changed it, even if some people might call it awkward.

The set was quite captivating; I couldn’t contain my excitement during some songs. I was definitely screaming along to “Take Me Anywhere,” and trying to do my best impression of Tegs during the “ah-ah-lone so ah-ah-ah-lone” in “Speak Slow.” And then they played “Call It Off,” which is their last song off their latest album and I found myself welling up with tears when they sang the line, “maybe I would’ve been something you’d be good at…” Isn’t that just so sad? Think about it. I don’t normally cry at shows though - don’t front.

The backdrop of three severed tree trunks got a little eerie sometimes when coupled with the lighting and especially during their all-electric-beats song, “Are You Ten Years Ago?” - which they actually pulled off nicely, though it doesn’t really jive with much of their other stuff. When they left the stage before the encore, Sean and I were debating which song we’d be most likely to hear. Sean wanted to hear “You Wouldn’t Like Me,” but I was all about pulling out “Living Room,” which was from an earlier album, and the first song I’d ever heard by the band. And I was right. Finally.

SET LIST:
01 Dark Come Soon
02 The Con
03 Burn Your Life Down
04 Walking With a Ghost
05 Like O, Like H
06 Take Me Anywhere
07 Speak Slow
08 I Bet it Stung
09 Are You Ten Years Ago?
10 So Jealous
11 Call It Off
12 Not Tonight
13 I’ve Got You
14 Where Does the Good Go?
15 Relief Next to Me
16 Nineteen
17 Hop a Plane
18 Back in Your Head
—
19 Fix You Up
20 Living Room

PS Pictures by Sean Campbell, another fan watching from the mezzanine. Thanks, Sean!

Witty banter

Tegan singing it out

Sara

They both played the keyboards, too

Tags: jessica parker, sean campbell, tegan and sara, Terminal 5

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Live Shows, Terminal 5. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.