Tegan and Sara – Shepherd's Bush Empire, London 13/11/09

It’s entertainingly ironic that as the supposedly more erudite factions of the alternative music press have unofficially deemed Tegan and Sara accomplished enough with the release of their sixth album, Sainthood, to forgo mentioning their sexuality every other sentence (ahem, tampon rock), all the Quin twins want to talk about on stage is, er, ladygardens. As Sara starts describing the David Mamet film that inspired her new song of the same name, ‘Red Belt’ (his film is ‘Redbelt’), Tegan cuts in.

“Was this the movie where the woman was naked and you could see her bush, and you said you were turned on?” Even from the balcony of Shepherd’s Bush Empire, thermal imaging equipment isn’t necessary to see the embarrassment radiating from Sara’s face. “I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to talk about anything any more!” Tegan has other ideas.

“Hey, we’re at Shepherd’s Bush! That’s kind of like Shepherd’s Cunt. Shepherd’s Vajayjay.”

“Pussy,” jibes Sara. “I wish that we weren’t talking about this. I wish that we weren’t talking.”

Typical of siblings trying to embarrass one another in front of as many people as possible, this self-consciously obnoxious string of profanities chimes from their mouths like Pavlovian bells, eliciting a meteor shower of flashes and hysterics amongst the crowd at every cuss. It’s hard to place the audience this evening – the girlish screams of rapture and sea of tiny illuminated screens would be rightfully at home at, as Tegan jokes, a Jonas Brothers stadium concert, elsewhere couples stand religiously transfixed by the ineffable sensation of hearing their intimate experiences sung out loud, and then there are the post-Sainthood converts – but within those factions there’s a more fundamental binary opposition at stake – whether you’re a Tegan or a Sara fan. It might be overblown to cite it as a Lennon/McCartney-esque dichotomy, but over the course of their six albums, each Quin has come to develop their own particular sound, writing alone, to the extent that Sainthood at times feels more like a family compilation than a product of a fully coherent band.

It’s a feeling that permeates their live show, particularly on the newer songs – Tegan’s lyrical delivery on ‘Northshore’ and ‘The Ocean’ is tightly coiled, her words tumbling over themselves in a scattershot of rhymes and uncontainable fever, whereas Sara’s a lot more reserved, even on ‘Alligator’, by far the danciest song they’ve ever released. Despite the synth line stabbing like a minimal, blippy take on an eighties power pop anthem, Sara sequesters herself at the high end of the keyboard behind a dark curtain of fringe, inflecting her peculiarly wonderful voice with unhuman-sounding angles and pitches, rather than her performance as a whole.

But these aren’t differences that come at the expense of one or the other, and there are moments where their respective idiosyncrasies combine into a third hybrid force – as on ‘Like O, Like H’, their voices thrusting alternately as on The Futureheads’ cover of ‘Hounds Of Love’, and ‘Living Room’, the only song they play from anything older than ‘So Jealous’ this evening, which retains its folky acoustic shuffle untouched by their more recent electronic direction. Their tirelessly upbeat, radio friendly vibe could sit them in a similar category to Phoenix – they’re both bands that rejoice in making pneumatically charged pop that deserves to be a whole lot bigger than it is, and their respectively detailed takes on the genre’s simple structures sit them head and shoulders above many more successful acts.

Setlist
The Con
Walking With A Ghost
I Bet It Stung
Speak Slow
Hell
On Directing
Red Belt
The Cure
Northshore
Night Watch
Soil Soil
Knife Going In
Like O, Like H
Nineteen
Burn Your Life Down
Alligator
Paperback Head
The Ocean
Sentimental Tune
Someday
Back In Your Head
Living Room
Call It Off