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Photos by Wendy Lynch Redfern

Jul 24, 2007 Web Exclusive By Mark Redfern

Tegan and Sara packed Amoeba Records’ Hollywood store to capacity and then some, with a line of fans stretching down Sunset Blvd. and around the corner, for their in-store on Tuesday night. Identical twin sisters (and current Under the Radar cover stars) Sara andTegan Quin played a full 50- to 55-minute set to a grateful crowd of music fans young and old (but mainly young and mainly female). The set included songs from their earlier albums, but focused mainly on tracks from the duo’s fifth album, The Con, which was released on Tuesday. “So today our new record comes out, we’re so glad you could be with us on this special day—not nearly as special as Christmas, but almost as special as Valentine’s Day,” Tegan joked before the band launched into “Burn Your Life Down.”

As is now customary for Tegan and Sara, the twins were the masters of witty in-between-song banter. Sara attempted to introduce the band’s biggest hit, “Walking With a Ghost,” as such: “This next song makes me feel so tired and I’m not exactly sure why. I need someone to roll out a…” At which point she was interrupted when an audience member shouted out, “VAGINA!” Sara responded, “That’s right, a giant vagina,” later adding, “Any giant genitalia is scary.” Sara’s original goal was to actually get the audience to sing along to “Walking With a Ghost.” Sara commented that“even a baby could sing along,” as the song’s main refrain “I was walking with a ghost” is repeated throughout the hit.

“I’m not 19-years-old, but I act like I’m 19 sometimes,” said Tegan before they played Contrack “Nineteen.” “We don’t allow drinking or laughing on the road…so I wrote this song about feeling 19 again,” she half-joked (no doubt there are plenty of laughs in their tour bus).

The sisters seemed genuinely surprised that so many people had turned up to see their performance, a turnout that rivaled the in-store that The Shins had played at Amoeba earlier this year (although not quite as large as the crowd that Paul McCartney’s recent Amoeba in-store performance commanded). “I want to say to all of you, it’s so weird to think back to when we didn’t have fans,” remarked Sara. “It’s really exciting to see all of you here and to know that you’re not here for a sale on *NSYNC CDs.”

One group of fans held up a handmade sign that read, “Take Me On Tour,” to which Sara joked, “I think it would be very distracting if we took you on tour, with all the screaming.”

“This is a song that we’ve never recorded, but we thought we’d whip it out,” said Sara before they played the unreleased song “When I Get Up.”

AFI bassist Hunter Burgan (who plays on The Con) came out and played the shaker on the album’s single “Back In Your Head.” The set-list also included: “Monday, Monday, Monday,” “The Con,” “Hop a Plane,” “Living Room,” “Take Me Anywhere,” “Speak Slow,” and others.

After their set, Tegan and Sara stuck around to greet fans and sign records. They announced that they weren’t going anywhere until they met every fan, and they stuck to it—even though the instore began at 6 pm, the twins didn’t leave Amoeba until around 10 pm, after they’d met all of the estimated 600 plus fans who stayed to meet them.

Tegan summed up the instore when she said, “This is by far the best release day we’ve had.”

Read an in-depth cover story interview with Tegan and Sara in the new Summer 2007 issue of Under the Radar.

www.teganandsara.com
www.saraandtegan.ca