On another packed out Saturday night, in the great northern light of music, culture and excess that is Manchester, sharing the city with everyone from rock giants The Cult (god bless Ian Astbury) to new but supertalented upstarts, MGMT, we were paid the pleasure of a visit by the twin Canadian songstresses (and sisters) known as Tegan and Sara. From Vancouver and Toronto nowadays, though originally an Alberta-based collaborative affair, Tegan and Sara are as representative of a Canadian indie renaissance that has brought us such pleasures as The Dears, St. Vincent and of course, The Arcade Fire, as they are also representative of a return to listening to musicians who are by no fault of their own, a socio-political representation of a gay community that has not enjoyed such intense media writing on that subject since the halcion days of Jimmy Somerville, Boy George and my personal pet favourites, Erasure.But, for all of the left-of-centre media gossip surrounding these rather attractive ladies and what they do when they're not playing with their instruments, there is some rather good music to be enjoyed, if indie-pop with something of an emphasis on the pop is your cup of cranberry juice. Performing numbers from their new album, The Con, that are already destined to become favourites for their fans for years to come, such as 'Relief Next To Me,' 'Nineteen' and the simply wonderful 'Back In Your Head,' Tegan and Sara Quin arrived in Manchester to really demonstrate a wide range of musically varied talent with a 22-song-strong set that screamed to Manchester for them to be taken seriously as the next big and popular act to make the short hop across the Atlantean pond.
From all accounts, they're having a thoroughly wonderful time here in Europe, enjoying the freedom of being two youngsters far away from home, but being old and wise enough to not piss the British musical establishment off too much (they're intelligent enough to give the NME a well-deserved slagging off while at the same time expressing their fears about doing so, which is music to my ears at any rate).
Tegan & Sara's main obstacle to obtaining credibility within the musical intelligentsia's world however, might not be any kind of strictly musical challenge, but instead the challenge of them being tagged as the latest gay band on the scene. You see, in a room of several hundred people on Saturday, a friend and I felt like we were in a minority in terms of people who actually turned up to listen to the music. I took the time to look around the room and there was nothing else to call it but a lesbian love-in. Don't get me wrong, I love a good lesbian love-in as much as the next hot-blooded man, but after being grinded into for 20 minutes by a cute young lady, only for her to turn around, realise I had a penis and then recoil in horror, I couldn't help but feel the crowd wanted to see one thing, while the twins wanted to concentrate on something quite different for once. As pretty as they are, the cries of 'get your tits out' coming from a good chunk of the women in the crowd is obviously growing tiresome for them already, as their call for their all-male support musicians to 'get their beefs out'(!) demonstrated. (quick note to all boyfriends whose girlfriends asked them to go to this gig - your relationship is in trouble - big trouble!)
I take them seriously for their music. Other genuinely committed music fans do as well. I only hope that the industry starts to do the same, and most importantly in this day and age, their gig-going ticket-holding fans start to as well. They hold great talent - on their guitars, their keyboards and in their voices. A cheery pair who can make you smile for fullsome musical reasons as well as dirty ones...here's hoping they get real big, real quick.
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