TEGAN & SARA at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Sunday (November 17). $12. 416-532-1598. Rating: NNNNN
alt-country crooner ryan adams has a bit of an asshole rep right now after ejecting a fan from a gig when the dude jokingly requested Summer Of 69 — you know, the big hit by the similarly monikered Canuck adult-contempo rocker.But Sara Quin, one-half of West Coast enfants terribles twin troubadours Tegan & Sara, is here to set the record straight. They were at that show on their five-month tour with Ryan.
“It wasn’t like this guy was suddenly, like, “Hey! Play Summer Of 69.’ He’d say shit between every song and be noisy and shoot off his mouth like a total asshole every chance he got.
“We were playing this amazing place where everyone was completely quiet, and people in the audience were telling him to shut up. Ryan finally confronted the dude ’cause he was ruining the show for everyone else.
“Besides, Tegan and I teased Ryan about Bryan Adams and he didn’t care. We’d call him Bryan all the time, and he kinda had a crush on me, so when we’d banter Tegan would pretend she was pissed off and say, “I’m gonna go call my boyfriend Bryan.’ He’s so fuckin’ nice, though.”
Quin knows her Adamses. A while back, she and her sister toured Europe with Mr. Summer Of 69 himself, an experience she describes as “unbelievable — we were playing arenas with 10,000 screaming people!”
Their own headlining gigs are considerably smaller, although the fans are equally vociferous. At a recent industry showcase, a group of screaming dykes drowned out the twins’ tunes. But Tegan & Sara’s newest disc, If It Was You (Vapor/Universal), is starting to change that.
More balls-out rockin’ than the vaguely rootsy, jagged acoustic assault of their debut This Business Of Art album, the record is winning admirers (like tourmate Adams, who invited them to join him after hearing the disc) with its catchy electric pop tracks fleshed out by New Pornographers John Collins’s and David Carswell’s stellar production.
Jokes Quin about Hawksley Workman, who produced This Business Of Art, “He’d sprayed his stuff on us. We thought it made sense to give someone else a turn on our fire hydrant.”
They weren’t deliberately trying to branch out, but the new album is closer to the sound she strives for. Plus, it’s keeping them from getting pigeonholed.
“I never liked having just me and Tegan onstage — it always felt kind of limited. The whole folkie Ani DiFranco thing made me feel like I was in the trunk of a car, suffocated. Not that I don’t like Ani DiFranco or folk music, but the way the term was used around us, I always felt it was like saying we had herpes or something.”sarahliss@hotmail.com
