Identical Licks

Michael Alan Goldberg

Twice as nice

Details

Tegan and Sara perform Tuesday, November 13, at the Culture Room, 3195 N Federal Hwy, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $19.99, and doors open at 7:30 p.m. Visit www.cultureroom.net, or call 954-564-1074.

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More About

• Chris de Burgh
• Neil Young
• Tegan & Sara

In the eight or so years since Tegan and Sara signed to fellow Canadian Neil Young's Vapor Records and began touring the world in earnest, more and more fans have been flocking to their unorthodox, much-talked-about shows. The tattooed, mulleted sisters are hilarious onstage, where they include sibling-rivalry jabs, using superb comic timing between songs. They'll share twisted anecdotes about, say, diarrhea, terrifying amusement park rides, or that time they beat up their grandmother with a plastic bat when they were little.

The sound of the spry indie pop on their latest album, The Con — with solar synths, folky acoustic guitars, and sweetly skewed vocal harmonies at the fore — typically matches the spirit of their banter. Sometimes, though, the lyrics tell darker stories of confusing, damaged, and disintegrating relationships.

Though the sisters are remarkably candid — in their tunes and in their interviews — about the experiences that shape their music, much of it is rooted in their sexuality (both are lesbians), Sara insists that "what makes us as human beings attached to art is our ability to apply it to our own lives. If you can take it and it's applicable to something that's going on in your life, what does it matter what's going on in mine?"

Indeed The Con's themes are universal, which is why she took particular umbrage at a recent writeup in which, she explains, a male reviewer questioned their appeal to anyone who's not a twentysomething lesbian.

"I literally have heard every mean, godawful thing you can say about a person, and I've heard it about myself, and yet something about that — 'they're just not relatable' — I was really upset. Like, for fuck's sake, what can you not relate to?" Sara says, laughing.

"When I was eight years old, one of my favorite albums was Chris de Burgh's Spanish Train and Other Stories. What in the Christ did I have in common with Chris de Burgh? He's a grown man writing a weird concept record, and I'm like eight, living in the suburbs, riding around in a minivan, and I have, like, an anxiety disorder. So who cares if you're a dude and we're girls or we're young or we're gay? We're singing about love and the human condition. Who can't relate to that?"