By Scene Magazine

TWO UP FOR IT

After chatting with Sara Quinn (one half of Tegan and Sara), it's clear that the duo are quite fond of visiting and playing in Brisbane. “I love Brisbane, everyone always talks about Melbourne and Sydney but I think Brisbane's awesome.”

The pair first toured Australia back in 2002 and have returned a number of times since, including last year's sold-out Brisbane show supporting fifth album 'The Con'.
“We've spent a lot of time in Brisbane because we have family - three aunts, a cousin and a grandmother there.”
The band will return to our shores across December and January for a string of festival dates and a handful of sideshows. Brisbane will host Tegan and Sara on Wednesday January 7 when they perform at Sunset Sounds - a new addition to the Queensland festival calendar.

Tegan and Sara's attitude towards festivals has changed a lot since their last visit to Australia and Sara is quick to admit that in the past the band didn't consider themselves a festival band at all. “Patrons really love festivals but personally, as an artist, I find them a little challenging. You don't have long on stage, there's tonnes of people's gear and it doesn't sound as good. But I've grown more into them, especially as we get more confident as a band. We did a lot of festivals this year in America, Canada and Europe, and I noticed a huge difference in how we feel after the shows … before we used to be like 'oh we're pitiful, we're not a festival band at all, this is terrible', but now we kinda love them.”

Sara also highlighted the pleasures of touring without a specific album to promote, allowing the band more flexibility to deliver a smattering of the old, the new and the reworked old. The set of songs that the girls have recently been delivering proves to be just the right balance.
“I think with this last tour, initially doing some of the new material we felt 'oh we better do this, people have seen us for this album' (‘The Con’) but we ended up loving the set and at first we felt like we were doing it for the audience but in a weird way we ended up doing it for ourselves - it rejuvenated our enthusiasm about playing live. We'll carry that same batch of songs over to the Australian tour.”

The successful tour that Sara refers to is their recent tour of the USA, UK and Canada with Brisbane locals An Horse. The two bands have been very well received and you can tell that Sara is genuinely happy for her An Horse buddies, “I love Kate and Damon, they're amazing. Our audience was between 1000 and 2000 every night and [An Horse] were killing it, the audience loved them.”

The story of how these two bands became such good friends is indicative of Sara's down-to-earth nature. “We were shopping in a record store in Brisbane around four years ago and Kate was working there when we were doing a show. After the show I thought - that girl's our age, she's cool and we're going to be in Brisbane all week. I didn't want to just hang out with the band so I chummed around with her and her friends.” From there, Sara saw Kate play in Iron On and appreciated her song writing style and they stayed in touch. When she found out that Kate was working on a new project, and that there were only two band members, Sara knew it was time to get An Horse on the road. “Because it is only Kate and Damon I realised that they might actually be able to afford to come over and tour!”
Unfortunately the expenses of touring are an issue for everyone, including Tegan and Sara.

“It's expensive for us to be in Australia.” In fact, their gig at Falls Festival is the first time that the duo will technically be working over New Years. However, it remains clear that if they have to be working over the holidays, Tegan and Sara are glad it's in Australia. “It's not a totally pleasant time to tour in North America because it's winter. You can get away with it in places like Australia where it's summer because there are so many festivals and people aren't at school. We're really looking forward to hanging out with family and friends and going surfing.”

Stephanie Jane

Tegan & Sara play at the Sunset Sounds festival at the Botanical Gardens and Riverstage on January 7. For more info go to www.sunsetsounds.com.au