REVIEW + PHOTOS: TEGAN AND SARA @ ROYALE 10/28

Review and photography by Maria Isaza

On October 28th, 2022, Tegan and Sara took the stage at Royale and were welcomed by an exhilarated crowd. This is Tegan and Sara’s first tour since the pandemic, so everyone in the crowd was beaming with excitement.

This tour specifically is for their new album: Crybaby, which was recently released.

Their opener, Tomberlin, was welcomed warmly by the crowd at around 7 PM. She is an up-and-coming artist on the “artists to watch” list, and she did not disappoint. Her voice and music were lovely, which matched her personality perfectly. She had great interactions with the audience and even mentioned how opening for Tegan and Sara was a full-circle moment for her. She specifically pointed out listening to the con circa 2014 and admitted:  “When I heard The Con my tiny little gay brain exploded”.

Tegan and Sara took the stage at 9 PM. The crowd was electrified and loud cheering filled the venue. Once set up, they began their set with “Stop Desire” from one of their past albums: Love You to Death, then followed with “I Can’t Grow Up” from Crybaby and “I Bet it Stung” from So Jealous. 

Their sound was beautiful and they were extremely in sync with each other throughout every song.

Tegan and Sara have one of the most loyal fanbases that I have ever seen. They have been making music since their teens and were the original “do you listen to Girl in Red” before Girl in Red even existed. Their fans have grown with them and they’ve gained new ones along the way, making for a diverse, energetic, crowd.

The venue really felt like a huge community of people that were there to be with each other and listen to great music, which is an extremely special concert experience to have, an experience that I’ve only known of with a couple of artists.

The two were funny and charming in between songs and had great interactions with the crowd as well as with each other. At one point, they began talking about their new television show, High School, which is out on FreeVee. Tegan mentioned that the show is pretty true to their high school experience and that the only real difference between their lives and the show was that they just “did a lot more drugs in high school”, which garnered laughter from the concertgoers. 

Sara also mentioned that every time she comes to Boston, she remembers that she “once thought [she] would go to Harvard” and that she doesn’t really know how she thought she could do that.

Although there were moments of laughter and cheering in the crowd, there were also beautiful moments of silence and even crying during certain songs, specifically, “Where Does the Good Go” from their album So Jealous. 

The pair finished with “Closer” from Heartthrob, and it was definitely a fan favorite, a perfect closer one might say. 

Tegan and Sara’s show was one of the most unique I have ever experienced and their performance was unforgettable. They had a great variety of songs from different albums of theirs, which meant everyone could pick out at least a handful of songs that they knew by heart. The pair are incredibly instrumentally, lyrically, and vocally skilled, which was stunning to experience in a live performance setting.