I feel you in my heart, and I don’t even know you

I was crying to Tegan and Sara even before I could understand my feelings, or the dynamic of what to do with them, fresh out of puberty and nowhere still near adulthood, naïve but confident. I flashback to me scribbling their lyrics in the pages of my diary and clinging on to the words of their songs, falling asleep to the addictive upbeat rasp of their indie-rock. That was before I knew they were both lesbians. Or twins.

They sang a sad lamentation of love; it was never morose, always hopeful. And then they released their “Heartthrob” album this year and the music turned into this synth-pop-pretty music that could make its way to a super club playlist on a Thursday night. When I heard they were coming, I was apprehensive; being a purist, I suddenly felt lukewarm about celebrating the musical makeover. I thoroughly enjoyed their old stuff: “So Jealous” (2004), “The Con” (2007), “If It Was You” (2002). Maybe I had grown out of their music, I feared, because it felt like they had grown out of their own music too. Maybe we had both grown up.

On Monday night at NBC Tent in The Port, they opened the show with Drove me Wild from the new album, and I don’t know the song. I don’t actually have the new album yet (I was in denial, okay?). So no. I don’t know the second song either. But for the third, they go with Back in Your Head, a favorite from “The Con.” Then it happened.

I was in love all over again; I was jumping up and down, my chest pressed to the stage, the lyrics of the song slipping through my mouth in ugly screams. It came back, everything: the feelings, being younger, not knowing anything, but anticipating everything.  And this is the flow of the energy throughout the night: the playlist being a perfect mix of old songs (from Where Does the Good Go which debuted on Season 1 of Grey’s Anatomy), to the dancier stuff you’ll here on FM radio today, like Closer. They even play a two-minute pseudo-acoustic run of Call it Off, which was a surprise because it’s an intimate and almost insignificant song that you don’t expect to hear on a world tour concert. It’s something you sing to yourself, imagining you’re singing it to that someone you could’ve had something magical with, but never happened. “Maybe I would’ve been something you’d be good at…”

This sister and sister duo thing is ridiculous. You don’t even care about the fanciful lights or the tricks of the band anymore because you’re lost in their voices. The harmony of the two together: raw, organic and just powerful. It’s the realness that you’re in love with, the genuineness. Like when they sang Now I’m All Messed Up, and their voices echoed across the tent as the words floated hauntingly above a hushed rhythm, “Go. Go. Go if you want. I can’t stop you!”  Ouch. Forget being a purist, this is as real as it can get.

It just moves you to tears — pubescent tears, because these all seem like pubescent love songs… but maybe that’s not a bad thing? Can music still do that these days? Or do people still feel music in the same way? The energy of the audience that night would answer, yes, because clearly I was not the only one there feeling things. Thankfully, it seemed like more real fans trumped the here-to-Instagram fans that night, so much so that Tegan and Sara would tell us (more than once) how amazing we were.

“My heart melted,” I would tell co-Young STAR columnist Jonty Cruz after the show, and he responded with, “My d*ck melted.” Rather vulgar and not sure what it means exactly, and if it’s a good thing or not, but I’m putting it in here anyway as visual reference to the kinds of things their music is able to do — unexplainable, and surreal. Forget the technical critiques of their set, or how visually stunning the performance was, let’s talk about the concert stripped of all the fanciful show tricks. You would have been moved. Would have gone weak in the knees. Would’ve felt the need to put your hand close to your chest and clutch your heart because — well, because you just felt it.

And in any concert, or with any kind of music, I think feeling things is the bare minimum requirement.

Otherwise, really, what a waste of your P5,000.