Tegan and Sara mix pleasure, pain at Majestic Theatre

Abandon can be deceiving.

Late in the fun, fizzy, retro-streaked set performed Thursday by Canadian sister act Tegan and Sara, there was a pause to acknowledge how far the pair had come — in more ways than one.

“We started touring in the year of 1998,” began Tegan Quin, standing on the Majestic Theatre stage, a Day-Glo-paint splattered acoustic guitar strapped to her body. “We were just fresh out of high school; we didn’t want to go to university. We wanted to play music.”

Her soliloquy — which sister Sara Quin snarked was akin to reading their Wikipedia page aloud — touched on the terror of taking steps into the unknown (“When you step on stage, you relinquish a lot of control,” Tegan observed) and the hard-won success that came from the duo simply chipping away at the myriad obstacles in their path: Their sexuality, their approach to songwriting, even their gender.

“It took 17 years to get onto this stage,” Tegan said, as the crowd roared its approval. “Slow and steady. It’s still scary 17 years later.”

It was a moving moment, watching an acclaimed pop-folk act defy the mainstream’s indifference — Tegan and Sara, despite a handful of cult hit singles, didn’t break through to a wider audience until 2013’s masterful Heartthrob and placement in the wildly popular Lego Movie (it is their voices singing the ineradicable Everything is Awesome) — and underpinning the lush, joyous moments of synth-soaked pop that moved much of the nearly full Majestic to spend close to two hours blissfully dancing Thursday.

Tegan and Sara, backed by a trio of musicians all situated atop a translucent, lighted cube that would bring a smile to Max Headroom’s face, are touring behind their latest LP, Love You to Death, released just three months ago. Like its percolating predecessor, Heartthrob, Death revels in the ambience of 1980s pop, with its luminous textures and soft corners masking sharp truths.

The Quins have never shyed away from insights capable of drawing blood — “I felt you in my life/Before I ever thought to/Feel the need to lay down/Beside you,” they sing in Nineteen, one of several earlier songs recast in arresting fashion Thursday — but, particularly with their last two records, Tegan and Sara have mastered the art of making your hips move while your heart hurts a little.

The giddy rush of Closer or Drove Me Wild or I Was a Fool was tempered by the serious sentiment underneath it all — the lights flashed, the rambunctious audience sang along, but there was a slight, sweet sting to all the merriment.

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 10:12 AM with the headline "Tegan and Sara mix pleasure, pain at Majestic Theatre."