This was the second show I saw this past weekend that contained a husband and wife team which made me think about how much of a trend this has become again in music. I guess you could trace it back to Sonny and Cher, check Carter and Cash, John Lennon and Yoko, or maybe even the whole Fleetwood Mac debacle, but either way, making your band-mate your soul-mate seems to be a winning formula again. Arcade Fire seems to be the most notorious musical coupling today but even smaller acts like Tennis seem to be capitalizing on the fruits of love and music. The husband and wife team that makes up Tennis emerged from a record they made chronicling their East coast sailing trip and now are embarking on their first real headlining tour that swung through Sinclair this past Monday night.
Tennis came equipped not only with a drummer, but a bass player as well to help fill out the holes of their most full sounding record to date Ritual in Repeat. “It doesn’t feel like a Monday” said Alaina Moore, “for us, it never does,” and I think that’s the goal of any band booked on a Monday anywhere. Help the people forget that it’s the beginning of their workweek and escape for a little while. At the beginning of this set though, I was a bit nervous. Their mix seemed to be way off. The clean-cut guitar sound of Patrick Riley guitar was way too low and the vocals were flat. Overall, it just didn’t start off with much energy.
Then about the same time I returned from a quick step outside, Moore stepped away from her keyboards and said “lets dance” and broke into “I’m Callin,” an ode to 80’s pop and possibly their opening spot on the Haim tour last year. This really seemed to pull things together with the mix and the energy, and more importantly began to highlight the intricate staccato guitar playing of Riley. He really has some serious chops but plays as a minimalist that picks and chooses his riff placement carefully. At just about the same time, Moore’s voice began to shine a bit more clearly and the energy in the room clearly picked up as you could notice more heads bopping and people grooving along.
The set worked its way around their staple songs like “Mean Streets,” “Origins,” and newer cuts like “Never work for free” but was truly lifted by some of their more obscure material. Moore was definitely at her best singing “Petition” off of 2012’s Young and Old and made it one of the highlights of the night. Later in the set, “Marathon,” showed the tenderness and innocence of their first stab at making a record on Cape Dory. I was waiting for a “Cured of Youth,” my personal favorite song of theirs but got a bass heavy “Need and A Knife” and thumping “Solar on the Rise” instead. They capped off the night with a dark and groovy “Night Vision” and doo-woppy “Bad Girls,” the only song that blatantly references Moore and Riley’s matrimony. By the end, most of the Monday night crowd had thinned out, but those who stayed were glad they did and were loud enough to bring them back out for an encore.
As I walked away I couldn’t help but think about how their relationship truly brings out the best in each other. It’s so freaking cute. Not to undermine their individual talents, but you can’t ignore the fact that these two together make Tennis the unique and fun band that they are and they probably wouldn’t have put together this great catalogue of music on their own. Now that they have enough material to be headliners the sky is the limit for them and expect them to totally kill it on the festival circuit next summer.
