a&e features
Tegan and Sara revisit ‘The Con’ on 10th anniversary acoustic tour
Pop wonder twins on touring with Katy Perry, their foundation, playing the Oscars and more
TEGAN AND SARA say injustices they’ve seen among their fans inspires their philanthropic work. (Photo by Pamela Littky; courtesy Warner Bros. Records)
Tegan and Sara
The Con 10th Anniversary Acoustic Tour
Saturday, Nov. 11
The Anthem
901 Wharf St., S.W.
8 p.m.
$50.50-76
Tegan and Sara bring their acoustic tour, a 10th-anniversary commemoration of their breakthrough 2007 album “The Con,” to new Washington venue the Anthem next weekend. Sara, prepping for the sixth concert of the tour, spoke with the Blade by phone from Portland on Oct. 26
WASHINGTON BLADE: I’m told Portland has a large lesbian population. Are you aware of this?
SARA: I don’t know exactly but, um, we’ve spent a lot of time in Portland. We actually made “The Con,” the record that we’re touring on this anniversary, we actually made it in Portland but besides the lesbians who are in the band, we didn’t do a lot of socializing outside of the studio (laughs). But I love Portland. It’s a beautiful sunny day and it’s a little cooler than it was in California. I had a nice breakfast and walked around and it’s just a great town, I love it.
BLADE: Is this concept something you might also do for other albums when they turn 10 or is revisiting “The Con” different? If so, why?
SARA: You know, I think, first off, this record is incredibly special and just purely from a business perspective, you know, it was a big step for us. We moved over to Warner Brothers and there was a big push behind the album. It was really well received by the press and we saw our audience grow quite a bit and we started traveling more internationally. The reach of the album was pretty substantial and over the years, the record has been one of those signature pieces where even fans who discovered us on later albums generally find themselves back at “The Con” and love the songs. I think it’s a really cherished album within our community of fans so it felt really appropriate to go out and perform these songs again because for so many people, a lot of our fans tell us, “We were too young to see the show the first time around,” they were underage or they had yet to discover us, so it felt like the first album in our discography that felt like it had enough of an impact and that people liked enough that we could go out and do something like this. And then to be able to tie it to the launch of our foundation and be able to use it also as a fundraiser to try to raise money for some programming and grants we want to do next year, to have those two elements stitched together, that feels really special.
BLADE: Aside from being acoustic, how is this tour different from the original “Con” tour?
SARA: We didn’t want to just go out and do the album versions. We wanted to strip things back and make it more of an intimate show and allow for storytelling and really improvised moments even within the music itself. … The songs are very short. Even though there are 14 songs on the “The Con,” the whole album is only like 34 minutes or something. So we actually wanted to not feel completely beholden to the original recordings and wanted to be a little more flexible on the tour itself. So we’re playing them a bit more sparsely and we’ve slightly adjusted some of the arrangements, made some songs longer, changed keys, slowed things down, but the important thing for me was that none of the songs start and people go, “What is this?” We wanted it to be recognizable as the original song, just not boxed in to the way we recorded them.
BLADE: Are you playing the album through sequentially? What else are you playing?
SARA: Yeah, we are playing it through start to finish which takes roughly about an hour. … Then we have an eight-song set that follows “The Con” and that is also about an hour. As we’ve gotten older, our songs have gotten a bit longer so we don’t have to play as many to fill that second hour.
BLADE: I’ve been to shows where the band plays a classic album straight through and seen the audience kind of zone out on deeper cuts. Is that happening or was that a concern?
SARA: No, it really didn’t concern me. It’s one of those albums that our fans constantly reference and talk about so while there are definitely songs that are more popular, I actually think some of those deep cuts that weren’t singles are the songs people are more excited to hear. We still play “Call it Off,” “Nineteen,” “Back in Your Head,” “Dark Come Soon.” Those are songs that have been in our set list for 10 years, so people hear them a lot. I think for us to go into the deeper cuts was actually what fans wanted. They were always asking us to play, like, “Are You Ten Years Ago,” and I’d be like, “I don’t know how to play that, we’re not gonna do that.” So to go back and learn some of those songs again, that’s actually been the most thrilling part of the evening and the reception has just been wonderful. In fact, after L.A. we had done four shows and we added a song to the set because it almost felt too short. And that’s a two-hour show, but we still thought we could do one more song and people would be happy.
BLADE: Last time we talked, Tegan told us you sometimes spent as much as 80 hours writing one song but she didn’t have the patience for that. Was she slightly exaggerating or is that true?
SARA: Sometimes certain compositions come together really quickly and that much time isn’t needed but there are other songs that yeah, I’ll spend like ridiculous amounts of time working on absolutely. Sometimes if you know you have something special you’re willing to invest a bunch of time into it. Or sometimes you’ll spend a bunch of time on it, send it out to everybody then you will get feedback and will go back to the drawing board and sort of dismantle it and put it back together again. I’m extremely methodical and I love to tinker and revise. I love sort of disappearing into those worlds when I’m recording. … I spend a lot of time programming, working on what I want the drums to sound like, what I want the bass to sound like so I’m not just sitting down with a guitar and spending 80 hours, I’m really looking at the song three dimensionally and creating something that will be like a blueprint once we’re in the studio.
BLADE: Some acts like the Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, you look back and it’s kind of surprising they were out so early on. Do you feel they paved the way or is that kind of a trite, sentimental thing people say?
SARA: Oh yeah, I mean, absolutely like a hundred percent. You know, Melissa Etheridge, the Indigo Girls, k.d. lang, these artists were extremely brave and they were trailblazers. What’s interesting is that as a result there was almost like a gap generationally where, you know, while I totally respect and admire those artists, especially for what they did, in terms of, you know, laying down the ground work for the rest of us. But they were older so, I mean, my mom was listening to them. My mom loved Melissa Etheridge, she loved k.d. lang and I was a teenager listening to hip-hop and electronic music so I sort of missed the musical inspiration side of it because I was totally, you know, into what was relevant to me and my friends in high school. But in terms of the inspiration to live a life where you didn’t have to be in the closet or hide who you were, I think they are deeply important and what was difficult in the first 10 years or so of our career was that there didn’t seem to be those same type of artists anymore. I don’t know what exactly happened or what the reaction was about, but it felt like a lot of artists started being more closeted or felt, you know, they didn’t feel compelled to be out about their sexuality so it was a bit lonely and isolating for us. But now there’s this big wave of musicians coming out and starting their careers in their 20s and what’s inspiring about them is that they are very vocal and their identity and who they are as people is intrinsically linked with their music and they’re happy to talk about it and embrace it and challenge people who sort of push back against it and that inspires me.
BLADE: What’s the biggest difference that struck you being at the Academy Awards in person versus watching in on TV? (Tegan and Sara performed their song “Everything is Awesome” from “The Lego Movie” at the Academy Awards in 2015 when it was nominated for Best Original Song.)
SARA: It’s quite surreal and the space definitely looks smaller in person than on television. But just to know that everywhere your eyeballs go and rest it’s somebody crazily famous. But yeah, it was a really cool experience and I’m a Virgo, so I’m a very organized person and I love being in well-run organizations and man, the Academy Awards is just the top of the top. They have that thing dialed in so it was really inspiring to watch that whole thing come together in person. Very, very cool.
BLADE: You all have done a lot of cool things with merchandising and fan stuff and stuff for Record Store Day and so on. Who comes up with those ideas?
SARA: We have a really cool team of people we’ve been working with most of our career. Our art director has been with us since 2003 and, you know, we are always batting around ideas. We really see the band as a really creative and collaborative project and it’s not just for music. For us it’s really about making things that we love and that we care about and in a way if we were teenagers and we loved the band, these are things we would want. I loved the Smashing Pumpkins and when they would put out a box set or an unreleased song, I would be the first person in line at the store the day it came out and I think those are things, gestures to our audience, we know they desire a little more behind the scenes or a little more information and those are things they can tangibly interact with and we really enjoy making them as a group.
BLADE: Yeah, the Pumpkins were great with that stuff. Remember “The Aeroplane Flies High”?
SARA: Yes, that black and white box! I loved that.
BLADE: You’ve toured with a lot of huge acts like Katy Perry and Gaga. Are y’all like hanging out backstage some or do they tend to pretty much keep to themselves?
SARA: Well, with Katy Perry, we know her, so she’s extremely kind and affable. She just sort of wanders around and you see her all the time. She’s a really down-to-earth person so that tour felt very inclusive and we were friends with a lot of people on the crew, the dancers were super nice and everybody was very friendly so it was a really integrated experience as the support band. But there are definitely other tours where you’re sort of lower down on the food chain and I never take it personally. Every artist is different. We’ve toured with other artists who are extremely shy, extremely nervous people and they sort of avoid that type of social interaction and I completely respect that. But we’ve been really lucky. We’ve had a lot of really positive touring experiences. Katy Perry was amazing, the Killers were amazing. Our very first tour in 2000, we opened for Neil Young for a summer. We went out for two months and really learned how to tour and we really watched closely how his business ran and how he interacted with people and the way he treated his fans and that was really instrumental in how we run our business.
BLADE: Can you give us any hint of what your next album might be like or roughly when we might hear it?
SARA: The truth is I can’t. I have no clue. I feel really hyper focused on the work we’re doing philanthropically and we always have a lot of irons in the fire, projects we’re working on and right now musically, I would say it’s likely people won’t hear anything new from us for at least a year or two. I think we’re pretty busy working on other stuff and you gotta kinda wait for for the inspiration to hit you. I song write every day and I work on new music all the time but something tells me right now these other areas are crucial and we should focus there instead.
BLADE: What’s going on with the Tegan and Sara Foundation and why are you passionate about this work?
SARA: It’s focused on women and girls in the LGBTQ community. We’re specifically working on building solidarity with organizations and groups that center on women and girls and we’re right now mostly writing out grants to people we think are doing great work in the community but we’re also fundraising to develop some of our own programming with health care and social justice and economic inequities that queer women face in our community. For us, it sort of feels like a no brainer. Obviously being gay ourselves and having a strong female queer following all thse years, it just sort of feels like an area of philanthropy that really makes sense for us. We understand it, we’ve experienced it personally and we’ve had a lot of interaction with people in our community. We’ve been extremely fortunate that we’ve had a lot of success over the years and we’re looking forward to using that success and privilege and visibility to redistribute some of that wealth and power back to the community.
SARA of Tegan and Sara says Katy Perry and Neil Young have been some of her band’s favorite artists for which to open. (Photo by Lindsey Byrnes; courtesy Warner Bros. Records)
a&e features
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
Loraine Hutchins remembered as a ‘force of nature’
The Montgomery County Pride Center will host a celebration honoring the life and legacy of Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D., on May 2. People are invited to attend the onsite memorial or a livestream event. The on-site event will begin at 10 a.m. with a meet-and-greet mixer before moving into a memorial service around the theme “Loraine a Force of Nature!” at 11 a.m., a panel talk at 12 p.m., break out sessions for artists, academics, and activists to build on her legacy at 1 p.m. and a closing reception at 2 p.m.
Attendees are encouraged to register for the on-site memorial gathering or the livestreamed memorial. The goal of this event is also to collect stories and memories of Loraine. Attendees and others can share their stories at padlet.com.
An obituary for Hutchins was published in the Bladelast Nov. 24, where people can learn more about her activism in the bisexual community. A private service for friends and family was held in December but this memorial service is open to all.
Alongside her groundbreaking work organizing for U.S. bisexual rights and liberation including co-editing “Bi Any Other Name: BIsexual People Speak Out” (1991), she also integrated faith into her sexual education and advocacy work. Her 2001 doctoral dissertation, “Erotic Rites: A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Sacred Sexuality Traditions and Trends,” offered a pointed queer and feminist analysis to sex-neutral and sex-positive spiritual traditions in the United States. Her thesis was also groundbreaking in exploring the intersections between sex workers and those in caregiving professionals, including spiritual ones.
In an oral history interview conducted by Michelle Mueller back in August 2023, Hutchins described herself as a “priestess without a congregation.” While she has occasionally had a sense of community and feels part of a group of loving people, she admitted that “I don’t feel like we have the shape or the purpose that we need.”
“I’ve often experienced being the Cassandra in the room, the Cassandra in the community. Somebody who’s kind of way out there ahead, thinking through the strategic action points that my community hasn’t gotten to yet, and getting a lot of resistance and hostile responses from people who are frightened by dissent and conflict and not ready for the changes we have to make to survive,” she said.
“For somebody who’s bisexual in an out political way and who’s been a spokesperson for the polyamory movement in an out political way, it’s very exposing. And it’s very important to me to be able to try to explain and help other people understand the connection between spirituality and sexuality,” she explained citing how even as a graduate student she was “exploring how to feel erotic and spiritual, and not feel them in conflict with each other in my own spiritual contemplative life and my own sensual body awareness of being alive in the world.”
“Every religion has a sense of sacred sexuality. It’s just they put a lot of boundaries and regulations on it, and if we have a spiritual practice that is totally affirming of women’s priesthood and of gay people, queer people’s ability to minister to everyone and to be ministered to be everyone, what does that do to the gender of God, or our understanding of how we practice our spirituality and our sexuality in community and privately?”
“There’s no easy answer,” she concludes, and she continued to grapple with these questions throughout her life, co-editing another seminal text, “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual, and Polysexual Perspectives,” published in 2012. Her work blending spiritual and queer liberation remains groundbreaking to this day.
Rev. Eric Eldritch, a local community organizer and ordained Pagan minister with Circle Sanctuary who has worked for decades with the DC Center’s Center Faith to organize the Pride Interfaith Service, is eager to highlight this element of her legacy at the memorial service next month.
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Aging RFK Stadium has come down, but the RFK grounds are still getting lit up. Welcome back to the stage Project GLOW, D.C.’s homegrown electronic festival, on May 30-31. Back for its fifth year on these musically inclined acres, Project GLOW returns with an even more diverse lineup, and one that continues to celebrate LGBTQ antecedents, attendees, and acts.
Project GLOW 2026 headliners include house and techno star Mau P, progressive house legend Eric Prydz, hard-techno favorite Sara Landry, and bass acts Excision b2b Sullivan King, among the lineup of trance, bass, house, techno, dubstep, and others for the fifth anniversary year.
President & CEO Pete Kalamoutsos — born and raised in D.C. — founded Club GLOW in 1999. In 2020, GLOW entered into a partnership with global entertainment company Insomniac Events to produce live events like Project GLOW, which kicked off in 2022.
As in past years, Project GLOW not only makes space, but is intentionally inclusive of the LGBTQ community, one of its most dedicated fan bases. The festival’s LGBTQ-focused Secret Garden stage blooms again — a more intimate dance area that stands on the strength of DJs and musicians who draw from the LGBTQ community. D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife mastermind Ed Bailey is the creative mind behind Secret Garden again. He joined Project GLOW in 2023.
“Kalamoustos says that “he’s proud of his partnership with Ed Bailey, along with Capital Pride and [nightlife producer] Jake Resnikow. It’s amazing to collaborate with Bailey at the Secret Garden stage, especially after the curated lineup we worked on at Pride last year.”
The Secret Garden will be a bit different from other stages: Eternal (“At the Eternal stage, time stands still. Lose yourself in the dance of past, present, and future, surrendering to the eternal rhythm of the universe”) and Pulse (“Feel the rhythm of the beat pulse through your veins as the heartbeat of the crowd synchronizes into one. Here, every moment vibrates with life as it guides you through a new dimension of euphoria”). The Secret Garden stage is in the round, surrounded by 16 shipping containers. The containers play canvas to muralists from around the world, who are coming in to paint them in a vibrant garden-style vibe. “We gave this stage some extra love with this layout,” K says, “ we finally cracked the code.”
K says that this will be the biggest lineup yet for the Secret Garden, featuring Nicole Moudaber b2b Chasewest, Riordan b2b Bullet Tooth, Ranger Trucco, Cassian, Eli & Fur, Cosmic Gate and Hayla. The stage is also the largest yet, featuring an expanded dance floor and 360-degree viewing.
Across all stages, K says that his goal for the fifth anniversary is “More art and fan interactive experience, more like a festival, strive to be like a Tomorrowland, as budget grows to add more experience.” Last year’s Project GLOW alone drew 40,000 attendees over two days.
K, however, was not satisfied with one festival this spring. GLOW recently announced a “pop-up” one-day event. Teaming up with Black Book Records, GLOW is set to throw a first-of-its-kind dance-music takeover of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., headlined by electronic music star Chris Lake. Set for April 18, this euphoric block party will feature bass and vibes blocks from the White House. Organizers expect as many as 10,000 fans to attend. Beyond music, there will be food, activations, and plenty of other activities taking place around 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave NW – a location familiar to many in the LGBTQ community, as this sits squarely inside the blocks of the Capital Pride party that takes place in DC every June.
Over the past two decades, Club GLOW has produced thousands of events, from club nights to large-scale festivals including Project GLOW, Moonrise Festival, and more. Club GLOW also operates Echostage.
Comings & Goings
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