“The last time I saw them live was 2006!” someone next to me exclaims. We’re in Pomona, California, at the Glass House – a relatively small venue in the city’s downtown. “I was ten, I think – they played with Hannah Montana!”
You might recognize sisters Aly and AJ from one of their acting projects. Maybe “iZombie” and “The Goldbergs,” if you’ve been watching cable in the past few years; “Phil of the Future” and “Cow Belles” if you were a Disney kid in the 2000s.
Tonight, for the penultimate show of their Sanctuary Tour, Aly and AJ look like vampire queens. The sisters’ aesthetics aren’t identical, but they are related. Aly’s white blouse has two large, shimmering red appliqués near the collarbone – artistic renditions of a vampire bite. AJ’s wearing a black, low-cut, puffy sleeved ethereal dress that engulfs her arms when she outstretches them to sing. A far cry from their more carefully curated, ever-so-slightly edgy Disney days.
The first song they play is one of their more recent singles. “Church” is a contemporary, melancholy synth-pop hymn to “do[ing] bad things for the sake of good times.” After that, they announce that “we’re going back in time,” before launching into songs off of albums “Insomniatic” and “Into the Rush” from the mid-2000s. The crowd is excited for the new material, but we’re also glad to journey back with them.
December is always a time for nostalgia, as we creep toward the new year. This December, in particular, has been highly focused on looking back as the decade wraps up. I purchased these tickets on a whim, excited to get a chance to see Aly and AJ in person after loving them as a kid. But the show went beyond pandering to childhood memories.
The sisters, like they always have, trade lines or verses, and harmonize. But their sound has matured, and they breathe new life into their older work. When AJ belts out “Division,” her voice is so powerful and full of emotion, you’d never guess the song is over a decade old. Even when they revisit songs they clearly don’t still have a strong connection to — like “Greatest Time Of Year,” or “Like Whoa” — they seem like they’re having fun, feeding off of the room’s energy and indulging us.
The last song they play is “Potential Breakup Song.” As great as their recent music is, nostalgia and excitement for the 2007 platinum hit moves the crowd to unheard levels of wild shrieks and cheers. Aly and AJ have grown up, their listeners have grown up, but at the end of the night, the sisters turn their mics towards the audience and we scream the lyrics back at them. For a moment, we’re all 12 years old, ready to dump our non-existent boyfriends, while singing along to our iPod minis.