Here's how Tegan Quin would like this to go down -- we start with the basics: She plays with her sister Sara in a band called Tegan and Sara, they sing catchy songs about relationships, they're from Canada and they like hockey (go Flames!). "Journalists always blow their load in the first paragraph," she says, sipping water at a bar in downtown Vancouver.

Brought to the stage by director Michael Mayer, the man behind 2006's surprise Broadway hit Spring Awakening, the stage-musical version of Green Day's American Idiot is currently enjoying a trial run in the band's native East Bay, and early indicators were promising: Ushers in the Berkeley Repertory Theater handed out earplugs before the show -- what is this, My Bloody Valentine?

You haven't really tasted death until you've been inches away from an ax swung by Eddie Vedder.