Feist
Date: May 31, 2007 You're Changing Your Heart Having seen Feist play twice last year, I was aware that she is a strong performer, able to strike a casual mood while talking to her adoring crowds but instantly raising the intensity with her excellent voice and energetic playing. She also knows how to get the most from her songs, sometimes altering their arrangements significantly from their album versions. While a consistent approach to those two prior concerts indicated that she had those arrangements down to a science, the recent release of The Reminder gave Feist the chance to expand her live set. With the new songs proving the equal of past favourites, this was my favourite Feist concert yet. The choice of venue was a boon and a bane for opener Chad VanGaalen. The seated Bronson Centre was general admission, as usual, which encouraged an early turnout; but the stifling air in the venerable building had the crowd saving its energy for the headliner. VanGaalen seemed lacking in the self-promotion department, as I never heard him introduce himself; but he was otherwise quite capable. Although the mix took a couple of songs to come together, his voice was always loud and clear. With a few standout songs in a solid set, VanGaalen did well in front of a crowd that literally and figuratively needed little warming up. The long changeover time before Feist and her familiar backing band took the stage proved to be my only complaint of the night. The opening pairing of "Honey Honey" and "When I Was a Young Girl" echoed the concerts that she played last year, with the former being constructed a piece at a time through vocal looping and the latter seeing her drummer pounding his kit bare-handed. With Feist's voice and her band sounding excellent even from the very beginning, though, the revisiting of proven songs was welcome. "Honey Honey" was only the first of many selections from The Reminder, though, so it wasn't long before I was hearing material that I had never experienced live. The crowd demographics for this concert were very far-ranging, including more girls under the age of ten than I have ever seen at an indoor show. That diversity is a reflection of Feist's accessibility, which is present whether she is offering a quietly fragile song like "So Sorry" or a bouncing rocker like "My Moon My Man." While the latter had toes tapping, the venue was certainly not conducive to dancing, despite the mirror ball that capped a stage illuminated primarily by Christmas lights. The effect of the setting was noted by Feist, who at one point asked the crowd to cheer as if they were at the Capital Music Hall or Zaphod's; but I'm sure that there was never a doubt that the crowd was thrilled by her performance. As usual, Feist was an easy-going charmer, joking with the audience, dividing it by age for a choir, encouraging people to keep cheering long enough for her to finish tuning her guitar, and seeking help in remembering the name of Burton Cummings Theatre by saying that they renamed it after "that guy with the mustache." (She ignored the inevitable suggestion of "Tom Selleck Theatre.") The last point led to a story about Canada's historical vaudeville connection, before she introduced "Now at Last" as "a duet with the spirit of vaudeville." With her band offstage, I assumed that she would be performing that number unaided but she was joined by a tap dancing girl who smiled her way through a cute back and forth with the singer. While that was the most obvious example, it was only one of several twists that Feist revealed on the night, as she continued to represent The Reminder in the live setting. "The Limit to Your Love" was positively gripping, while "I Feel It All" was perhaps the greatest moment of unbridled joy, although the closing salvo of "1234" and "Mushaboom" also drew a lot of smiles. The end of the main set brought people to their feet and a lot stayed standing for a brilliant encore of the clap-along "Sealion," "Intuition," and "Let It Die." The three Feist concerts that I have seen in the past year and a half were all marked by excellent singing, great musicianship, and a sense of shared fun built on her charismatic presence. The infusion of new songs made this concert stand the highest of the three, though. If I'm right in assuming that those little girls in the crowd were seeing their first rock show, they started their concert-going days with a true gem. <--Prev (Tapes N' Tapes) | Next (The Evens)-->Return to Concert ListReturn to Main Page |