Feist, Metro Theatre, Sydney

Jun 14

universalheadMusic 3 Comments

I meant to post this ages ago but didn’t get around it, along with reviews of Suzanne Vega and Joe Jackson …
Enraptured, like many others I suppose, by Feist’s cheerful ditty 1234 when I saw it advertising the iPod, I went online and checked out some of her videos and was pleasantly surprised to discover a very individual and interesting singer songwriter. They’re becoming a rare breed in this age of cookie-cutter copycat American Idol alumni.

On my birthday my gorgeous girlfriend gave me her latest album and tickets to her Sydney show; a rare opportunity to see an artist live without knowing her material inside and out. It can be a refreshing thing to do, as then the artist’s music immediately takes on that extra dimension of the live experience, though of course it can be risky too.
Thankfully, Feist didn’t disappoint. From the opening bit of shadowplay projection where a lantern is plucked from a tree branch and she came tiptoeing on stage with the lantern in hand like a guilty elf, we were in for something just that little bit different. The show started with an interesting layered vocal track, a technique used effectively several times during the show where Feist sang into a microphone which then looped the vocal lines for instant three and four part harmony accompaniment.

Despite the twin distractions of a bunch of stupid noisy girls playing with their frackin’ mobile phones, and a strangely arctic temperature within the usually comfortable Metro, we enjoyed the show a lot. Though I would like to see her breaking out from the nice ballads a bit more with tracks like Sea Lion, which rocked with the help of scratchy, raw guitar work which brought the Velvet Underground to mind.

Here’s hoping she doesn’t disappear into obscurity. I think she’s been around for a while though and by the sound of the last album has plenty of ideas left yet.