Feist @Town Hall, June 11th

Less than two weeks ago, I sat in the front row of Town Hall for Bright Eyes, and tonight I had the privilege of sitting in nearly the same spot for the lovely Leslie Feist. I knew it was gonna be a magical night even before we entered the building; SoCo wanted to see if he could get a last minute ticket even if it meant we'd be sitting apart, and luckily, a wonderful woman gave us her extra press ticket in Row M for free. Even the scalpers were in awe of our ticket karma.



Before Feist & Co. came on, the trippy harmonious Grizzly Bear opened. I was eager to catch these funny boys from Brooklyn who've been deemed buzz-worthy by the blogs. Plain and simple, they're weird -- I thought of the Beach Boys on downers and acid -- but beautiful to hear. SoCo, who managed to sit up front with me for a stretch, didn't get into them until a few songs in, but dug them in the end. Here's a clip of their song, "Lullabye":

A funny aside -- the guy who sat next to me told me how before the show he went to buy a Grizzly Bear t-shirt at the merch table and realized that it was the guys from the band. He asked them what they were doing sitting at the table, selling their own stuff, and they said they wanted to see if anyone recognized them, and that he had been the only one so far. Hee hee!

Feist came on around 9:20 and played for about an hour and a half; her set focused mainly on her latest brilliant release, The Reminder, though she did dip slightly into Let It Die. Here she is performing "I Feel It All":


A nice surprise was when she was joined on stage by her beau, Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene who accompanied her on piano for a song. She also played a rockin' version of "Mushaboom":


Feist really wowed me with her live performance. She seemed really comfortable and loose and joked all night long. Not only does her music exhibit so many different influences, but she is adept at playing them well. She can coo with the best of them as well as thrash and get a whole crowd foot-stomping. She reminded me of when I saw Cat Power at Town Hall almost exactly a year ago, perhaps because they are both similar in looks and have voices to die for, but with Feist there was no fear of things spinning out of control; instead, we bopped along and clapped and had an all out good time.