Bowery Ballroom, New York
6/25/05
Content as a collaborator to such performers as Broken Social Scene and Chilly Gonzalez, Canadian-born singer-songwriter Leslie Feist didn't intend to write her new album, "Let It Die" (Cherry Lane/Interscope); it just happened. Her show Saturday at Bowery Ballroom in New York, however, proved that the effort was long overdue.
Four-tracking original music had been Feist's aside until she shared demos with friend Gonzalez in 2003 and they realized that a record was about to be conceived. Supporting the new release, Feist's New York appearance marks her first solo tour, but her friends never were far from mind as she made nods to them throughout the nearly two-hour set.
Eyes sparkling under a shroud of bangs, Feist slyly explained before her cover of the Bee Gees' "Love You Inside Out" (retitled "Inside and Out" on her album) how she found it very hard to "disco dance and disco play" by herself on the road, so she enlisted the help of the Apostles of Hustle to concoct an "unmix" of the version she played out. Feist also delivered "The Build Up," written with the Kings of Convenience, her "buddies from the North." Feist even went as far as to invite a chum, guitarist Tony Scheer, to perform a few numbers, including "Lonely Lonely," which she revealed was based on Scheer's "Sacramento." They shared the "inaugural duet."
Feist's gracious acknowledgments added to her charm, but she was a competent performer in her own right. Surrounded by piano, drums and trombone, she gripped her guitar as she did in her By Divine Right stage days and caressed the words of "Secret Heart" (a cover of a Ron Sexsmith cover), "Gatekeeper," "One Evening" and "Mushaboom." Her sultry phrasing and smoldering voice embraced her genre-jumping songs. In songwriting, Feist deliberates to capture the moments between life's dramas, and her airy timbre made her lyrics hover to create those stills.
Feist's crowning achievement as a solo performer, however, was her ability to coax a packed room of hipster New Yorkers to imitate a barnyard of farm animals during her whimsical delivery of "Now at Last." Written to evoke springtime during one of Feist's stays in the "deep, dead, cold winter" of a foreign country, she explained that in fun one night, she prompted friends to emphasize the song's bird references with chirps. "It then progressed to tigers, kittens, giraffes and then rabbits," she said. When that section of the tune came around Saturday, Feist cooed, "Come on little tigers," at which point the audience actually began roaring. When she yelled, "kittens," there was purring. When the neighs of horses became audible, Feist agreed that "the maximum nerd quotient had been reached."
Originally published in The Hollywood Reporter 6/28/05.
6/25/05
Content as a collaborator to such performers as Broken Social Scene and Chilly Gonzalez, Canadian-born singer-songwriter Leslie Feist didn't intend to write her new album, "Let It Die" (Cherry Lane/Interscope); it just happened. Her show Saturday at Bowery Ballroom in New York, however, proved that the effort was long overdue.
Four-tracking original music had been Feist's aside until she shared demos with friend Gonzalez in 2003 and they realized that a record was about to be conceived. Supporting the new release, Feist's New York appearance marks her first solo tour, but her friends never were far from mind as she made nods to them throughout the nearly two-hour set.
Eyes sparkling under a shroud of bangs, Feist slyly explained before her cover of the Bee Gees' "Love You Inside Out" (retitled "Inside and Out" on her album) how she found it very hard to "disco dance and disco play" by herself on the road, so she enlisted the help of the Apostles of Hustle to concoct an "unmix" of the version she played out. Feist also delivered "The Build Up," written with the Kings of Convenience, her "buddies from the North." Feist even went as far as to invite a chum, guitarist Tony Scheer, to perform a few numbers, including "Lonely Lonely," which she revealed was based on Scheer's "Sacramento." They shared the "inaugural duet."
Feist's gracious acknowledgments added to her charm, but she was a competent performer in her own right. Surrounded by piano, drums and trombone, she gripped her guitar as she did in her By Divine Right stage days and caressed the words of "Secret Heart" (a cover of a Ron Sexsmith cover), "Gatekeeper," "One Evening" and "Mushaboom." Her sultry phrasing and smoldering voice embraced her genre-jumping songs. In songwriting, Feist deliberates to capture the moments between life's dramas, and her airy timbre made her lyrics hover to create those stills.
Feist's crowning achievement as a solo performer, however, was her ability to coax a packed room of hipster New Yorkers to imitate a barnyard of farm animals during her whimsical delivery of "Now at Last." Written to evoke springtime during one of Feist's stays in the "deep, dead, cold winter" of a foreign country, she explained that in fun one night, she prompted friends to emphasize the song's bird references with chirps. "It then progressed to tigers, kittens, giraffes and then rabbits," she said. When that section of the tune came around Saturday, Feist cooed, "Come on little tigers," at which point the audience actually began roaring. When she yelled, "kittens," there was purring. When the neighs of horses became audible, Feist agreed that "the maximum nerd quotient had been reached."
Originally published in The Hollywood Reporter 6/28/05.
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