Off the back of her Laneway Festival appearance in Melbourne over the weekend, Leslie Feist performed an intimate sideshow at the Prince Band Room; her first “real” show in over three months. The beauty of Feist’s music as well as that of her character shone through as the capacity crowd stood in adoration of this massive star of the indie music scene. Feist had played the Prince about five years ago, only she was with Gonzales (and in spandex) at the time and admitted she only recognised the venue because of the memorability of back stage toilets. Such humour and her amazing voice ensured a perfect and very long set of indie pop and rock.
Before Feist and co. graced the stage, local boys The Lucksmiths brought their warm pop vibes to ready the crowd. Somewhat of a novel obscurity, frontman Tali White played a miniature drum kit, standing up centre stage with his large collection of various drumsticks. White created a great percussive sound whilst surrounded by the three guitarists who occasionally provided harmonies. Despite competing with an extremely noisy room of early comers, The Lucksmiths took it all in good humour and provided a gentle array of folk tunes that seemed well suited for such a support slot.
Anticipation was high as the packed band room waited patiently for Feist’s late entry. A blackened stage hosted a white, door sized screen and Feist spryly skipped on stage carrying a lantern to perform her silhouetted introduction. With huge approving cheers all round, the gentlest of opening tracks, ‘When I Was A Young Girl’ saw Feist joined by her full band of multi instrumentalists and began a set of diverse sounds and moods that would continue for the next hour and forty minutes.
Asking for those who had attended Laneway to aid the rest of the crowd, Feist taught a three part harmony and had everyone join in (which worked pretty well) as her introduction for ‘I’m Sorry’, the first of many The Reminder tracks that would make up the first half of her set. The band subtly played the jazzy folk before transforming their style into the upbeat toe tapping pop of ‘My Moon My Man’ before going back into the subtlety of ‘The Park’; during which three band members took horns to gently back Feist’s vocals and guitar work. The transition between slow and dance friendly numbers continued and meant the Feist held the constant attention of her fans.
Complementing the sound of Feist was her unique take on visualisations. Projected onto the stage backdrop was a light board situated side of stage, on which items were placed and moved around to create silhouetted images. Leaf shapes were placed and moved around for slower tracks and images were drawn with hands to match the music. The idea was simple yet very artistic and slow movement meant that the visuals fitted perfectly. During faster tracks, video was connected to the projection and focused on one aspect of the band per song, such as hands playing the piano or the kick drum.
Even when Feist’s band left stage she was able to create a very full sound, looping her own harmonies for ‘Honey Honey’ and singing over the top. Much the opposite to earlier in the night, the audience amazingly didn’t make a sound during these softer tracks, obviously transfixed. Again by herself she performed the Broken Social Scene track ‘F**ked Up Kid’ and jokingly said “f**k you” and gave the finger to any Broken Social Sceners who hadn’t come to see her on their night off in Melbourne.
Feist proved that she is naturally able to engage the audience with story telling, as the crowd hung off her every word when she told of how the Apostle of Hustle, Andrew Whiteman (also of Broken Social Scene) had aided in arranging an “Unmix” of the Bee Gees track ‘Inside and Out’, which she had to play on radio. Her resplendent delivery of the track was complemented finely by the harmonies of her band. Out of nowhere Feist then introduced Whiteman himself who joined her on stage to perform a new song ‘Blackberry’. Whiteman’s quirky personality, lyricism and vocals went hand in hand with Feist, who provided harmonization toward the end of the track. She continued to lead on piano for ‘Water’ during which she hit some spectacular high notes, before taking guitar again to finish with the soulful ‘Mushaboom’.
Returning to stage, Feist introduced someone all of her fans recognised, Sally Seltmann aka New Buffalo and leant her the stage for her own solo performance on piano. Feist then returned solely to perform a duet of the song Seltmann had written for her, ‘1234’. This was the first time the two had played the song together since Feist received it two years ago, and with some slight readjusting to its arrangements it sounded spectacular with both voices taking turns. Even more special was when half way through the song, Feist’s band (and then some) joined on stage as a nine piece brass section to create an enormous sound. With such a huge climax to the show, the band room remained a massive buzz as Feist finished with the ultra clap-friendly ‘Sealion’ and lastly ‘Let Die’.
Feist has worked with enough bands in the past that her experience shows tremendously in her live work. What’s most remarkable is the extent to her live sound, as it is given so much more life than it has on the record; with additional instrumentation and parts, as well as plenty of humour thrown in. Don’t worry if you missed her this time around though, as she announced at the end of the night that she and her band would return in October.
Check out the photos from Feist here courtesy of invadercee.
