Feist, Mountain Man @ EnmoreTheatre, Sydney (7/2/12)

Fri 10th Feb, 2012 in Gig Reviews

Opening support slots can be difficult at the best of times, but it’s perhaps even worse when you walk to a half-empty theatre with dozens of conversations going on at the same time. With that said, Mountain Man shut people up instantly – and they did this solely through the power of their voices. With melt-in-your-mouth harmonies and stunning vocal arrangements, it certainly proved that a performance can be utterly enthralling even when it is, conceptually, just three people standing around microphones. They also found themselves developing a rapport with the audience, calling out for wolf howls instead of applause at the end of their songs and telling unexpectedly funny anecdotes from their previous Australian visit. A charming, sweet and mesmerising set that was sadly all too fleeting. More, please – and soon.

Exactly why next to nothing happened on stage for nearly an hour is anyone’s guess – Mountain Man were not exactly high-maintenance, and all that had to be done was move their microphones to the side so they could become the backing vocalists in Feist’s band. Whatever the reason, Leslie Feist still strolled onto the stage roughly twenty minutes late as though nothing had happened, breaking into Uncovered First. The oddness of the evening continued into Metals single How Come You Never Go There, in which she spotted a fan with a camera and started improvising lyrics about it. “How come you want to film the show, and attempt to live in the future and also in the present at the same time?” she sang, taking his camera and filming the crowd. If only other performers could deal with this kind of punter behaviour in such an entertaining manner.

Here’s what we know about Leslie Feist circa 2012. She really, really likes her new album. As a matter of fact, she played all but two songs from it this evening. For the audience, it meant taking the good with the bad: an inspired rendition of The Bad in Each Other was a standout moment, as was a simply beautiful version of closer Get it Wrong, Get it Right; while the middling Anti-Pioneer and Comfort Me could have easily been cut from the nearly two-hour set. Here’s what else we know – she either doesn’t like her old material, or she’s simply bored with it. “Everyone make your scariest pose!” she shouted at the audience. “The ghost of 2007 is here to haunt us!” She then lead into an uncharacteristically snarling, Neil Young-esque guitar solo that turned into The Reminder single My Moon My Man. Earlier, she had delivered a very stripped-back, almost tribal, rendition of Mushaboom. Not long after My Moon, she would perform a rambling I Feel It All and a near-unrecognisable Honey Honey. These veers from the path certainly kept things interesting, although it’s safe to say they were not expected.

For all her eccentricities, let nothing be taken away from Leslie herself as a musician. An old soul at heart, her vibrato-laden croon recalled Joni Mitchell and Karen Carpenter at times, backed up by Mountain Man’s pitch-perfect harmonies. Her band worked well, recreating the layered productions with detail and precision, with dashes of spontaneous weirdness in the form of a warped synthesizer or a screaming feedback of guitar. Given, the whole affair may have been a bit much for the passing fan who was looking to discover what the fuss was all about. For the diehards, however, you couldn’t have asked for much more out of Feist in this peculiar but rewarding performance. Just don’t ask her to count to four anytime soon.