At Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto on Saturday, all things Feist came to a beginning. New songs were unveiled, old songs were refashioned and one commercial hit was purposefully omitted. There were gentlemen callers – duet partners, uniformly tender and polite. It was a display of power and pretty, melody and loud whispers, with the star in the middle being the Canadian lady named Leslie.
The intimate concert was for friends, family, insiders and contest winners, though the guest list expands on Nov. 2, at 7 p.m., when CBC Radio 2 broadcasts parts of the performance. Feist, who last week released her rapturously received fourth album, Metals, broke down all sense of radio-show formality right from the start, bounding into the centre aisle and high-fiving her startled audience. The singer said she wanted to hear “sticky-floor club screams,” and made a promise that her and her band would do what they could to “incite you out of your chairs.”
Metals made up the bulk of the program, including the night’s first eight numbers The material, presented with strings, a wondrous backing trio of female singers, tom-tom drumming, keyboards and a multi-instrumentalist in Charles Spearin, often started slowly, gradually swelling to grander, artful hubbubs.
The set began with A Commotion, a tense rocker with a tight, abrupt shouted exclamation – something like a musical night terror. Pine Moon, a bluesy-ballad bonus track off the CD, closed out the Metals run. Feist, wearing bangs, a simple short dress cinched at the waist and often a smile, was in fine vocal form, her signature chirp vaporous.
Several fans accepted Feist’s invitation to leave their seats and sit on the floor in front, an intimacy unthinkable during her last “hometown” concert, at the Air Canada Centre in 2009.
Prior to the Glenn Gould appearance, the Grammy-nominated singer had given an informal show inside the crypt of the Church of the Intercession in Harlem (where she was backed by a 16-piece orchestra on Oct. 3) and, on Sept. 2, a surprise gig at the Del Monte Townhouse, in Venice, California.
Those shows (and the proper tour shows which will follow) didn’t feature the cameo guest spots of Saturday. Duet singers, all worth applause, were the country troubadour Doug Paisley (on his gentle Don’t Make Me Wait), Joel Gibb (on the folk traditional The Wagoner’s Lad), Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste (on Service Bell and Feist’s Cicadas and Gulls) and Wilco’s fedora-topped Jeff Tweedy (on You and I).
Old hit Mushaboom was thoroughly reworked, with clacking percussion, a sort of pow-wow rhythm and an a cappella ending worthy of the Chordettes, sung by Mountain Man, the three Appalachian-voiced angels who will tour with Feist. So Sorry, from the smash 2007 album The Reminder, had its bossa nova stripped of its bossa, leaving it as a lush pop ballad. Noticeable by its absence was 1234, the breakthrough pop hit and entry onto Sesame Street.
Before the fourth and final encore number (the sorrowful Let it Die), Feist said something that didn’t please anyone – that the evening was about to come to a close. Someone booed, but in a complimentary way. The singer’s responded with “Every end is a new beginning.” That from an artist who retreated two years ago, creatively drained after a prolonged touring grind. She’s back, welcomed.
Tour dates: Amsterdam, Oct. 15; London, Oct. 17; Brussels, Oct. 19; Berlin, Oct. 22; Philadelphia, Oct. 29; Brooklyn, Nov. 2; Chicago, Nov. 4. Atlanta, Nov. 6; Dallas, Nov. 8; Los Angeles, Nov. 12; Portland, Nov. 16; Seattle, Nov. 17; Edmonton’s North Alberta Jubilee, Nov. 20; Calgary’s Nov. 21; Toronto’s Massey Hall, Dec. 1; Montreal’s Metropolis, Dec. 3; Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, Dec. 5; Quebec City’s Grand Theatre du Quebec, Dec. 6.
