TORONTO - Feist, in various incarnations, has appeared in small, medium and large venues over the last week in Toronto.
First, there were two surprise club shows -- a songwriter's night at The Rivoli last Tuesday followed by a covers-heavy performance featuring just Feist and her guitarist-pianist Afie Jurvenan at The Cameron House Wednesday.
Those intimate performances were followed by a complete 90-minute concert featuring Feist and her four-piece band at Massey Hall on Saturday night.
But the Calgary-raised, Toronto-based singer-songwriter, currently Canada's reigning "It" girl on the music scene, is also on her first-ever cross-country arena tour, which included a stop at the Air Canada Centre Theatre last night.
I was lucky enough to be at the Massey Hall show and after seeing her there I would have suggested she add a few more nights at that celebrated venue, which is far more suited to her brand of hushed, sensual and experimental art-folk, than a cavernous hockey arena, which was converted last night into its so-called theatre setup to suit an audience of about 5,000.
Still, Feist, whose first name is Leslie but who performs under her surname, did her best to reach the ACC's upper levels with her unique brand of showmanship, heavy on vocal improvisation and striking visuals projected behind her while she performs. The visuals were provided by shadow puppeteer, finger-painter and video camera operator Clea Minaker.
It's kind of like a live art show going on while Feist, joined by Jurvenan and the three Baird brothers -- Bryden on keyboards and trumpet, Jason on bass, and Jesse on drums -- delivers the songs in that warm, sexy voice.
Feist started the evening by creeping out onto a darkened stage carrying a lantern, and then launched into her hour-and-45-minute show with a capella vocals while furiously shaking her fringe-laden white top and black dress behind a white scrim which showed her in silhouette.
Then, playing an acoustic guitar, she performed the pretty and understated So Sorry and Mushaboom, the latter prompting the first audience clapalong of the night. The song included a mini-snowstorm of paper snowflakes.
The energy level picked up drastically with the next tune, I Feel it All, which saw Feist move to electric guitar, before retreating back again to quieter territory with The Limit to Your Love.
"We're going to conjure up hockey heroes, the greatest hockey moments," joked Feist during a long, extended singing introduction into the more dynamic and percussive-heavy When I Was a Young Girl. That was followed by the downright haunting Honey Honey, a cover of the American folk song The Wagoner's Lad and her own Intuition, all of which were fuelled by improvisational vocals.
"I'm really glad all you guys came tonight, thank you for that," said Feist. "Anyone up there in the nosebleed section? Can I just hear from the third tier up there? And can I hear from anybody under the age of 10?"
Other standouts included My Moon, My Man, Past In My Present, Sea Lion Woman, all prompting major clapalongs by the audience; her Juno-winning hit 1234, which ended with a colourful confetti explosion; and the more refined Gatekeeper, Brandy Alexander, How My Heart Behaves and The Water, the latter featuring Feist playing the piano in silhouette again behind that white scrim.
Opening act Hayden -- that's Paul Hayden Desser to those who grew up with him in Thornhill, Ont. -- also adjusted nicely to the bigger space.
He filled out his normally subdued lo-fi alt-folk-rock sound with local faves Cuff The Duke as his backing band during a 45-minute set that included Home By Saturday, Dynamite Walls, Carried Away, Lonely Security Guard and Did I Wake Up Beside You, the last two tunes from his sixth studio release, In Field & Town, which came out at the beginning of this year.
Manning both electric guitar and keyboards, he even joked about Feist's uber-popularity at one point, naming one of his new tunes, "5,6,7,8."
