Feist

Feist
Masonic Auditorium
Friday, November 9 2007

The Masonic Auditorium is an oddly glamorous and fancy venue to see an indie-folk artist, and I'm not sure how Feist came to perform there. The 3,165-seat venue was sold out, so perhaps it was a matter of her being too big for smaller venues like the Warfield and the Fillmore. The tickets said that the show started at 8pm, and they weren't kidding. At 8:01pm, the opening act went on. It was a guy with his acoustic guitar, whose name I didn't catch. He played for or five songs of mellow, Iron and Wine-esque folk before ceding the stage to Feist. The petite singer/songwriter sounded amazing, and played for a little under 90 minutes. There was a big backdrop on the stage, on which someone was projecting stencils and stencil puppets. It was an interesting visual for the most part, but got a little cheesy at times, like when the projecter-lady's hands would get involved for some interpretive waving.

One weird thing about the show was how oddly civilized and anesceptic the whole vibe was. The audience remained seated throughout the entire concert, and about as rowdy as things got was when someone lit a joint or yelled "We love you, Leslie!" It was an unnatural and unfitting place to see an artist as intimate as Feist, but, alas, I guess the days of her playing at a tiny club are over. On a more positive note, the sound was great, and she probably wouldn't have been nearly as impressive at the Greek or Slim's or any other venue where the subtleties of her arrangements would have been lost. I was also impressed that the crowd wasn't just there to hear her do "1234" aka the Ipod Nano song. I'm guessing that her next disc is going to have her blowing up, approaching superstar status in the indie-folk circles.