Feist’s new album, Pleasure, was released on April 28.Mary Rozzi
"It's been a few years, okay?"
Singer-songwriter Leslie Feist, on the eve of dropping her first album in six years, had to take a couple cracks at starting one of her new songs on Thursday at Toronto's Trinity-St. Paul's Centre. With a three-piece band, the vapour-voiced singer ran through her new album Pleasure start to finish, with no other glitches. The material – spare, existential indie-rock and vulnerable balladry offset with upbeat blues – hovered in the intimate venue, where fans and organ pipes sat at attention. It was a return that felt less triumphant and more like a homecoming, ending with a "slightly tarnished golden oldie," the celebrative I Feel It All from a decade ago.
Feist, feeling it all – that's her thing.
Before the show, two women in a long lineup that curved down the block spoke of the comeback concert as a "once in a lifetime event." A flash storm had just passed. "I want there to be a rainbow," one of them said to her friend, who promptly upped the ante. "I'd settle for a double rainbow," she replied.
Well, we don't ask for much. While Feist was inside working on her me-me-me-me vocal exercises, her supporters were outside expecting spectacular atmospheric phenomena. But, then, high expectations do come with the territory when it comes to the affecting Canadian artist.
Bare-shouldered and short-haired in a hot-pink gown, Feist walked onto the small stage to applause that may have felt like a hug to her. She's 41 now. Her crowd looked about the same age, though the younger vape nation was represented, too. The title-track opener Pleasure was slow and stark in spots, but with raucous breakouts as well. It served as an announcement: "It's my pleasure and your pleasure," she sang. "That's what we're here for."
We were there for 17 songs, including I Wish I Didn't Miss You, a hushed, fragile lament. After the breezy self-advice of Get Not High, Get Not Low, Feist turned her attention to the audience. "Is everybody feeling well right now?" she wondered. Everyone and the rainbow-seekers were doing fine, thanks for asking. When she said, "I'm really happy I get to begin here," a fan replied: "Welcome back."
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, the four-time Grammy nominee and iPod endorsee said the songs of her new album were an "easy batch of songs to jump into." That appeared to be the case. With a drummer and two multi-instrumentalists (on bass, keyboards, synths and violin), Feist was the lone guitarist. Using an effect-added acoustic guitar (sometimes capoed and usually grungy-sounding), her playing was instinctual, bluesy and cathartic. To Feist, the six strings are extensions of herself. Her playing is a reflection of moods, which never seem meek, whether up or down. "Earthy," for lack of a better word.
The new album finds Feist with a worried mind, as she contemplates adult burdens, deals with arduous emotions and confronts the never-ending present. It closes with Young Up, a message from Feist's younger self to her older self. "We will now become the wise teenager," she said on stage, introducing the song. It has to do with life's slow battle, with advice that the "end's not coming" and that the things that need to fall will do just that.
After the Pleasure set was over, a selection drawn from older material finished the show: A Commotion and Anti-Pioneer from 2011's Metals; the hypnotic folk of Sealion and the lilt and march of My Moon, My Man from 2007's The Reminder; closing with The Bad in Each Other and the bopping spirit of I Feel It All.
Before that last number, Feist encouraged audience members to get up on their feet. It was not an unreasonable request, and it probably should not have been up to the performer to offer the instruction. Feist had risen. The least her fans could do was to stand with her.