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relatively speaking, decent seats at the tower aren’t cheap but i’d never seen feist before so why not. while 2004’s let it die had some good songs on it, it never really grabbed me the way that the reminder has. it’s probably one of my favorite albums this year.

monica & i had a quick and yummy dinner at the local nifty fifty’s (”taste the memories!” what?) before heading over to upper darby wednesday night. we missed rogue wave but got to our seats just in time for feist’s set. i had a romantic notion that the show would end up like one of her videos and turn into a energetic, joyous, spike jonez-ish affair but realistically, it looked like a relatively sleepy wxpn/miller lite sponsored event crowd, not to mention that the tower doesn’t exactly scream spontaneity. on a side note, am i the only one who’s completely annoyed with wxpn/y-rock co-opting the music & bands i like?

after opening with a strong version of “when i was a young girl”, the first half of the show was decent enough but i was bugged by some of the low vocals and feedback (not to mention one completely dead mic) that the sound crew couldn’t get a bead on. it’s not like leslie feist is a quiet singer. “i’m sorry” stood out well here while “my moon my man” & “i feel it all” were energetic and wonderfully sloppy.

the next part of the show, which included a run of “gatekeeper”, “the water” and a guitar-up-front live arrangement of “secret heart” (that i’d only seen before on youtube) was amazing. this went straight into the “hit” portion of the set. after “mushaboom”, which was totally fun, and during the now-ubiquitous “1-2-3-4″, this girl got out of her seat and came running down the aisle to dance. as an usher started to pull her away towards the end of the song, leslie sang something like “let her go / she’s just having fun / at least give her some t-shirts”. the usher let her go back to the front, the music started right back up again and just about everyone else in the theater got up out of their seats and filled up the aisles! everyone was singing “the muppet part”, clapping along, it was totally fun.

the cynic in me says that the timing was too perfect and the whole scene was staged but monica saw the dancing girl in the bathroom before the show and said the girl is that crazy. either way, this ended the set before they came out for a three-song encore. everyone was still on their feet for a jaw-dropping rendition of “intuition” and “sea lion woman”, my favorite performance of the night. i’d practically climbed over my seat and my hands hurt from clapping throughout that one. we slipped away and hit the merchandise table during “let it die”. i scored a sweet t-shirt but still can’t find a cd that has that full band version of “intuition”.

set list (this is pretty close to the set at other shows):

when i was a young girl
so sorry
my moon my man
the park
the limit to your love
i feel it all
inside & outside
brandy alexander
gatekeeper
secret heart
the water
mushaboom
1234
intuition
sea lion woman
let it die