Feist and Juana Molina
Date: July 13, 2008
Venue: Starlight Theatre
Better Than: International bootlegs of “The Sifl and Olly Show.”
By GRANT SNIDER
It’s not viral indie rock journalism that propelled Feist to stardom. It’s not her Canadian camaraderie with the art commune Broken Social Scene or the vulgar genius Peaches. It’s not even that damn iPod commercial you heard some fifth grader whistling a month after you bought The Reminder. It’s her voice. As a desperate-to-be-quoted friend remarked, “Feist has a voice that could save the.”
Pontificate all you want about how she doesn’t even write all of her own songs (including the one in that commercial), and how the ones she does write can be the lyrical equivalent of a sugarcube marinated in syrup. But tear out a page from your favorite pop songbook and Feist will craft a cherubic arrangement, summon her seraphic vocal cords, and transubstantiate it into her own tune. Give her a guitar, and she can simultaneously raise hell.
More after the jump.
I first saw Feist live three years ago. She was the opener at a crowded bar in Lawrence, playing a captivating solo set with only a guitar and a looping pedal. A similarly intimate approach was taken by Juana Molina, the Argentinean television comic turned avant-garde singer/songwriter. Alone on the vast Starlight stage with an acoustic guitar, a couple keyboards, and some essential looping equipment, she played a set of brilliantly bipolar electronic/acoustic folk. Layering sounds in mid-song, she rivaled fellow multi-instrumental-weaver Andrew Bird in dizzying solo orchestration. Molina’s voice made every song a cryptic lullaby. Though she sings mostly in Spanish, her music is abstract and beautiful enough to dissolve the language barrier.
Feist took the stage with a lantern and began singing silhouetted by a silk screen. Thus began a night of seductive music and unabashed visual stimuli. Throughout the set, a couple of assistants wielded intricate shadow puppets, fingerpaint, and a video camera, projecting images onto a large onstage canvas. While this could have easily deteriorated into an overblown gimmick, these happy-to-be-employed multimedia art majors made the effects perfectly poetic.
Outside the confines of the studio album, Feist’s voice sounds remarkably more delicate and expressive. The ‘delicate’ quality may have been due to the strenuous effects of touring, but her words were light and never strained. Simple lines on the record were occasionally riffed or repeated for dramatic effect. But enough about that voice.
Backed by bearded men in white jumpsuits, Feist resembled a glamorous socialite flirting with a crew of house painters. They provided standard rock and incidental instruments, as well as glistening vocal harmonies. The band was at its best on tribal folk numbers like “When I was a Young Girl,” “My Moon My Man,” and “Sea Lion Woman.” Turning up the amps and channeling Nina Simone, Feist barely resembled the cloying pop songstress of “1 2 3 4” and “Brandy Alexander.” Unaccompanied, she played the haunting, minimalist “Honey Honey” and “The Water,” and “Intuition” – yet another intriguing facet of Feist.
From 2004’s Let it Die, she did an excellent take of “Mushaboom.” Devoid of the annoying-ass French production, it’s even better. The Bee Gees’ “Inside and Out” was performed at an anesthetized tempo, though a disco ball was winking throughout the song. Unfortunately, “Gatekeeper” maintained its lounge stylings. Before closing the encore with “Let it Die,” Feist played a rollicking call-and-response number called “Phantoms,” complete with the night’s first red-blooded guitar solo. If she buys a few more rock ‘n’ roll albums, she might just become the female Richard Manuel.
Critics Notebook
Personal Bias: If you are both female and an extremely talented indie rocker, I will fall in love with you by the end of your set.
Random Detail: Add Feist to the long list of artists to make the Kansas/Missouri faux pas. As if state lines weren’t marked by black-painted borders visible from space.
By the way: I have seen the future of folk music, and she is Juana Molina.
Set List
When I Was A Young Girl
Mushaboom
My Moon My Man
Limit To Your Love
I Feel It All
Honey Honey
Intuition
1 2 3 4
Gatekeeper
How My Heart Behaves
Inside And Out
Sea Lion Woman
Encore:
The Water
Phantoms
Let It Die
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