Feist turns up the heat at the Palladium Ballroom

by Treavor Knox

When you think about it, Canada and Texas aren't really that different — give or take a few degrees. But when the hottest Canadian act of 2007, Feist, comes to Dallas you would never know that temperatures in the Great White North are considerably cooler. Clad from head to toe in white, Feist and her backing band along with opening act, Hayden, brought the best of Canada to the eyes and ears of Dallas at the packed Palladium Ballroom Wednesday night.

Behind a partition in silhouette, Feist began the show with the intro "Safe and Secure", a ritual performance that gives good will to the audience; a way of saying "enjoy the show". She moved onto a traditional folk song inspired by Texas Gladden called "When I Was a Young Girl," a rendition best described as an ember-tipped number that will rock you out. She exhibits her best guitar show-woman-ship and skill during this song. She began "The Park" by recording bird-like whistles and looping it as the projector showed a lone bird traversing through blowing leaves.

"1234" (made popular by a certain Apple Nano commercial) was much better than her performance at this year's Grammy Awards, where she seemed a bit timid and reserved. Being welcomed as a "new artist" and nominated for "artist of the year" awards despite having a career for years, being in a few bands (By Divine Right, Broken Social Scene) and collaborating with world-renowned artists (Peaches, Kings of Convenience, Ron Sexsmith) would make an artist feel less than gratified. However, Leslie Feist was her true self on Wednesday night — playful, cute and exuberant with her equally innocent and sultry sounding voice.

In addition to the musical performance being spectacular and engaging, the visual performance was just as entertaining. Engineered and executed by two lovely members of the band using their hands and control bars to move cut-outs of leaves, birds, snowflakes as well as other medium appropriate to the song (e.g. honey-like substance for "Honey Honey" and drop-shaped jewels for "The Water").

While the show was in favor of songs from Feist's most recent album, The Reminder, there were tracks from her previous album that were stripped down or given special treatment. "Gatekeeper," the opening track to her second album Let It Die, stood on the threshold between the very bare sound of the original version from Let It Die and the lounge sound of the "One Room One Hour" mix from the remix album, Open Season. While other favorites, like "Mushaboom" and "Inside and Out" (remake of the Bee Gees' hit "Love You Inside Out") were stripped down to the bare essentials — guitar, piano and a little percussion.

There were a few points during the show that Feist exhibited her humorous side. During her encore performance of "The Water," she noticed a security guard catch someone with a camcorder at the front of the audience, so she worked it into the song, calling attention to the interrupter. Another instance of interruption came from the Palladium's own staff. During the final song of the set, "Let It Die", Feist was singing one of the most intimate lines of the slow ballad when the loud crash of bottles being dumped into a trash bin could be heard. With the intimacy slightly ruined, Feist ad-libbed with "And after all it won't take long to fall in love / Now I know the bar just emptied two bins (of bottles)." If anything, this shows how versatile a songwriter and performer Leslie Feist really is.

This review was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community.