An empowered Feist shows her many colors

By Ryan Peterson
rpeterson@star-telegram.com

DALLAS –- O Canada, with glowing hearts, North Texans watched one of your stars rise Wednesday night at the Palladium Ballroom. While Leslie Feist, who goes mainly by her surname, may be best known for the iPod commercial featuring her song 1234, she rendered an empowered performance proving she’s got more to offer than a hit jingle.

Re-arranger
It’s a risky move for an artist to dramatically alter his or her songs, but Feist was remarkably adept at changing a song while keeping its spirit. Throughout the set, songs were often radially different than their album versions. The loose folk of When I Was A Young Girl became a Patti Smith styled-rocker on which Feist’s guitar howled over a percussive rattle. Inside and Out went from a vintage lounge number to a slow torch song with bluesy guitar licks. All around, Feist’s vocal delivery was both beautiful and intoxicating.

Shape-shifter
Feist’s music was accented by visuals provided by Clea Minaker, who used a projector to cast images onto a screen, providing a backdrop for the band. While all her creations were interesting, the most powerful was during the haunting ballad Honey Honey, on which she drew a picture of a sailboat on the sea bathed in in the moonlight of a heart. As the song progressed, the heart melted and a tidal wave washed the boat away.

High point
While her performance of 1234 got the best crowd reaction, the middle encore number, Sealion, was the evening’s highlight. As the song’s tribal pulse was winding down, Feist’s band began chanting the song’s namesake like a mantra. Feist then distorted her voice to sound like a harmonica as she sang the song’s final chorus.

Low point
The beginning and end of the encore dragged a little. Not that the songs were performed poorly, but slowness of The Water and Let It Die meant the night had to end on a downer. Still, Feist did rally the band for a final cathartic note, capping the evening while illustrating the theme of Let It Die: While endings aren’t always happy, that’s life sometimes.

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Setlist
1. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms [Traditional]
2. When I Was A Young Girl
3. So Sorry 
4. My Moon My Man 
5. The Park 
6. Limit To Your Love 
7. I Feel It All 
8. Honey Honey 
9. Anti-Pioneer [previously unreleased]
10. Gatekeeper 
11. Brandy Alexander 
12. Inside and Out 
13. 1234
14. Mushaboom

Encore
15. The Water
16. Sealion
17. Let It Die