In the early meetings I was definitely a Feist skeptic. I’m not sure why this is. I think its because she looked like Cat Power, and I gave the Cat an honest shot, and just didn’t get it. Further proof you can’t judge a book by its cover. I heard a suggestion that “You can’t judge a dude by his collar” but I’m not going to agree with that, because you totally can.
So, Feist played last night in BK, it was highly anticipated by many. It might have been the last show I will see at the McCarren pool in Greenpoint, since supposedly they are turning it back into a pool next summer, but it was a great way to end. The only previous show I had seen was Neko Case, probably about a year ago, and I was left unfulfilled. For this, the crowd was easily double in size, packed from the deep to shallow ends. At the end of the show, some guy gets on the PA and says “Alright, everybody out of the pool!” and I chuckled. OK, onto the show.
Right from the start, this girl is extremely impressive. The first thing that struck me was not her angelic voice, nor her cat-power-ish good looks, but her Badass Guitar Playing. She comes out and TEARS IT UP on an old Guild hollowbody, leading the band into some serious jams. Her tone was exactly what I would like to achieve. We were kind of far back, but I’m pretty sure she was using 2 Vox AC15’s, cranked way up, low wattage style. Just plain delicious tone. Beyond the tone, there were some serious chops happening. Call it sexist, but usually when a band is fronted by a female instrumentalist, they stick to some basic rhythm playing, focusing on the vocals. Not the case for the feist. She played most of the solos, with an amazing sensibility reminding me of a Smokey Hormel and dare I say…..JEFF TWEEDY. Yes, I said it. This only applies to guitar playing, keep your pants on there, chico.
Its also time to discuss the giant elephant in the room, her voice is frikkin beautiful. It just floats over the crowd (ironic being in a pool, but I would say that anyway). There were a few solo acoustic and light band arrangement tunes, which are very tough to pull off in front of 5,000 hipsters, but 90% of the crowd was dead silent. On top of that, she writes great songs. It was just Norah Jones-y enough to be accessable, but still with enough rough edges to be badass. Wonderful stuff.
I also saw the band Mates Of State walking around with their tiny daughter. This was hilarious, because the kid looks EXACTLY like the mom. Same hair, same clothes, everything. The mom was also pregnant, maybe they’re creating a family band for themselves. The dad, who is the drummer, was pushing the stroller while the kid ran behind him, causing havoc. You don’t often get to see rockers in this context. I once recorded a BBC thing with Pat Metheny, and got to talk to him for a bit. We talked about radio, his comment was ” you know, we had to get a…..minivan…for the kids and stuff..so we got satellite” He was a little ashamed of the soccer mom van, but still a complete and total badass. I feel the same way about the Mates Of State drummer.
But Feist, damn girrrrl. You could tell she was as excited as everyone else to be there. I guess I’m late to the party, because there were 5,000 other people there and this was my first show, but I’m ok with that. Still, if she starts playing Giants Stadium, I’m out.