While the previous day featured Feist going down memory lane with her wider social scene, Sunday (June 4) night's solo performance affirmed that Feist's own musical feet are still firmly planted in the present.
Beginning with "Pleasure," the album opener and title track off of her latest album, nearly half of Feist's Field Trip set was focused on new material, and the huge crowd were very much along for the ride. Though it's not yet a single, it was clear from the crowd's reactions and ability to sing along to "Any Party" that the song is a fan favourite. Like the best of her work, it's almost painfully simple, built around her voice and guitar, but still sweetly saccharine.
The strength and consistency of her material weren't the only pillars of her performance. Between asking the audience to see some "summer festival shoulder" and spinning stories about her songs, Feist's personality onstage was as bright as the fuchsia dress she wore and the matching person-sized folding fan that opened behind her.
In one such story, the songwriter alluded to the complicated relationship she's had with "1234" in the ten years since its initial release, before breaking into a revised iteration of the hit single. She explained she'd been estranged from the song for some time, though it occasionally would send her postcards of where it'd been and what it'd been through. Describing the song as a living thing let her account for the number of years that have passed without having to justify to anyone why it now sounds different. That it changed at all only seemed natural.
For many artists, the burden of expectation to play their hits contradicts their creative impulses. But Sunday night's set positioned Feist as someone unafraid of change — her songs, much like her creativity, aren't fixed in one time or place.
Order Pleasure here.
Beginning with "Pleasure," the album opener and title track off of her latest album, nearly half of Feist's Field Trip set was focused on new material, and the huge crowd were very much along for the ride. Though it's not yet a single, it was clear from the crowd's reactions and ability to sing along to "Any Party" that the song is a fan favourite. Like the best of her work, it's almost painfully simple, built around her voice and guitar, but still sweetly saccharine.
The strength and consistency of her material weren't the only pillars of her performance. Between asking the audience to see some "summer festival shoulder" and spinning stories about her songs, Feist's personality onstage was as bright as the fuchsia dress she wore and the matching person-sized folding fan that opened behind her.
In one such story, the songwriter alluded to the complicated relationship she's had with "1234" in the ten years since its initial release, before breaking into a revised iteration of the hit single. She explained she'd been estranged from the song for some time, though it occasionally would send her postcards of where it'd been and what it'd been through. Describing the song as a living thing let her account for the number of years that have passed without having to justify to anyone why it now sounds different. That it changed at all only seemed natural.
For many artists, the burden of expectation to play their hits contradicts their creative impulses. But Sunday night's set positioned Feist as someone unafraid of change — her songs, much like her creativity, aren't fixed in one time or place.
Order Pleasure here.
