Feist, Wexner Center, 11-18

The Wexner Center has hosted some great shows this season, and the Feist show in Mershon Auditorium Sunday night was just another feather in its cap. Not long ago, it would have been tough or impossible for Leslie Feist to fill out Mershon, but thanks to a critically acclaimed album released this year (The Reminder) and a catchy tune featured in an iPod commercial (“1234”), the place looked just about sold out.

Feist has a pretty good indie rock resume, having played with Peaches (her former roommate) and Canadian indie supergroup Broken Social Scene. A Calgary-born Toronto girl, Feist has a knack for crafting neo-folk with overtones of jazz, indie rock and even African tribal music. (After all, the Wex doesn’t book artists unless they can be described as “eclectic.”) Her voice is her greatest asset, and on Sunday it sounded just the way it should. It’s like a good shot of whiskey--smooth, slightly smokey and warm on the way down.

Feist, in a tube top and jeans, played vintage-looking semi-hollow-body electric guitars most of the night on an unadorned stage with a large video screen behind her that displayed bright, solid colors (evoking an iPod commercial) or silhouettes of various objects such as leaves, pebbles and lace. The set list drew mostly from The Reminder, and listening to these tunes, it became obvious that all the critical praise for the album is justified. Songs like “So Sorry” and “The Park” had her play the role of an emotive folkie as well as anyone, “The Limit to Your Love” and “I Feel It All” proved that she can groove and “1234” shows that she’s not above writing a super-catchy pop song. (Those Apple folks aren’t idiots.) The instrumentation and melodic flourishes tend to be just what each song needs--nothing more, nothing less--and are varied enough to tickle your ear. Though there’s some room for adult contemporary appeal, the songstress is infinitely more interesting than a one-trick pony like Norah Jones.

The only snoozer of the night was “The Water,” mostly because it was the one song on which she decided to play piano. The piano was positioned off to the side, and as a result her back was to the audience, making for a boring rendition of the mellow tune. Contrast that with “How My Heart Behaves,” a piano-based song that starts off ominous and minor, then melts away into a major refrain with the lyrics, “A cold heart will burst if mistrusted first.” She wisely let one of her bandmates handle the piano for that one.

As usual, the Wexner Center crowd watched attentively and silently in their seats without ever getting, well, feisty. Butts were even planted for “1234,” despite Feist’s commercial-evoking head bobs and hip-shaking. I guess these concertgoers were too self-aware to let TV advertising affect their concert behavior. After all, they listened to Feist way before that iPod ad ever came out.

More pics below and on the Flickr site.