Feist

On Wednesday night, Jessie and I went along to the beautiful Palais Theatre to see Feist in her Laneway Sideshow, and her first live show for the year (as she told us during the set).

We had dinner at the relocated and revamped Soul Mama, before taking our front row Lounge seats for the support act. Soul Mama's has changed it's concept from amazing veggie buffet thali-style meal selection, to a regular menu - so we chose a couple of dishes from the Starters menu in order to recapture what was great about this place. Our choices were very good, so the taste hasn't left the building, even if the original concept has!

Mountain Man was the opening act, a three part all-girl harmonising folk band from the US. With soaring voices, and enchanting lyrics and chatter between songs, this band captured the attention of the people who had got there early. Opening lines of Wuthering Heights

Leslie Feist come out with her 3 part band, and the Mountain Man girls as her backing vocals. The details created on stage were pretty impressive, in addition to Feist's effortless vocal range, plus the use of lighting on the stage totally added to the music played.

Opening with a cluster of songs from her 2011 release, Metals, including How Come You Never Go There and the violin-sounds of A Commotion, she then dipped into her earlier material, before giving us one of my favourites, The Circle Married The Line.

A set delivering awe in vocals, it did seem to lack some energy before the turning point of the night during My Moon My Man. Two people at the front of the stage jumped up and started dancing, before being asked to move along and sit back down again by the over-zealous ushers. Leslie saw this, and moved to the front of the stage, without missing a beat on her guitar, to dance with and encourage them. This lifted the energy in the vast room perceptibly, with many more standing and dancing down on the floor. I Feel It All was then a much more powerful number than it would have been, if it were not for those brave punters at the front.

The beautiful The Bad In Each Other was just before Honey, Honey, tapping into the 2007 album release. The haunting Comfort Me was done solo, and thus the crowd pitched in with the 'oh oh oh, oh' parts, which was such a lovely moment.

Coming back out for an encore, Cicadas and Gulls with the 3 Mountain Man girls was amazing, before the cover of Sealion.

Coming out for a second encore, the anticipation for Feist's biggest song was high, but she gave us Intuition instead. This floaty track was lovely, and the crowd again joining in a whispered 'did I, did I' was magical...but left us with that longing feeling for 1234 as we walked down the stairs and out of the venue at the end.