Grizzly, feisty

Playing songs from The Reminder, Feist keeps her Chicago audience in suspense

By Laura Leebove
Published: June 22nd, 2007 | 11:56am

June, 19, 2007 in Chicago — With a spinning silver disco ball glistening over a sea of people, it was the perfect setting for a senior prom. But luckily for the crowd at Chicago’s Vic Theatre, the soundtrack wasn’t bump-and-grind rap music. Instead, it was the heavenly and melodic Grizzly Bear and the jazzy, head-bopping sound of Leslie Feist.

Grizzly Bear’s “Knife,” with clean, steady guitar chords graced with layers of oohs and aahs, would be played for the newly crowned prom king and queen, and Feist’s sped-up version of “One Two Three Four” — complete with horns, a banjo, and crowd participation — would be the last dance before leaving for the after-parties.

I’d listened to Grizzly Bear’s 2006 album, Yellow House (Warp), a handful of times and thought it was good, but never really got into their delicate, mellow sound. But in the first minute of the Brooklyn group’s set, I had one of those “A-ha!” moments — I finally got it, and their nine-song performance completely changed the way I listen to their music.

What’s most impressive about the band is that no one is confined to one role. Everyone plays at least one instrument (Chris Taylor takes on flute, clarinet, bass guitar, and electronic effects), and all four sing. Together, the quartet creates beautiful, often heavenly vocal harmonies, with some notes hitting pitches most men won’t even attempt. Songwriters Daniel Rossen and Edward Droste sang with soft, airy voices, which, paired with their finger-picked guitar parts, sounded almost like a chilled-out, folky version of the Shins.

But along with the band’s full, mystifying sound, Grizzly Bear’s live performance is visually mesmerizing, with Taylor crouching to the ground for a flute solo at the beginning of “Easier,” and drummer Christopher Bear bouncing off of his stool during “Little Brother” because he was so into the music.

When Feist took the stage, she maintained the relaxed sound Grizzly Bear left with by starting off slow. She kept the audience in suspense as she recorded herself singing pulsating harmonies, which she layered and looped to perform “Honey Honey” from her newest album, The Reminder (Cherry Tree). But the unhurried pace didn’t last for long, as the Canadian songstress and her band breezed through the jazzier tracks (“So Sorry,” “The Limit to Your Love”), and upped the tempo on already upbeat songs (“I Feel It All,” “My Moon My Man”).

Feist’s four-man band of multi-instrumentalists impressively recreated so many of the little details on her albums and added new elements to take songs to a new level. And when the band wasn’t enough, she created and recorded her own sound effects, like the whistling bird sounds in “The Park,” got help from the audience — or “The Chicago Choir,” as she called us — in “Mushaboom,” and used a tap-dancer for percussion in a flowing solo rendition of “Now At Last.”

In between tracks, Feist, dressed in a black strapless dress and purple tights, left the crowd a bit confused when she asked if anyone had something she could read, like an essay or text book. Someone tossed a magazine with Mika on the cover, but what really got Feist excited was a paper about molecular characteristics of something or other. “This is basically as good as reading about Lindsay Lohan’s latest,” she said, giving no explanation before continuing the solo segment of her set.

Whether fans were dancing to her songs or standing in silence to not miss a word, their eyes were glued the stage. And even though Feist’s days with Placebo and By Divine Right are over, the way she danced and head-banged her way through her wailing guitar solo in “Sea Lion Woman” made it obvious that she’s still a hard rocker at heart.