Curse of the Junos
Feist’s show once again marred by technical difficulties
John Kendle

When Leslie Feist talks about preferring mistakes to perfection, she means that vibe and feel are what matter most in music.

But there’s a fine line between loose feel and loose shows, and Feist found herself walking it last week at the seemingly cavernous Pantages Playhouse, where her club-bound indie ethos was undone by technical difficulties, a dry throat and a stiff performance (hastened, perhaps, by the formality of the venue). Feist doesn’t have to become as bound up in stagecraft as Sarah McLachlan, heaven forbid, but a mere stage tech might have helped, especially when her onstage vocal sampler wouldn’t work.

That awkward incident, about a half-hour into what had been, until then, a low-key set, seemed to throw Feist for a loop. The artist — whose off-kilter, softly engaging edge is her charm — suddenly looked very tiny and turned rather red in front of her 1,000 or so fans. Fortunately she’d recovered a couple of songs later, and, with the help of bandmates Julian Brown (guitar/keys), Jesse Baird (drums) and Bryden Baird (horns, keys, percussion), was able to set the breezy, bossa nova/acoustic pop tone that captivates listeners to her breakthrough album, Let it Die.

At 55 minutes, though, this show seemed slim for a $30 headliner (which is probably why the evening was lengthened by sets from her labelmates Jason Collett and New Buffalo), even if she and her band were joined onstage by six other musicians for her version of the Bee Gees’ Inside and Out.