Inside my present, there's so much past

Last week my friend Brett emailed me and asked if I would want the extra Feist ticket he had. Without a hesitation I knew this would be such a fantastic idea and promptly responded with an enthusiastic yes! I had not heard the new record by this point but got my hands on it pretty quick. My initial reaction to the Reminder is that is beautiful and the record I wish Cat Power would have made. (To be honest The Greatest falls pretty short of that title). The record itself is lovely, beautiful, and has a done a damn good job of pulling on my heart strings within it's lyrics. This record is better than I thought it was going to be. I think it focuses on those lost loves, those lost chances, but also strength of character to endure. On the way home from the show I put the cd because I was stuck in traffic (It was 1:30am and of course I was stopped still on an expressway in Los Angeles) and got lost in this track Intuition. Imagine a beautiful soulful voice with an acoustic guitar lightly strummed and plucked:

A map is more unreal
Than where you've been
Or how you feel
And it's impossible to tell
How important someone was
And what you might have missed out on
And how he might have changed it all
And did I
Did I
Did l (oh)

At the end of the song there is a choir of voices in a crowd singing "Did I, Did I". Last night she rounded the crowd together to sing throughout the night. She called it her choir of strangers. I think there is something beautiful to a room full of people who wish to sing together for the sake of the musical experience. In so many ways it's this unifier to the experience, a common bond we were all sharing. I think it eased the crowd because as she ended the night there were many people dancing in the aisles, enjoying themselves and putting off anything that hindered and danced the evening away. Not to many shows I go to end up with that type of response. There was this comfort about the whole thing that was marvelous. She made the whole evening very comfortable to watch and experience.

She set up her band not with her in front but in a u-shape that really showed a unification to the process. Her backing band was amazing. Every single one of them were multi-instrumentalists. Each taking their turn on percussion instruments, trumpets, horns, and pianos. The talent was obvious.

The show, as well as her album and video, focuses and plays with the concept of color. The lightening really accented what she was doing and really played off the mood of each song. It was beautiful, and at some point glittery. The video for 1 2 3 4 accents the color but also really I think her playful nature. I love that women are becoming more and more of the musical scope. I hope Feist continues to make good records....