05/10/2012

Feist's "Broken-Hearted Love Songs": Turbulent, Violent and Not Suitable for Easy Listening

Feist-b
I don't often (read, almost never) get around to posting my Inquirer concert reviews — sometimes because thanks to the paper's nightmarish website, I can't even find the damn things — but I'm pretty happy with how this account of Leslie Feist's show at the Academy of Music turned out. For me, at least, the show was a revelation, a dramatic and at times emotionally violent performance that sent me back to Feist's albums, wondering, "How did I miss that?" In all honesty, I still thought of her principally as the woman behind the ubiquitous, Muppet-friendly "1234," pointedly absent from Tuesday's two-hour show. But I also think that she's got an unfortunate tendency to sand the edges off her spiky and surprising songs on record; they literally get lost in the mix. The show transformed how I think of her, a rare experience for which I'm always grateful. Plus, any chance to drop a gratuitous Mary Margaret O'Hara in the pages of a major daily is a welcome thing.

Also in the Inky's pages recently: whistling virtuoso Andrew Bird, and the graceful aging of Nick Lowe.

May 10, 2012 7:20:03 AM | Articles, Music, Reviews

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Sam Adams

Sam Adams is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Onion A.V. Club, and a Contributing Editor at Philadelphia City Paper, where he edited the film section from 1999-2007. His writing has appeared in Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Globe, the Hollywood Reporter and Film Comment. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics, and his essays on Two Lane Blacktop and Greendale appear in the NSFC anthology The B List. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughter.

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