Feist Debuts The Reminder At Intimate Toronto Show

A couple hundred music executives, members of the media and diehard fans packed Toronto's Music Gallery on Friday night to watch Feist debut the majority of her May 1 release, The Reminder.

Backed by a four-piece band that featured a bassist, drummer, pianist and sound effects man, the Broken Social Scenester played in low lighting and put together note-perfect renditions of the tracks on the new record. Here's a rundown of some of the highlights and what they sound like:

The show opened with "The Limit Of Your Love," a slow burning torch song that has harmonies in the chorus that make it sound like a '60s girl-group chart-topper.

"I Feel It All" is an electric guitar-driven rocker that was punctuated by hints of xylophone. Is there an indie act who doesn't use that instrument now?

"My Moon Man" is a proggy soul-inflected track that forgoes bass in favour of a plunking piano.

Feist had the audience whistling like birds to emulate the beginning of the hushed acoustic track, "The Park."

Another relatively quiet song is album opener "So Sorry," which features some of Feist's most passionate vocal work to date, backed by stellar harmonies from her all-male backing band.

Feist introduced "1234" as a song originally written by Arts & Crafts labelmate New Buffalo that was reworked both structurally and lyrically. It's a sweet, poppy number that sounds a lot like Hayden's "Carried Away."

Hand-clapper "Sea Lion Woman" bore similarities to Beck's recent sparse track, "Black Tambourine."

"Past In Present" might be the closest that Feist has ever gotten to emulating Social Scene, with frequent shifts in both vocals and melody.

Other songs played in the 50-minute set included "Brandy Alexander," "Honey Honey" and the singalong finale, "Intuition."

Here are Feist's Canadian tour dates:

May 15 Victoria, BC @ Royal Theatre
May 16 Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theatre
May 18 Edmonton, AB @ Winspear Centre
May 19 Calgary, AB @ Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
May 22 Regina, SK @ Conexus Arts Centre
May 23 Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
May 26 Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
May 31 Ottawa, ON @ Bronson Centre
June 1 Montreal, QC @ Theatre Olympia
June 2 Quebec City, QC @ Theatre Imperial