Live Review: Feist

What's the best way to finish off a world tour? Having toured for the past year, playing over 60 shows in "a million different cities", Leslie Feist's tour of her 2017 album Pleasure culminated with a bang at the Sydney Opera House.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and for Australian fans of Feist, it had been a long wait since she was last on our shores in 2012 to promote Metals. In that space of time Pleasure was born, arguably Feist's rawest and sparsest album and an explicit leap from the bubbliness of The Reminder. An album born out of a broken relationship and Feist's tussle with unsought stardom after the success of her single 1234 in 2007, Pleasure is clearly very close to Feist's heart, and it was no surprise that she chose to play the album in its entirety.

Intro and title track, Pleasure, kicked things off and a culmination of commanding guitar riffs, looped feedback and Feist's jolting vocals created a song far more powerful than its recorded counterpart. From there Feist bounded seamlessly from energetic guitar shredding to stripped-back acoustic solos with ease through a set of vulnerable songs about falling in and out of love as an adult. I Wish I Didn't Miss You exemplified the vulnerability one feels post break-up, Any Party turned into a crowd singalong about "the guy at the party you know you want to leave with", and closer Young Up was accompanied by a loved-up couple from the crowd dancing together on stage. The highlight of the album performance was Lost Dreams, in which Feist's ethereal voice was looped over in such perfection that it resulted in gasps of delight from the crowd.

The second part of the evening was a collection of Feist's older tracks including a rousing rendition of Sealion, a reworking of 1234 featuring co-writer Sally Seltmann on back-up vocals, which didn't quite live up to expectations, and the hauntingly beautiful Let It Die.

What made the night truly special for everyone was the sense of awe that was ping-ponged from the audience to the stage and then back again, with Feist occasionally breaking from her cool, in-control persona to look around the Opera House a little dumbstruck. A standing ovation at the end of her set seemed the icing on the cake for Feist and her bandmates after their long year of touring, with Leslie commenting that the memorable moment "was right up there". It's likely many in the crowd would agree.