There’s always been a disconnect between Leslie Feist’s music — soothing, thoughtful, deliberately crafted — and her warm, wryly funny personality. We got to witness both in her long-awaited Tiny Desk debut, which finds her showcasing new and old material amid self-effacing commentary on the pandemic, public speaking and her strange moment of reality-TV fame.
“The great joke that will always remain about [her song ‘Hiding Out in the Open’] is that we ended up singing it to contestants on The Bachelor — where true love rules all, of course,” Feist said between songs. “So singing truisms about eternal love to youth on a game show changed the context forever.”
Performing two songs from last year’s wonderful Multitudes (“In Lightning” and “Hiding Out in the Open”) and two songs from 2011’s Metals (“Caught a Long Wind” and “The Bad in Each Other”), Feist was joined by a group of players and singers who’ve each performed notable work in their own right: Keyboardist Rose Droll is a terrific solo singer-songwriter, drummer Andrew Barr plays in The Slip and The Barr Brothers, bassist Todd Dahlhoff often plays and records with Devendra Banhart and Meshell Ndegeocello, and multi-instrumentalist Amir Yaghmai is a member of The Voidz. Together, though, they sound like one impeccable organism, with Feist herself as its bold, unfailingly kind beating heart.
SET LIST
- “In Lightning”
- “Caught a Long Wind”
- “Hiding Out in the Open”
- “The Bad in Each Other”
MUSICIANS
- Leslie Feist: lead vocals, guitar
- Amir Yaghmai: violin, guitar, vocals
- Todd Dahlhoff: bass, vocals, musical direction
- Andrew Barr: drums
- Rose Droll: keys, piano, vocals
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Stephen Thompson
- Director: Joshua Bryant
- Audio Technical Director: Neil Tevault
- Editor: Kara Frame
- Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame, Zayrha Rodriguez
- Audio Engineer: Hannah Gluvna
- Production Assistant: Ashley Pointer
- Photographer: Michael Zamora
- Tiny Desk Team: Hazel Cills, Maia Stern
- Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
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