Magic Numbers/Feist/Bright Eyes show

The Magic Numbers is cool--and their bassist is awesome. She looks like she's being what and where she should be, which is always heartening. Band in general had great energy and their songs did well live, unlike . . .

Feist live, on the other hand, is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Comment garnered by her initial appearance onstage: "Oh. She took all the drugs then, did she?" And it would seem she did. She tried to rock out to songs which were completely un-rock-out-able (ruining her best song in the process) and lost an already restless audience completely by going to a slow-dance kinda song just when the audience was most bored with her weird, coked-out stage presence. Sucks, because her CD's goodgood. Onstage she seems to be trying to be Fiona Apple--skinny enough to verge on scary, and unexpectably rockable--but she definitely isn't pulling it off. And her crowd-managing skills need serious help.

Bright Eyes had more musicians, and more instruments, onstage at any one time than I've ever seen in a single band. A full upright harp, two drummers, three guitarists, and at least one dude wandering around playing trumpets and other miscellaneous instruments. Connor's vocals are still way too self-pityingly screamy for me to like most of the time--but the idea of the band's a good one.