10 Things I learned at the Feist Concert

Feist at the Masquerade Music Park on 4/18/08

  1. This venue is awesome! Outdoors with a nice backdrop of some of the Atlanta skyline and the weather was perfect. I wish they had more shows here.
  2. Feist knows how to start a show. She appears as a silhouette inside a white box (much like a David Copperfield magic trick) and sings a repetitive melody (with no accompaniment). Then I realize that she’s looping each repetition and building and harmonizing each time. By the end it’s a really big beautiful sound composed of nothing but her voice layered on top of itself many times over.
  3. As concerts go, I’m old
  4. Port-o-lets make me glad I’m a man
  5. I formulated what I’ll call Whit’s first law of concerts. I’m not sure it’s an original thought, but I came to it on my own. It goes like this: The ideal average tempo of your songs should be inversely proportional to the capacity of the venue you’re playing. T = m*(1/C)
  6. Feist has (and played) a lot of slow songs and therefore violated the above rule. It’s hard to keep a big crowd engaged in slow song after slow song. They work great in a coffee house though.
  7. Krispy Kreme is dangerously close to this venue, and is open late (though it’s drive thru only after 11 PM).
  8. I overhead a girl say to a guy “if you can talk her into it, I’m totally down!” I don’t know for sure what the conversation was about, but I know what it was about in my mind. If I had quicker reflexes, I would have flashed a big smile and a double thumbs-up to the guy, but I missed the opportunity.
  9. The “ba da ba da da” part of 1 2 3 4 makes a great sing-along for a big crowd.
  10. At outdoor concerts, you can have a great time even if the performance isn’t that engaging.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “10 Things I learned at the Feist Concert”

  1. Martin says:
    April 25, 2008 at 2:19 am

    If slow songs are appropriate for small venues and fast songs for large ones, then doesn’t that mean that your average song tempo should increase linearly as a function of venue capacity?

    In T = m * C, T that increases as C does.

    In T = m * (1 / C), T gets smaller as C increases.

    Yes, I’m being pedantic.

  2. Whit says:
    April 25, 2008 at 9:17 am

    Damn, you’re right. I was intoxicated when I formulated that law. Your formula is a lot less impressive, but I guess it’s more important that it be correct. You can have second billing on this law of concerts.

  3. Martin says:
    April 25, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Screw that, I’m introducing mine as an amendment and everyone will forget that you were the author of the original law. 🙂