Feist On “Letterman” With an Indie-Rock All-Star Choir: The Backstage Report and Photos From Rehearsals
Last night Canadian singer-songwriter Feist and a choir of indie-rock all-stars hit a Winnebago in midtown Manhattan to rehearse for their performance of “1 2 3 4” on Late Show With David Letterman. For photos of the crew — which included members of Broken Social Scene, Grizzly Bear, New Pornographers, the National, Mates of State and Nicole Atkins & the Sea — singing The Reminder track onstage, hanging with Paul Shaffer and learning how to clap together, click here.
Rock Daily asked Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste (our Coachella correspondent) for a report from the set, and he told us it was “super-fun,” even if nobody got to chat with guest Susan Sarandon (“Visual contact was made,” he jokes). And while the last time Grizzly backed Feist on television (for a performance on Conan O’Brien’s show) the choir was outfitted in baby blue, Droste says he prefers the white robes they sported last night. “The sparkle armbands I could go either way on ’cause they kind of itched a little bit. Last time there was a wardrobe person who had to bring powder blue for everybody ’cause no one has powder-blue pants. Of course,” he adds, “we’re so far away, honestly it doesn’t matter. We could have been wearing no pants.”
Working with Feist was wonderful because “She’s a charmer,” he says, “Everyone wants to please a charmer.” And despite his criticsm of the refreshments as “a little mayonnaise-y for my taste,” he hopes his band gets invited back to Letterman’s freezing-cold studio real soon: “Hopefully my comment about the sandwiches won’t deter them. My bandmates were eating the sandwiches and they were loving it. It’s just my own thing. It’s just a mayonnaise preference.”