L

eslie Feist had finally arrived in Indonesia. She played in Jakarta and ventured into a new horizon for the local music scene.

For many Jakartans, the Canadian singer is a constant member of their concert wish lists. Her ancient melancholic voice has been on the radar of grown-up pop listeners looking to experience more of her music than just “Inside Out”, the popular cover of Bee Gees’ song.

But the wait has recently paid off. Her gig on Wednesday, two days after her 36th birthday, was probably the longest on this year’s tour. Performing at Fairground in Central Jakarta, she delighted fans with the sumptuous sounds of indie-pop from her adventurous musical quest.

The Jakarta show was the first after Singapore. “She played a short set there, only 45 minutes or so,” said Satria Ramadhan, who saw her gig during the St Jerome’s Laneway Festival in Singapore last weekend, where Feist shared stages with many other acts over the day.

Since 6 p.m., the queue of fans started to get longer and longer. The gate had not even opened yet. Rumor spread among fans that there’d be bonus attraction that night: Erlend Oye from Kings of Convenience will appear as the opening act.

Oye started the gig at 7 p.m. Two hours later, Feist finally took over the stage before a crowd of more than 3,000. The fans went wild after seven musicians lined up to enter the stage.

Feist, like a true star, was the last to appear.

“Hello Jakarta! Thank you so much. We are here!” she told the euphoric crowd. She looked nice with her guitar in hand. Her teenage, punk-singing past has left no trace. The opening songs were mostly taken from her latest work of beauty, Metals, released last year.

Her sweet voice mixed well with the distortion coming the group’s instruments. But shock was registered on the faces of fans used to her slow and chilled-out works from early albums like Let It Die and the Grammy-nominated The Reminder. Metals was a brave album where she pursued another form of pop music.

The first five songs were taken from Metals, with popular singles “How Come You Never Go There” and “Graveyard” played early.

A group of female fans screamed “Inside and out!” throughout the show. They wanted to hear the Bee Gees cover Feist recorded for Let It Die in 2004. But the song did not appear that night.

Before “So Sorry”, the opening track from 2006’s The Reminder, Feist again spoke to the cheering crowd: “[Oye] wrote me an email in 2008 [that said] ‘Dear Leslie, you should come to Jakarta. It’s amazing’.

 “Jakarta, you proved yourself to be the coolest city in Southeast Asia.”

The crowd also treated Feist to a warm rendition of “Happy Birthday”. She spotted a couple of fans who brought a scarf along as a special birthday gift.

The most interesting part of the gig came when Feist played The Reminder’s hit track “My Moon My Man” with a heavily-distorted guitar. The crowd was surprised to hear a super-sweet song mashed up in such a way. But it was beautiful to listen to.

After “I Feel It All” and few other tracks from Metals, she introduced her back-up band, including Broken Social Scene’s Charles Spearin and Mountain Tops, a trio who delivered highly-enjoyable back-up vocals throughout the show.

After “Get It Wrong, Get It Right”, the closing track of Metals, the concert looked like it had met its end. Of course, the crowd didn’t want that.

After three minutes of the crowd chanting, Leslie came back to perform “Sealion” and “Let It Die”, two crowd pleasers that saw fans loudly sing along. Then she disappeared without a word or a goodbye.

Then further chanting, more demands for an encore. Feist responded by reappearing with Oye, who announced a treat for the crowd.

“Me and Eirik [Glambek-Boe, his collaborator in Kings of Convenience] and Leslie, we made it nine years ago. We’ve only played it eight or nine times ever since. So now, for the 10th time ever, you will hear this song.”

They played “The Build Up”, a song from Kings of Convenience’s Riot on an Empty Street.

Feist then played “Intuition” and finally cut the show off with another distortion-laden version of a cute song, “When I Was a Young Girl”, backed by only drums and guitars.

The crowd couldn’t have expected more than this. Feist played 20 songs and presented Oye as a special guest.

Cheerful faces were seen on many people around the venue that night.

Thank you for the good music, Feist. You made it sound super in Jakarta, your faraway land.