A SIN GLE TRACKING SHOT, SPARKLING CHOREOGRAPHY, AND SOME BLUE SEQUINS TURNED A MODEST INDIE HEROINE INTO A HOUSEHOLD NAME— WE GET LESLIE FEIST’S DIGITS DURING THE BUSIEST WEEK OF HER LIFE

By Phoebe Reilly Photographs by Mary Rozzi

S T YLING BY KEMAL+KARLA; SPECIAL THANKS TO LE PARKER MERIDIEN

HAIR AND MAKEUP BY SHANNON GREY WILLIAMS AT FORD;

One of Feist’s backup singers, Mary, is crying. Another, Diane, holds an ice pack to her own bruised and swollen hand. At first glance, it would seem as though things backstage at Saturday Night Live’s NBC studio have gone horribly wrong for tonight’s musical guest, when in fact the opposite is true. Soon, the 31-year-old Canadian singer/songwriter will wind down her second performance of the evening, the trembling rock song “I Feel It All,” and a small crowd, which includes several black-clad choir members from the first number (“1234”), has already gathered in the hallway near the studio’s entrance to congratulate her. The tears, it turns out, are happy ones, and the hand injury—well, blame it on some very vigorous backup clapping.

Feist—or Leslie, as she’s known to friends—strides through the double doors to an eruption of applause. She’s grinning widely, but she looks a little baffled as she works her way toward her dressing room. “Fran

Drescher said hello to me,” she whispers to banjo player Kevin Barker. “As if this day couldn’t get any weirder.”

What’s weird is that Fran Drescher made an impression on Feist at all, especially considering that earlier in the week, Paul Simon was asking for an introduction. But then, that’s the kind of year it’s been for Feist, following the May release of her third solo album, The Reminder—suddenly, the Nanny and the guy who made Graceland are as interested in her as indie obsessives are. Moreover, that’s the sort of week it’s been—she has already had to cancel appearances on the Today show and The View, as well as a concert in Brazil, due to illness, and feels lucky to have made it through SNL intact. “It’s like being a ship that’s used to floating around, avoiding icebergs under the cover of night, and then all of a sudden, it’s broad daylight,” Feist says two days later, between bites of room-service lunch in a Portland, Oregon hotel room. “You’re the same little ship. You just feel exposed.”