In spite of Canadian Leslie Feist's excellent work both as a solo artist and as a member of Broken Social Scene, I've recently had trouble thinking of her as anything but an iPod Nano spokesperson. Setting aside any silly philosophical or aesthetic grievances about "selling out," the ad (which features her singing her hit "1, 2, 3, 4" on the screens of apparently bottomless stack of the gizmos) has had the sad effect of reminding me of my silver video-compatible iPod Nano that mysteriously disappeared at work one day a few months ago. Not a huge deal, except that I could never figure out how the hell I lost it—one day at work I listened to it when I ducked out for lunch and it had vanished by the time I was ready to go home that evening. After falsely accusing several colleagues at Radar HQ and getting into more than one vicious fistfight (I won them all, fortunately), I was no closer to solving the mystery. But because I still held out hope of finding it, I refused to buy a new one. It was just one of those deeply annoying things.

Casting aside these glum associations, I went to see Feist play at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom last night. Time to move on past lost gadgets and appreciate a supremely talented indie artist, I decided.

And the show was great, if at times eccentric and twee: a woman in a flowing dress standing on stepladder slowly empties a bucket of paper flower petals over a spotlighted Feist's head in the middle of a solo ballad; visual specialists manipulate twigs and blossoms and glass beads in time with the music under the beam of an old overhead projector reminiscent of middle school science classes with teachers scribbling notes about igneous and metamorphic rocks. But it was also imaginative and energetic. Feist rocked her trademark tunes "1, 2, 3, 4" and "I Feel it All." The version of "My Moon, My Man" was rousing and memorable, starting off in a loose, jazzy, sonorous style and slowly morphing it into something like a muscular disco-era rock anthem, with the stage lights mirroring the transition, shifting from a deep blue to a burning red.

She had a bit of fun with the audience—almost at our expense. At one point she ordered all 4,000 or so souls in the venue to sway like they were aboard a ship ("If you'll help me hypnotize you, that would be very helpful.") When she got a limited response, she praised the participatory half of the crowd for being "supercool" and scolded the other half for being "just too cool." Later in the set she led an interminable harmonization exercise, which involved her brainstorming on stage an example of a first name beginning with every letter in the alphabet ("uh ... Xavier ... uh ... um ... Yvonne..."). She did eventually manage to get the crowd to hold a shaky four-note chord for a few seconds, and just when the whole thing seemed about to break down into depressing futility, she crashed beautifully over the top with the opening note of her hit "I'm Sorry." A roar of appreciative (and relieved) applause filled the theater.

The show was first-rate and momentous, but this morning on my way into work, I was trying to think of something more to say about it and felt less than creatively fecund. I'd pulled a light jacket out of the closet—one I hadn't worn in a while—and had it draped over one arm as I walked along East 45th Street. Absentmindedly, I shifted it to the other arm, when out of nowhere (well, out of a secret inside pocket of my coat, actually) spilled my little silver Nano unharmed onto the sidewalk. The first thing I did at work (it seemed only right) was load "1, 2, 3, 4" onto the device—and, of course, apologize to the co-workers whose faces I'd punched in.