Fefe Dobson

Seriated by squeal appeal and talent, Fefe Dobson, Stereos and Boys like Girls opened for Hedley. Fefe Dobson is Canada’s take on Miley Cyrus, except she’s brown and spastic. The set went downhill when she stepped on the stage. She entered stage left to the opening of Jimi Hendrix’s "Foxy Lady", a maligned tribute to her own self- importance. There were about five people who were actually eager to see her perform. The entire performance felt like she was playing dress-up for her high school talent show. This was definitely a case of trying too hard.

She isn’t a rockstar and I am not sure why she insists that she is one, or who she thinks is actually listening to the pitchy relationship diatribes that she calls songs ("Bye Bye Boyfriend", "In your Touch"). She pelvic-thrusted, fist-waved and front kicked her way through each song. Her moves were an amalgam of Hannah Montana’s cutesy gesticulation and Mick Jagger’s reverent epileptic fits. Every now and again she would pose on her knees in tribute to the rock gods who are most definitely shunning her from their golden circle.

All of her songs are maladapted to her vocal ability because they are written for someone with a more gravelly cadence. The only song where she demonstrated any vocal aptitude was the first verse of "Bye Bye Boyfriend", which she has been singing for 7 years so it should be perfected for the stage. The pressure of a live performance can make or break a vocalist; it is her job to figure out which songs she can sing live. She either sung too low to be audible or she sung too hastily to show off the average talent that she does possess. She should relegate herself to pop ballads for which her voice is infinitely more suited. With the right type of song she could be as ordinary as Ashlee Simpson.

For all intensive purposes this should have been the right crowd for her uninspired, run of the mill, ex-girlfriend anthems, except that she couldn’t hold her audience because there was no connection. The crowd gave her the most applause when she announced she had two songs left. There was a sense of relief when she got off the stage because now everyone could get back to the important tweeting she’d rudely interrupted with her theatrics.