Attention hipsters: Bing Crosby called. He wants his hat back.

The very first thing I said to Jeff was, “I didn’t realize that stupid hats were compulsory in hipsterism.” But, alas, they are, as a glance around us could tell.

Seriously, these things make those fake-fur cowboy hats you win at carnivals look like bowlers, dignity-wise and comparatively speaking. Whether composed of papier-mache made by artsie soon-to-be-ex girlfriends (once the guys parse the sublimated hostility expressed in the undeniably hideous chapeau), hand crafted  and painted felt from Granville Island artistes, or generic polyblend from a secondhand shop or Sears old men’s department, it appears that this ridonkulous stingybrim hat is a must-wear for this season’s male hipsters.

Which is bad news for concertgoers such as myself.

Not half stingy enough, I’m telling you.

Of course, it must be admitted that Feist, as a concert experience, rather sucks, so missing it because of the cranial fashion trends of neurasthenic, underfed singles wasn’t exactly a tragic loss, but still. You know that feeling you get, listening to her album, that her voice is too delicate an instrument to make it through an entire concert? Well that feeling is accurate: it can’t. It goes away about 2/3 into the performance and never comes back. It’s like that Brady Bunch episode where Peter’s voice is changing and they have to record the big single…painful.

When she forgot the words to her own songs and did her little Ashlee Simpson “maybe they won’t notice” jig, it would have been amusing to have been able to have watched.

Instead, I snuck peeks between the brim of the obviously balding guy two rows below and the aggressively spiked ‘do of the Sanjaya Lives activist in the row below him. The women at this concert don’t appear to have even eaten in the last three weeks, and could hardly be accused of taking up too much space, least of all with their stridently ironed hair or flapper-like headbands. Nope, it’s repression by the patriarchy, with dinky little hats.

Is that a metaphor?