Sufjan Stevens opened his show with “Seven Swans,” then thanked the audience “… for letting me be dramatic, I am a drama queen.” After learning that Stevens went through a life-threatening illness while completing The Age Of Adz, it’s hard to accuse him of dramatics. But his L.A. show did feature self-indulgence as a theme — (surprising) costume changes, huge, Royal Roberts-inspired projections of himself behind himself. Photographer Graeme Flegenheimer says Stevens had an explanation: “Sufjan picked [Roberts] because he thinks they both share the notion that big personal events reflect like giant events, Sufjan said like an earthquake.” Delusions of importance, earthquakes — looks like he kept his show locally relevant.
The setlist:
“Seven Swans”
“Too Much”
“Age of Adz”
“Heirloom”
“I Walked”
“Futile Devices”
“Vesuvius”
“The Owl And The Tanager”
“Get Real, Get Right”
“Enchanting Ghost”
“Impossible Soul”
“Chicago”
—
“Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois”
“Casimir Pulaski Day”
“Jacksonville”
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“Owl and the Tanager” is the title of the song from the All Delighted People EP.
Fixed. Thanks!
I wrote up a long form review of Sufjan’s show in Minneapolis last week if anyone is interested:
http://goo.gl/koJz
I was at that show as well. My friends and I drove down from Canada to see it and it was our first time seeing him live. I loved it. I am a huge fan of old Sufjan stuff but I like it when an artist switches it up. It was nice to see him actually have fun up on stage and let loose. When, nearing the middle of Impossible Soul, the rest of the band started up a chant of “Go Sufy! Go Sufy” I couldn’t help but smile. I wanted to dance for most of the show, but no one seemed to be down for it. It was a great experience, and a great show. He did “That Dress Looks Nice On You” for pete’s sake. You review was spot on.
Side note: The only down side to this show was when my friends and I spent an hour after the show waiting for Sufjan outside his tour bus, only to have him come out and tell us that he won’t be signing anything because he was gonna go for a bike ride. Which, at the time sucked, but afterwards was pretty funny and awesome.
I wrote up a long and squee filled review of Sufjan’s show in Kansas City:
http://www.iwenttoashow.com
Uh, Sufjan was in Arizona on the 22nd, not LA. And that’s not even what he was wearing on the 23rd.
When I saw him on Saturday he ended the show with John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Was the Sunday show different?
Since everyone’s posting their reviews,
http://the217.com/articles/view/sufjan_stevens_does_not_disappoint
-there is mine of his show in Chicago. He played the almost exact setlist with the addition of “Decatur, Or, Round of Applause For Your Stepmother! ” and “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”
To be fair, the projections of ‘himself behind himself’ isn’t exactly accurate. It was a combination of himself and other band members dancing and posing, with stop animation or whatever its called. My point being…he wasn’t being nearly as pretentious or self indulgent as your description of him performing in front of a giant picture of himself suggests. It was kinda fun, actually.
To my mind, throughout his career Sufjan has always seemed to have a tongue in cheek awareness/joke going with his music and the perceptions he’s trying to give people of himself. With his song titles, interviews, pictures and songs, he sometimes seems to be almost intentionally provoking people into calling him pretentious and such, simply to point out how little it takes for us to resort to such titles, maybe getting some amusement from how quickly the public will turn on someone who might just be trying to have a little fun with his craft. Who knows though.
My point was very hastily written and organized, and I apologize profusely.