In Which I Attend An Evening Concert With Sufjan Stevens

Sadly, in spite of what the title insinuates, I did not actually attend a concert in the company of Sufjan Stevens; however, I did attend a concert last night featuring his music. As well as his self. 

Yes, the songs looked nice on him. (What? Am I the first person in the history of time who has heard "The Dress Looks Nice on You" who's thought of that?)

Okay, if you don't know who Sufjan Stevens is, he's this musician who writes and plays and records music that hipsters and myself enjoy. Usually if you see a photo of him, he is tenderly holding a banjo, like this:  

But this time, he had no banjo. One of the first things he said (after the first song) was something along the lines of "Well, I am your entertainment for the evening," and started stripping off his button-down shirt to reveal: ..... a T-shirt. Sighs of disappointment from various audience members, maybe or maybe not including me. Okay, including me. :-)

Oh, where was I seated? (You might ask, if I was putting words in your mouth? yes, I know only Lakendra and my mom will probably read this. Whatever.) 

Okay, MY seat, which I reserved probably the first week in... September? I can't remember now, but MY seat was: 

In the highest balcony.

The last row up.

The last seat in the entire auditorium.

On the left. 

Really. 

I was so far back and left, that had I been one seat over, I wouldn't have even been in the room, is what I'm trying to say. However, I was seated to this nice hipster family* (Dad, son, and daughter. Or maybe son's girlfriend. It's hard to tell with kids these days.) who bought their tickets 30 seconds after they went on sale online. Note: they were seated right next to me, in the seats furthest from the stage. Ticketmaster. Argh.

So, here's a photo from last night: 

Anyhow, the concert was mostly (actually almost exclusively) from his newest release, the Age of Adz (pronounced Odds, which is very important to... someone), which has almost no banjos or acoustic instruments whatsoever, but fortunately Sufjan explained it by saying that this was a non-conceptual work, and then went on to explain its concept. With a lot of words. The thing that caught my attention, though, was the influence on Age of Adz by this guy called Royal_Robertson, who was a folk artist from Louisiana. Apparently he suffered from schizophrenia and thought he was a prophet from the Lord, and that God was an alien? Driving a spaceship? I'm not sure, but his artwork featured spaceships a lot, and what was really awesome was the humongous screen behind the band with some completely gorgeous animation that played with each song. Here is a pic with the screen, although it's not one of the gorgeous scenes. None of those turned out, because I had to zoom in so far that most of my pics were too blurry.

Let's see, what were some other favorite things...well I liked how the music set was described as an evening of heartache, love, the apocalypse, and the end of the world.... that was cool. 

I loved Get Real Get Right which features the recurring phrase "Get real, get right with the Lord."

Oh, and I liked this song, Futile Devices, which I couldn't record on my camera because it doesn't have a microphone.  :-(

Oh, and my most favorite part of the night was when, after an hour of concert, Sufjan announced that the next song (Impossible Soul) would be 25 minutes long, at which announcement, the whole audience, I swear, went, "?!" and braced themselves, if you went by the sounds of seats creaking. He turned out to be right. I timed it. It was exactly 25 minutes long.

So, that was my night with Sufjan.  Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents for purchasing the ticket for my birthday, and post my very, most favorite pic from the evening, which features a dimple, and an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean:

Did anyone else see Sufjan last night? What were your impressions? I only ask because I had to go by myself and didn't get to do the whole postmortem concert thing that is an essential part of the concert process.    

If you didn't see Sufjan last night, do you have a this-was-the-best-concert-in-my-life memory?

* okay: they probably weren't a "hipster family," whatever that is; I was just amusing myself by calling them that because it was cute that the dad and kids all came out to see Sufjan. I'm actually not sure they enjoyed the concert, because from the first moment of sheer, huge, loud, electronic noise assaulting their ears, they all did a great impression of deer in the headlights. Deers in the headlights? Whatever.  Which probably means they're not really hipsters.