see Sufjan Stevens live

Last night’s show was fantastic. Anybody else who’s able to catch this tour is in for a treat. Sufjan and his band were dressed in butterfly wings, accompanied by feathered headdresses. The mix between songs with the full orchestra and songs with Sufjan on his own with the piano or guitar was perfect. He said thank you after every song and seemed to be truly humbled by the size of the crowd and the theater. A big part of my enjoyment of the show was watching him and his band enjoy their music so much.

Honestly, I added this “Thing” to my list in a very pie-in-the-sky spirit. I had missed his last Georgia tour stop in Athens, in fall 2004, I believe. His website listed no new shows for ages. He did two shows this past January in New York, on a weekend that I happened to be there, but little things like having to catch a flight home interfered with my seeing them. The announcement of this tour was a total surprise, and I feel very lucky to have caught it. Now, do you think if I add “see Neko Case live” to my Things, she’ll make an Atlanta tour stop announcement, too?

Next Wednesday at this time I’ll be counting down the hours until I can leave work and head to the concert.

Sometime before then I need to buy The Avalanche and get familiar with the songs from that CD that I haven’t yet heard. I’m fond of going to concerts where I know pretty much every song played by heart and can take pleasure in the little differences (or big differences) between the album version and the live version.

It came in the mail from Ticketmaster a couple weeks ago!

September 20! I am ridiculously excited about this.

The Sept. 20 show finally popped up on the Ticketmaster website (though still not on Sufjan Stevens’s record label’s website). Tickets go on sale next Saturday! It appears that most of the tickets are “only” $25. If there’s a higher ticket level, I might splurge on it, since I’m going by myself.

Yesterday, I was at Criminal Records in Atlanta, buying a Neko Case CD and rummaging through the discount bins. Finding nothing worth even the discount price, I let my eyes run along the concert posters tacked to the bottom of the tall front counter. And there, my eyes rested on a bright blue poster that had me clumsily running out from behind the discount bins and making my way over to Adam, who was at one of the listening stations. “You must see this poster!” I said. “WHAT?” he yelled over whatever CD he was hearing. “A poster!” I said. “You must see it!”

So I dragged him over to the counter and pointed at three key lines on the blue poster: Sufjan Stevens. September 20. Fox Theatre. !!! He looked at me with a small smile, as if to say, I’m very glad that you finally have the chance to see him in concert, but I hope this doesn’t mean that you’re going to keep that one particular CD of his in your car CD player for another three months straight and make us listen to it countless times on the next drive down to Florida. Yeah, I probably shouldn’t do that again.

When we got home, I hopped on the computer to check on tickets, but nothing’s been posted om Ticketmaster yet. There was a September 19 New Orleans show posted, but that was the only thing that came up when I typed in his name. His own site had no tour dates posted at all. I’m so skeptical about getting to see him (and anybody else I’ve been listening to lately) that I won’t accept the record store poster’s honesty until I’ve actually got a ticket in my hand.

I always seem to discover musicians just after they’ve completed their latest U.S. tour. I started listening to Sufjan Stevens about a month after he made a stop in Athens, Georgia, and it doesn’t seem like he’ll be returning there anytime soon. He was in New York for two shows at Lincoln Center on January 14—and, indeed, I did happen to be in New York on that day. Too bad my plane was leaving around the time he was singing.

Same deal again with the New Pornographers. Seems like my only chance of seeing them this year is to go to their free show in New York City this summer, and that’s unlikely to happen. Of course, their tour with Belle and Sebastian has moved on to Europe now. They were touring the U.S. when I was still in the state of being curious about them as a band. Just like last year, when I was reading an article about Sufjan in the Atlanta paper and became fascinated with the idea of his 50 States project. Ah, if only I had picked up Illinois that day and then headed up to Athens for the show at the 40 Watt!