Sufjan Stevens @ HOB, New Orleans 9/19/2006
The first few times I listened to Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans and Illinois (for some reason I had neglected to get Greetings from Michigan!), I heard a delicate guy and his banjo, but I had a perpetually quizzical look whenever someone would talk about him as the zeitgeist. But then came Hurricane Katrina and everything crashed down in this strange, wonderful city in which we live: our faces were long, our resolves fragile, and it seemed impossible to listen to any music. The all-too-familiar sounds reminded of us a time before.
On one of my many 12-hour round trips from my transplanted life in Houston, I popped in Sufjan in the car…and suddenly, I understood. Here was a man who manages to create a classical sound with his instrumentation, creates highly stylized orchestrations, and yet, manages to keep his vocals pure. His voice is reassuring and tender.
So, Tuesday, September 19, 2006 was an anticipated night because Sufjan would be playing here, in our scrappy city, at the House of Blues. Tickets sold out a week before the show, and there were myriad people hoping for extra tickets.
Sufjan’s opener unnaturally claimed the audience as her own, My Brightest Diamond, really, the lead singer Shara Worden, is on his Asthmatic Kitty label. Worden served as one of his cheerleaders on his Illinois tour and upon gentle coaxing by Stevens, recorded the recently released Bring Me the Workhorse. With a voice like a synergy of Jeff Buckley, Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Tori Amos, and Mia Doi Todd, Worden managed to gain the respect of the crowd and within the first three songs, people were transfixed. She shared some members of Sufjan’s string section and powered through songs from her album with big electric guitar confidence. The title song, “Workhorse,” was even richer than on the record, and she delighted with a quickly-recognized and crowd-enthusing cover of Nina Simone’s “Feelin’ Good.” She endearingly said that she had lived in New Orleans as a child, and that her six-year old memory is that of her brother being born here. Luckily, when her set ended, we ended up seeing more of her as she came out to play the glockenspiel for Sufjan’s set.
The entrance of Sufjan and entourage (a total of fourteen people) was hushed and then the roar of the crowd was deafening as it realized that not only were the performers wearing butterfly and bird wings, but local traditional mardi gras masks (which many continued to wear for the duration of the performance). Mr. Stevens took his place at the piano, and a video projection of various images of Chicago and Detroit took form behind him. Each band member was serious, deliberate and stayed close to the sheet music conscientiously organized in his or her own binder. Mr. Stevens said a very respectful thanks for being in the room with us, managing to stay away from triteness about the events of the city. He spiritedly led the band through “Lord God Bird,” “Jacksonville,” “Decatur,” “Mr. Supercomputer,” “Night Zombies,” “To Be Alone With You,” and a crowd-pleasing “Chicago.” By far, the performance of “Casimir Pulaski Day” was the highlight of the night with its quick introduction of the song “being about a Polish-American Revolutionary War hero.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Stevens neglected to acknowledge the frantic shouts of the crowd for the haunting “John Wayne Gacy, Jr” (only to play it a few nights later and elicit whimpers of jealousy out of this writer). An encore elicited a smaller sound (of only 5 people), but was nonetheless rich, on “That Dress Looks Nice On You” from Seven Swans. Stevens also trotted out a new sweeping song called “Majestic, Snowbird” which he claimed was why the performers were all in wings. Even though the venue was the most crowded I had seen, the hundreds-strong crowd was so enamored and quiet that during songs you could clearly hear the faux-shutters of camera-phones taking crappy illegal photos from hundreds of feet away. Regardless of any of the modern distractions, the music was timeless and the performance all together too short. As we filed out into the warm, muggy night, there was a feeling that we had just shared a unique experience that would not be bested easily.
34 Responses to “Sufjan Stevens @ HOB, New Orleans 9/19/2006” »»
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