G is for Gigs – Part 1: Sufjan Stevens
by Eoghan
(Photo stolen from my friend Alan)
Olympia Theatre, Dublin – 18th May, 2011
For the second of Sufjan Steven’s two night run in the Olympia, security around Dublin – and near the 114 year old theatre in particular – is tight and tense. The state dinner in honour of Queen Elizabeth II is due to take place in Dublin Castle at the same time, directly across from the Olympia, so Dame Street has been shut down. The city almost feels like it’s under siege as Gardai fill the streets around the castle and theatre and the gunshot-like sounds of the protestors’ fireworks echo off the buildings. Those going to the show have to go through Temple Bar and come up the back of the Olympia as Gardai check tickets. It feels as if the gig itself is something dangerous.
Right from the start, Sufjan Stevens and his 11 piece band pull no punches, musically or visually. Opening with a version of Seven Swans that swings from hauntingly fragile to arrestingly monumental, Sufjan and his band glow, Tron-like in the blacklight that bathes the stage. Starry visuals are projected on the backdrop as well as on a mesh screen in front of the stage and as the song reaches its climax, Sufjan raises two huge, white, feathered wings and proceeds to rock out on the synths like some intergalactic angel.
In fact, it’s astounding how much effort has been put into the visual side of this tour. The band look other-worldly and Sufjan himself engages in a couple of costume changes over the course of the show. He and his two backing singers dance throughout the night, doing co-ordinated routines without even the slightest hint of irony; the dancing is an important aspect of the show, as he later tells the audience, reflecting as it does the way he feels music makes us all move. The impressive projected visuals draw extensively from the work of the outsider artist Royal Robertson, about whom Sufjan talks for almost ten minutes to a patient and mostly attentive crowd. Robertson’s work and life was one of the main influences on Sufjan’s’ last album, The Age of Adz, and the schizophrenic artist’s cosmic and apocalyptic themes are strongly reflected in both the music and the show itself.
But while the whole spectacle of the show is impressive, it’s really the music that makes the night memorable. Early in the evening, Sufjan tells the audience that the setlist will be made up of mostly new material – from The Age of Adz and the All Delighted People EP – and that those looking for the “old hits” should probably leave and come back for the encore. There’s no denying that The Age of Adz is a dense and sometimes challenging piece of work. At one stage, Sufjan talks about the change in his song-writing approach, foregoing the traditional structures of his previous works and instead experimenting with sounds and textures before working in a more recognisable song-form around them. But live, the songs really come into their own. Sufjan’s voice is pitch-perfect, sounding exactly as it does in the recordings and the huge band and cosmic visuals seem to give the music a proper setting where everything settles into place and it all makes sense. It’s clear there could have been no other way this music could have been performed.
The main body of the set is finished with Impossible Soul, a 25 minute odyssey of a song that ends The Age of Adz. It seems to broadly sum up everything the audience has seen and heard tonight, filled as it is with costume changes, dance routines, auto-tuned synthery and a huge, life-affirming orchestral climax complete with call-and-response shouting and confetti before ending with a gorgeous acoustic outro that holds the audience in rapt silence.
The Olympia is left waiting over ten minutes for that promised encore but the wait pays off. Sufjan emerges, having changed out of his costume, and plays a chill-inducing rendition of John Wayne Gacy Jr. to which some of the crowd sing along so quietly it seems reverential. The night closes with a jubilant, triumphant performance of Chicago; the band throwing huge balloons into the crowd who sing so loudly that it must surely be heard by the Queen as she eats her dinner across the road. One is left wondering if there are any artists around who can come close to matching the talent and imagination of Sufjan Stevens. Certainly there are none capable of creating as thrilling and satisfying an audio-visual experience as the man from Michigan. It would take a hell of a lot to top that.
ragin’ i didn’t go.