Sufjan Stevens at the National

Sufjan Stevens played a sold show out at the National Theater in Richmond on November 9th. The Richmond stop was near the end of his tour supporting of his newest recording, The Age of Adz. The Age of Adz is a change from his older work, incorporating a lot of electronic sounds. Though I had heard a couple of the songs before the concert, for the most part, I was hearing the album for the first time. The stage was just as packed as the floor with about ten instrumentalists (including three horn players) and three backing vocalists.

Sufjan came out on stage looking thinner than I've seen in photos, though still adorable (his adorableness was accentuated by the feathery white angel wings he wore for the first couple of songs). He had fluorescent tape all over his face and clothes, and donned a pair of shiny silvery pants on stage for a kind of techno refugee look. His hair was cut short with a rattail at the back of his neck. The concertgoer behind me said rattails were the new skinny jeans.

For most of the show, Sufjan was in great voice, with breathy low notes gliding into a smooth falsetto. Only at the end was his voice straining. At one point a song came to a halt when he choked on a feather that had been floating around from his wings earlier in the show. Between songs, Sufjan wasn't so good at connecting with the audience. He made some awkward small talk discussing the metaphysical inspirations for his songs, which I couldn't quite follow.

The early part of the concert was interrupted by technical problems, adding some tension to the show. There were several long pauses between songs while Sufjan switched from one guitar to another trying to find one that was working right. During some of the pauses, the people in the audience (I guess you might call them douche bags) got a bit antsy and yelled obnoxious comments, mostly along the lines of 'Chicago!' Sufjan was obviously tense at times, occasionally holding his head in his hands. I actually started to get a bit anxious.

Once the music started though, the energy was back full force and the band sounded great, the songs louder and more energetic than the recorded versions. Several of the songs had a driving, not-quite-dance beat, and Sufjan mentioned that for this tour they hired a choreographer to put together some moves, which the women vocalists performed well. Sufjan performed a lot of hand gestures, something like a David Byrne/voguing/hula dance hybrid.

The concert was in two parts, the first consisting of songs from Adz and the second (mostly the encore) featuring songs from Illinois. Once he started playing songs from Illinois, he finally started to connect with the audience. The entire theater was singing the songs word for word and at the end we all sang his John Wayne Gacy murder ballad together…kind of strange when you think about it.

Check out my blurry pictures from the concert!