Life > October 12, 2006

By Rachel Kowal

Staff writer

Sufjan Stevens and his large orchestral accompaniment took to the stage at UNC’s Memorial Stage on Sept. 21 in front of the sold-out audience comprised mainly of Chapel Hill students and the few who were lucky enough to buy tickets in the estimated 10 minutes before they sold out. 

Much to the surprise and delight of the audience, the band members emerged onto the stage in elaborate costumes consisting of marching band uniforms, butterfly wings constructed from children’s kites and feathered masks. Stevens himself stood out from the array of butterflies with his large eagle wings, another home-made costume made from a kite.

Besides the colorful costumes worn by band members, a large screen with random video clips that seemed to loosely coincide with the songs served as the backdrop to the stage which gave the show quite a unique and whimsical feel. 

Stevens, a prolific musician, typically plays the majority of the instruments on his albums including (but not limited to) the oboe, recorder, banjo, guitar, vibraphone, bass, drums and piano. However, he is of course joined by a large conglomeration of band members to assist him for the majority of his songs. That said, Stevens still demonstrated his musical talents by constantly switching out instruments during the show. 

While the sound quality of the songs was excellent, at times songs played by the whole orchestra, such as the upbeat “Jacksonville” and “Chicago,” were somewhat overwhelming. To counteract this sensory overload, Stevens wisely incorporates some of his more mellow and melodic songs in which only a couple of his band members join. 

In particular, the song “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.,” which is about one of the most notorious U.S. serial killers, who was charged with 33 murders, was met with awe and left the audience silent for three seconds before a sudden burst of applause. This song concludes with the hauntingly beautiful lines, “And in my best behavior/I am really just like him/Look beneath the floorboards/For the secrets I have hid.”

Stevens recently released a new album entitled The Avalanche through Asthmatic Kitty Records in July, which is comprised of a series and outtakes and special features that failed to make the cut of his celebrated album, Illinoise. However, the band played songs from many of Stevens’ older releases. In fact, the song “Super Computer” was the only song played off the new album. 

Although the set list included only 12 songs, Stevens and company returned to the stage to play two more songs. The comically long-titled song, “They Are Night Zombies!! They are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhh!” was accompanied by clips from old movies like Night of the Living Dead to the amusement of the audience.  The show then calmly concluded with the austerely beautiful song “To Be Alone with You” from the Seven Swans album.

Much to the elation of the audience, Stevens revealed that he will be releasing a boxed set of five short CD’s of Christmas music. They contain both traditional and original songs that he has been working on over the course of the last few years in his spare time.  Stevens admitted that although he would have liked to include more original songs, he tended to write rather depressing Christmas songs. “My family would give these passive aggressive gifts at Christmas … self help books among other things,” joked Stevens. To give the audience a taste of what was to come, Stevens played “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever,” one of his original Christmas songs.

In addition to his Christmas project, Stevens has begun to write songs for his next studio released CD, and played two at the show.

Although Stevens allegedly has plans for making a CD with songs inspired by each of the 50 states, he is taking a break to write about birds. In addition to his kite-flying hobby, Stevens revealed that his newest leisurely activity is bird watching. Although the costumes and ever-changing backdrop gave the show a scripted feeling at times, it was nonetheless a whimsical masterpiece.