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Last night was surreal for about fifty reasons. Other than the jerks in the front of the line, who wouldn't even tell me if we were allowed to take pictures and just rolled their eyes and told me to get in line, the hipsters were nice. I haven't been in a chill hipster crowd since I saw the Decemberists back in like, 2006? Cleveland is far less hardcore than Chicago; no one even jostled us during the show. (And, largely for this reason, operation Bring My Mother to a Hipster Show was a success.)
And guys, guys, Sufjan Stevens is as awesome live as you'd think. He looked kind of... stoic and slightly unhappy when he first came out, and I really wanted to apologize for wanting him to go on tour again, because it looked like he was just going to grit his teeth and get through it (what did we do to this man to make him hide for so many years and hate touring?) but THEN, after the first (10-minute) song or so, he settled down and actually even bantered with us a bit and it was beautiful. The show was a good mix of old and new (and his new is pretty electronic-sounding: you can tell that he's gotten back into the old Enjoy Your Rabbit thing). I'd heard that he wasn't playing anything from Illinois, but that's a lie. He played Casimir Pulaski Day and Jacksonville and even Chicago, and then apologized at the end for how rusty he was on the old stuff (I think he missed one note in Holland. But, as a corollary: He played Holland!). They had lyric sheets, and the trumpet player had a notebook full of sheet music, but it's early in the tour, and I'm getting the feeling they're just trying to play everything they're capable of playing (which is a lot, because man, his band is good. The trumpet player especially. I couldn't believe his chops.)
I think most of the surreality of the show (other than being randomly in Cleveland, with my mom, after spending the day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which is, quite literally, kind of like the basement of someone who's been obsessed with music since forever and kind of just threw everything together with some placards))... The surreality was mostly that I kind of didn't expect Sufjan to tour ever again, and I definitely didn't expect to be standing about five feet away from him when I finally got to see him. (I didn't mention that my mom was going on and on the entire time about how we were going to be late and we'd be standing against the wall in the back and there'd be nowhere to park and we'd never get out of Cleveland, so we left downtown at about 5:30 and got there at a quarter-til, despite the rush hour traffic, and had to wait until nearly 7:00 for doors to open. She also wouldn't stand in line until there were other "old people," which wasn't until about 6:15.) So we had a good spot a couple people back from the stage, right in the middle.
In conclusion: The only thing missing was a hug, and considering I wanted to apologize for even making him come out on stage in front of people again, I couldn't possibly have done more than tipped my hat to him and thanked him for playing.
And guys, guys, Sufjan Stevens is as awesome live as you'd think. He looked kind of... stoic and slightly unhappy when he first came out, and I really wanted to apologize for wanting him to go on tour again, because it looked like he was just going to grit his teeth and get through it (what did we do to this man to make him hide for so many years and hate touring?) but THEN, after the first (10-minute) song or so, he settled down and actually even bantered with us a bit and it was beautiful. The show was a good mix of old and new (and his new is pretty electronic-sounding: you can tell that he's gotten back into the old Enjoy Your Rabbit thing). I'd heard that he wasn't playing anything from Illinois, but that's a lie. He played Casimir Pulaski Day and Jacksonville and even Chicago, and then apologized at the end for how rusty he was on the old stuff (I think he missed one note in Holland. But, as a corollary: He played Holland!). They had lyric sheets, and the trumpet player had a notebook full of sheet music, but it's early in the tour, and I'm getting the feeling they're just trying to play everything they're capable of playing (which is a lot, because man, his band is good. The trumpet player especially. I couldn't believe his chops.)
I think most of the surreality of the show (other than being randomly in Cleveland, with my mom, after spending the day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which is, quite literally, kind of like the basement of someone who's been obsessed with music since forever and kind of just threw everything together with some placards))... The surreality was mostly that I kind of didn't expect Sufjan to tour ever again, and I definitely didn't expect to be standing about five feet away from him when I finally got to see him. (I didn't mention that my mom was going on and on the entire time about how we were going to be late and we'd be standing against the wall in the back and there'd be nowhere to park and we'd never get out of Cleveland, so we left downtown at about 5:30 and got there at a quarter-til, despite the rush hour traffic, and had to wait until nearly 7:00 for doors to open. She also wouldn't stand in line until there were other "old people," which wasn't until about 6:15.) So we had a good spot a couple people back from the stage, right in the middle.
In conclusion: The only thing missing was a hug, and considering I wanted to apologize for even making him come out on stage in front of people again, I couldn't possibly have done more than tipped my hat to him and thanked him for playing.
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