My 12 Favorite Concerts - #4 Sufjan Stevens

High Gravity

High Gravity is Paste editor-in-chief Josh Jackson's daily round-up of music, film and culture - and even great (high gravity) beer.

Browse High Gravity

#4
Sufjan Stevens
April 1, 2005
Back in 1998, we launched an online CD retailer called PasteMusic.com, and one of the first CDs we added to the site was by a band called Marzuki, fronted by Shannon Stephens with a multi-instrumentalist named Sufjan Stevens. It featured accordion, banjo, flutes and sounded like nothing else I'd heard. When the musicians went their separate ways, Shannon released a self-titled album with a brilliant song about domestic abuse called "Catch the Morning Line," and Sufjan recorded a solo album called A Sun Came with moments of great promise and moments of silliness, like the line from Super Sexy Woman: "She'll shoot a super fart/The deadly silent kind." At the time, I'd have put my money on Shannon. But then came Michigan. And Seven Swans. And then my favorite album of the last decade, Illinois. I had just heard the latter for the first time a few weeks before heading up to Grand Rapids, Mich., for The Faith and Music festival, where I'd been asked to speak. The conference featured Sufjan Stevens, Daniel Smith from The Danielson Family, Over the Rhine, Dave Bazan from Pedro the Lion, Denison Witmer, David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower, and Don Peris from the Innocence Mission, all tackling issues of faith with more nuance and understanding than Nasvhille's whole Christian music scene. I'd seen Sufjan with his boyscout band crammed on a tiny stage after Michigan, but here he was with a band that was more like an orchestra. The swans had been shed for butterflies. Blow-up Supermans were tossed around the room. He played "Chicago" and "Casmir Pulaski Day" and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." while the projector showed home movies and the audience sat with rapt attention. There was a distinct feeling that we were launching something akin to Rites of Spring (albeit without the rioting). Sufjan proceeded to take over the country, playing vaunted venues like The Lincoln Center in New York and The Kennedy Center in D.C. But that night, he was still in Michigan, making a joyful ruckus.