Ranting to /dev/null

Sufjan Stevens and the Michigan Militia

So I made it into the Sufjan show last night. They were sold out, but I made it to the Mercury Lounge early enough to snag one of the ten tickets they had at the door. The opening bands were both from Toronto, The Sea Snakes and Jim Guthrie and the Bad Lieutenants, and were both pretty good. The Sea Snakes were a pretty typical four-odd piece setup, but Jim Guthrie had a violin and cello on top of the more standard rock instruments. I was struck by how much both of them reminded me of Death Cab: same kind of indie-rock sound, high tenor lead vocals, etc. The lyrics weren't as good in either case, but hey. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed the similarities, because the person responsible for music between sets put on Transatlanticism after Jim Guthrie finished his set. Guthrie played a set that outlasted the patience of the crowd by about three or four songs, but other than that I've no real complaints.

Then, at about 11:45, Sufjan (apparently pronounced "suf-yan") took the stage with his backing band, the Michigan Militia. They had come out to do their sound check and everything, and when they came back on stage they were in uniform: dark navy button-down t-shirts sporting a Michigan seal on the right breast, and American flag neckerchiefs. The drummer wore an American flag shirt. Sufjan himself wore a Michigan cap. He then busts out this oversized, hand-drawn map of Michigan designed to show the places his album Greetings From Michigan the Great Lake State highlights: Flint, Detroit, the 45th parallel, Paradise, the Upper Penninsula, etc. And they launch into it. And they're awesome. Kind of weird, but really great.

Sufjan said about "He Woke Me Up Again" that it was about the time his father woke him up with some good news. I'm almost certain this is about his conversion experience. One thing about Stevens that makes him hard to figure out is that he makes stuff up. Like this. The title track to the new album, Seven Swans is about weird things happening at the 45th parallel. He told a pretty outrageous story, then said something like "You guys have to figure out how much of that is true." I'm going to go with the idea that he had some kind of religious experience while fighting a fire in the family yard. Any way you cut it, it's pretty loaded with theological themes and imagery.

When you walk out on stage wearing uniforms that contain the American flag, you'd better be up to something political. He was, kind of. He encouraged the audience to talk to the people in the back from Music for America who were registering people to vote. MfA is a self-consciously partisan organization dedicated to defeating the incumbent, and I kind of figured as much considering where we were - the East Village is not exactly a bastion of conservatism. But Stevens didn't make any overtly political comments except for his last song, which was a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner". He added a few lines between "the bombs in the air" and "gave proof through the night" that talked about the significance of the flag and bemoaning the fact that it seems to be more divisive than otherwise. The song itself was quite lovely (the official tune to the anthem is just about unsingable, so anything would be an improvement), but I got the impression he wants to go a direction with that that I'm not particularly thrilled about. Which is his prerogative.

All in all, a great show. And I noticed on my way in that The Decemberists are playing a show at Webster Hall in conjunction with The Bowery Ballroom. Sweet.

Posted by ryan at August 21, 2004 08:39 AM | TrackBack