Sufjan at The Olympia
As usual I'm too late with my gig review and half the blogosphere has already ranted on about the full band that he brought with him, the inflatable Supermen, the wings made out of kites and all that, so no point in boring you with those details.
Apart from the theatricals, I was there to hear some quality music from one of the my favourite musicians of the past few years. Compared to previous solo performances in Dublin, with ten musicians on stage there was ample scope for the Sufjan to deliver his full repertoire of songs live. And he delivered in spades. Firstly, it was great to see a contemporary band reading the music from sheets as if they were part of an orchestra. It was subtle but at least it made you appreciate the effort that goes into writing this music.
I thought they were a little slow to start with but once they got the first few songs out of the way they were really on form. When they opened it out by laying it on with heavy guitars, lung busting wind sections and erratic piano it got pretty intense - some might even say spiritual but I wouldn't go that far myself. The up-tempo highlights were 'Detroit, lift up your weary head', 'The man of metropolis steals our hearts' and 'Chicago'. On the flip side, he was able to drop back to a sweet melody with ease for songs like 'Concerning the UFO sighting' and a sublime version of 'He woke me up again'. The other highlight for me was the new song he played which I can't remember the name of now but which really blew me away. As has been mentioned elsewhere, he puts much effort into his show and there was also plenty of craic and banter with the crowd, although his stories are fanciful to say the least. No doubt about it, he's got a wonderful imagination.
Maybe it was only me but after watching The Devil and Daniel Johnson recently it struck me that there were some similarities between the two. Aside from the obvious musical talents and preoccupation with religion in their music, in dawned on me that it Johnson had grown up in a vegan-eating, yoga-practicing family environment and we could well have been paying 30 euros to see him the following night in the Olympia. Sufjan will do for now though.
tags:sufjan
Published by Padraig.
Apart from the theatricals, I was there to hear some quality music from one of the my favourite musicians of the past few years. Compared to previous solo performances in Dublin, with ten musicians on stage there was ample scope for the Sufjan to deliver his full repertoire of songs live. And he delivered in spades. Firstly, it was great to see a contemporary band reading the music from sheets as if they were part of an orchestra. It was subtle but at least it made you appreciate the effort that goes into writing this music.
I thought they were a little slow to start with but once they got the first few songs out of the way they were really on form. When they opened it out by laying it on with heavy guitars, lung busting wind sections and erratic piano it got pretty intense - some might even say spiritual but I wouldn't go that far myself. The up-tempo highlights were 'Detroit, lift up your weary head', 'The man of metropolis steals our hearts' and 'Chicago'. On the flip side, he was able to drop back to a sweet melody with ease for songs like 'Concerning the UFO sighting' and a sublime version of 'He woke me up again'. The other highlight for me was the new song he played which I can't remember the name of now but which really blew me away. As has been mentioned elsewhere, he puts much effort into his show and there was also plenty of craic and banter with the crowd, although his stories are fanciful to say the least. No doubt about it, he's got a wonderful imagination.
Maybe it was only me but after watching The Devil and Daniel Johnson recently it struck me that there were some similarities between the two. Aside from the obvious musical talents and preoccupation with religion in their music, in dawned on me that it Johnson had grown up in a vegan-eating, yoga-practicing family environment and we could well have been paying 30 euros to see him the following night in the Olympia. Sufjan will do for now though.
tags:sufjan
Published by Padraig.
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