Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Concert Last Night

The concert last night was amazing. I will start out with the trip up there. We left Rice at 12:30. The trip takes about four hours without any traffic. We made it there a little quicker than that but we stopped at a Dairy Queen along the way so it ended up being about four hours. We got to the Lakewood Theater where the concert was to be held at 4:30 and there were eight people in line before us! So we sat down in line to wait for two and a half hours until the concert doors opened. The line got really long but it was great because we were guaranteed to get front row seats. The doors opened at about 7:20 and we all ran in and got a place right in front of the stage. It was awesome. The opening band was called My Brightest Diamond. The lead singer was a woman who was pretty good. She kind of sounded like Bjork. The music was pretty slow though, so it didn't make much sense to have a band that doesn't really warm up the crowd. She only played for about half an hour. Then we waited about twenty minutes for Sufjan to move around his stuff on the stage. At one point he actually came out during set up and was messing with a guitar and it took a little while for everyone to realize that it was him on stage. So a lot of people cheered and I got some photos. Then he went back stage again and then at around 9:25 the band came on stage. They all had these little uniforms that were kind of military-like and were wearing butterfly wings. It was really cool. Then Sufjan came out looking awesome. He had on the same uniform with eagle wings. He is so freaking awesome. When he came out I kept saying, "He is so freaking cool. I want to be like him." He got on the piano for the first song and played one of his more noisy songs. I don't really like any of those songs so I wasn't getting into it that much. Then he got up and introduced himself and started playing his guitar. He was literally three feet away from me. The concert was awesome. I wish that he had played more of the songs that I like. I really like one of his albums that is a lot more folk and not so noisy but he played a lot of the noisier ones. He did play my two favorite songs though, "The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades is Out to Get Us" and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." The concert ended and sadly I didn't get to touch him. I was waving my hands around as he passed right in front of me but I didn't succeed.

I am going to update my photos later tonight, but now it is time to eat.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

If it was physically possible, I would have Sufjan Stevens' children

Tomorrow I am headed up to Dallas with some friends to see a concert. I am pumped about it. We are going to see Sufjan Stevens. Many people don't know who he is but believe you me, he is going to be huge. He has been around for a couple of years. I don't know who to compare his music to because his style changes from song to song. Some songs are very folk and others are rock and others are just unique. His albums are all incredible.
Here is the Wikipedia article intro:

Sufjan
Stevens (IPA pronunciation: [ˈsʊf jɑn]) (born July 1, 1975) is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Detroit, Michigan. He is known for his lyrically focused and instrumentally rich songs that often relate to faith and family. He has enjoyed wide critical success in the United States. He is considered part of the folk revival in indie pop, but his influences are very broad. His music has been likened to electronica [1], the jazz of Vince Guaraldi [2], and the academic minimalism of Steve Reich [3]. Stevens has announced plans to make an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, beginning the series with the albums Michigan (2003) and Illinois (2005).

This trip will be interesting. My friends and I are leaving at 12:30 and driving about four or five hours to Dallas. The show starts at 7. It will probably get out around ten or eleven and then we are headed back. So we aren't going to be back until three or four. Luckily, my 9:25 class was cancelled so I can sleep in until 10:15 or so. I will hopefully be able to post photos from the concert so stay tuned.