Sufjan Stevens live review
If you’ve spent the last six years tantalising your army of ardent fans with promises of 50-album folk cycles and then releasing ambient operas about motorways and tepid disco albums that are both long and boring, you better have something special in your locker when you tour. Thankfully, Sufjan Stevens does. Performing in Primavera’s on-site concert hall with all the comfort and technical mastery that affords, Stevens and his band – including dancers, a funk brass section and two drummers – serve up two hours of 3D projections, 10-foot angel wings, UV raver costumers, balloon drops, confetti showers, synchronised dancing and, most crucially, utterly bewitching music that reveals The Age of Adz to be simply poor recordings of brilliant songs.
Mid-way through, Stevens issues a 15-minute lecture, complete with slides, on the delusional schizophrenic who inspired his latest records, as if to add further context to his change in sound. It works. Coupled with the mesmerising show, everything falls rather magically into place.
