Sufjan Stevens + St. Vincent Paradiso, Amsterdam, 11 november 2006
I met Anneke at central station and we walked to Paradiso. The doors were already open so that was nice, we didn't have to wait outside anymore.
Support act was St. Vincent. She was really lovely, performing all alone with her guitar with weird effects on it and stamping her foot for some rhythm. She played about about 30-40 minutes and she also did a John Coltrane cover.
Sufjan did his own soundcheck!
After a brief soundcheck the entire stage was filled with instruments and inflatable santa's and supermen. The band came up wearing wings and masks and everyone was so excited! That's one thing I really liked, the audience was really enthousiastic and yelling and cheering really loud, great. Except for those two annoying guys behind us.. oh well.
They played a lot of songs of Illinois, Greetings From Michigan, That Was The Worst Christmas Ever and some old and new songs. Sufjan talked a lot inbetween the songs, he was really comfortable on stage and everyone was laughing about his stories. The one he told about his summercamp in 1985 was amaaazing. It took about 5 minutes and everyone hung on his lips (?). Overall it was really really beautiful, amazing, one of the best gigs I've ever seen. And he was so charming! Somehow I expected him to be a bit socially retarded or autistic or something (don't know why), but he really wasn't like that at all.
Apparently there were 5 blowers, but the stage was so full! I didn't even see the drummer as well
St. Vincent was also playing in his band
VIDEO!
Encore: he did Concerning The UFO Sighting... all by himself on piano, then another song (John Wayne Gacy Jr. I think) with a couple of bandmember and ended with The Dress Looks Nice On You... ahhh. We've died and gone to heaven.
