Those of you who saw my last post know that I just moved up to the Seattle area and with the relocation comes the opportunity to explore and experience all that the the area has to offer. This includes venturing to downtown Seattle to catch Sufjan Stevens perform at the beautiful Paramount Theatre.

Brynna and I discovered that Stevens was playing after our first week after our move and we both decided that missing the show would be unforgivable. So, while sitting in a coffee shop near Pike’s Place Market, we bought two tickets to see Sufjan Stevens and began the wait of five days or so until the day of the show.

I was acquainted with Stevens since his Seven Swans album but it wasn’t until his Age of Adz album that I became a fan and that album is still my favorite of his even after the release of his newest, Carrie & Lowell, which he is promoting with this tour. I’ve always been intrigued by the amount of production that goes into many of his albums so I was interested to see how that level of production translated to a live stage. One thing is for sure… he didn’t disappoint.

Since Stevens recently released Carrie & Lowell, anyone could expect him to play several songs from the new album but he played the entire thing live, which I thought was great. What was even better about him performing the new album in it’s entirety was that many of the songs were built out for his entire band. If you’ve listened to the album, you know that much of it is pretty laid back and acoustic. An electronic element was added to many of these songs in the live performance. The end of “Should Have Known Better” sounded like it could have fit among the songs on Age of Adz because it was so electronically focused with an enormous beat.

I enjoyed hearing these alternate versions of songs and I feel like more artists should do this. It adds another element to songs with which you’re already familiar.

Since Age of Adz is my favorite album from Stevens, I would have liked to hear more songs from that album but only “Futile Devices” was included in the setlist. I also would’ve liked to see a bit more stage presence from Stevens and his band. Not one word was said by Stevens while he performed the new songs off of Carrie & Lowell which made me feel a little distant from the performance. I heard some other people talking about it too. Stevens did however make quite a long monologue about the movie Bring It On Again and what it means to support each other as human beings when he started playing his older material.

Overall, seeing Sufjan Stevens perform at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre was a great experience thanks to his alternate versions of songs and the incredible setting of the Paramount. We plan on going back there for Brandi Carlie in October and she always puts on a great show.