Day 8.094: Sufjan (in Maine!)

This evening we got out for the first time in a while to go into Portland to see Sufjan Stevens at the Merrill Auditorium.

We were quite happy about it!

The show was excellent - he started out by playing almost all of his new album "Carrie and Lowell". We were pleased we had had the chance to get to know these songs over the last couple of weeks - they came across great live - probably better than on the CD.

It is quite a dark collection of songs and it was quite intense.

Later, he did a collection of older songs (and the remaining track from Carrie and Lowell) and there were two wonderful lighter moments - firstly when he played the first verse of a song in the wrong key - only realizing when the piano failed to come in. "Am I playing this in the wrong key for you?" he asked the pianist. "Maybe," she responded tactfully.

And later, just before the final encore, someone in the crowd shouted, "Thank you for coming to Maine!" After a moment of silence, Sufjan chuckled to himself, then responded, "I've had, like, six lobster rolls in the last couple of days..."