Recap Sufjan Stevens at Majestic Theatre

Sufjan Stevens didn’t bring his wings to the Majestic Theatre Monday night. There was no orchestra, no projector, and no choir. All he brought was a relatively modest six-piece backing band—with whom he set up all of his own equipment; there wasn’t a roadie in sight. The sound guy didn’t even cut the music playing through the house P.A. or dim the lights when Stevens and his band came out to begin the set. While a sold-out theater show usually wouldn't be called “intimate,” Stevens' complete lack of grandiosity and amusing stage banter seemed to bring him down a little closer to the audience. “Whassup y’alls? I’m Suff-jan Stevens,” Stevens declared in his best urban accent before launching into the hauntingly beautiful “Seven Swans.”

“If you run, he will catch you,” Stevens sang with caution as he plucked at his banjo. The incredible backing band built toward a huge crescendo behind him: Trumpet and trombone swelled, the drums began to fill up the room, and guitar distortion thickened and became fuzzy as the song reached its revelatory climax and the crowd went slack-jawed.

“This next song is about the Upper Peninsula, your friendly neighbors to the north," he said, introducing "The Upper Peninsula," from 2003's concept album Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State. "Well, friendly and pathetic too,” he added. This, like many other songs from the set, was cleverly re-arranged for the smaller backing band, which included the fluttering voice of Nedelle Torrisi of opening band Cryptacize. Torrisi nailed all of her back-ups (and occasional leads), with ease while adding textures and melody with synthesizer and auto-harp.

While the set drew upon a number of heart-wrenching greats like “To Be Alone With You” and “Casimir Pulaski Day,” and even pulled out the famously epic (and still unreleased) “Majesty Snowbird,” Stevens also delivered several new songs that jumped into seriously jazzy, synth-twitching, Herbie Hancock-esque weirdness. “Tonight is basically going to be a live workshop setting at your expense,” Stevens joked. “Don’t be surprised when we begin stopping and starting songs over again and practicing our scales.” One new number, “All Delighted People,” found Stevens stretching out his voice in a more forced way than usual as the backing band (all of which, even the horn section, were amplified with a microphone run through guitar pedals) created a warped, jumpy, and jazz-infused backbone. The next new one he played—which he began by stating, “I’ve been getting a lot of flak for never recording love songs. This is my response to that”—was called “Impossible Soul” and had more of a synth-soaked electro-dub feel. “Age Of Adz” was an epically odd number that built swirling synths, noise loops, and crazy horns into a darkly dynamic blast of crawling rock.

The performance reached into Stevens’ lengthy back catalog, but didn’t really pull anything from his two recent instrumental releases, The BQE and Run, Rabbit, Run. “I know you were probably expecting all the hits, but thanks for enduring our workshop,” said Stevens before wrapped up his set with a stripped-down rendition of “Chicago” that for some reason called for the placement of two capos on his guitar. Afterwards, Stevens and company came back out for two encores, “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.” and the last of the new tunes, “There’s Too Much Love.” The latter proved to be the poppiest of his new batch. It also thrived on odd timing, crazy vocal rounds and harmonies between Stevens and Torrisi, and lots of wiggling synthesizer. Stevens’ new tunes are definitely less immediate than, say, “Chicago,” but they're evidence that Stevens is as ambitious and brilliant as ever. It also provides hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a proper new album out of him soon.