Sufjan Stevens, 9/23/05, Cannery Ballroom

I'm pretty conflicted about this one. To say that I'd been eagerly awaiting this one is an understatement, and maybe I had my hopes set too high.

The line to get in was ridiculous, and we got there at 7:45 and it was stretched all the way to the parking lot. We had the misfortune of being in front of one of the most annoying people I have ever heard before, this small girl who decided she would share her opinion on everything to this poor guy she had just met. She was obviously very passionate about her views, but she kept talking about God and her version of liberalism and it was pretty obvious she was a product of ignorance. We tried our best to tune her out, but her voice was piercing. Unfortunately, that was just an inkling of the douche-factor of this crowd. We finally got in the doors around 8:45-9, a full hour after they were supposed to open, they said something about a security issue. I don't really know.

Anyways, we got in there, not terrribly far back from the stage, but we made the dumb mistake of standing near a pole. During the course of the night, I constantly got edged more towards to pole and by the time Sufjan got to the stage I was basically directly behind it, so I all I could see most of the time was the trumpet player and the hyper guitar player. Oh well. That was really my fault more than anything for putting myself in that position. But seriously, who designed this place with poles in front of the stage. LAME.

Ok, the rest of the crowd. Basically the douchiest crowd ever. I've been to shows with the ultimate douche-potential (Los Lobos, drunk bikers. Do I need say more?) and they were nowhere close to this. Ashley had more run ins with them than I did, having beer spilled on her yet again and getting booty danced on. At a Sufjan Stevens show. Now, I don't want to judge people (which of course I am about to do now,) but as Ashley said "I assumed people who listend to Sufjan were reasonable people." How wrong we were. They were loud and disruptive, and acted like it was a freaking destiny's child concert of something. The asshole next to me had his cell phone on speakerphone mode and kept talking to someone loudly and of course I could hear the other guy talking back. Also, I really, really hate people who try to move up in the crowd, halfway through the show. Look, I'm short, I usually don't have the best view, but I stick with the place I get when I arrive, because that's just the right thing to do. You have no right to push me to the side and cram in there because you got there late. I've never really been one to yell at people about this (even though secretly I always want to) but last night two people almost made me break my silence. Obviously no room to move in, this girl and her fat ass boyfriend bulldoze through me like they own the space. Argh.

So, the music. To be honest, it was really hard to concentrate on it because of the people around me and the amount of time we had to wait and stand. By the end, my knees had cramped up and my back was sore. But really, the music was amazing. He played "Decatur," my favorite song, which hadn't been showing up in his setlists recently, so I was happily surprised. And "Metropolis" was absoultly amazing live. There was enough variation from the record to keep me interested and not feel like I was listening to a cd. But the entire experience left me sort of unfulfilled. Maybe in hindsight I'll believe I enjoyed it more. Ok, I'm out.

-ed