Sydney Fest – Part 1
Posted by at 9:41 AM
For Christmas my beautiful wife gave me tickets to a couple of music shows happening at The Sydney Festival. Basically the festival is a month long event featuring art, music, food, etc… taking place throughout the city. We figured that this is great opportunity, for us newbies, to see a little more around Sydney than just the typical tourist destinations.
Saturday Jan. 13th – Sufjan Stevens
The performance took place at The State Theatre in downtown Sydney. At street level, the theatre doesn’t look too impressive, save for the large neon sign outside – however once inside you are immediately taken back to a different era (namely the late 1920’s when the theatre was built). The main entrance foyer is quite lavish, with art deco accents in every corner and a very large and ornate spiralling staircase on the right to the upper balcony and on the left down to the main floor level. In the center of the main theatre hangs a huge crystal chandelier, which the theatre boasts to be the second largest in the world (weighing over 4 tonnes) – although I can’t find anything to prove that claim.
I found out the hard way that theatre management won’t let you take pictures inside. Here is the one picture I was able to take (of the entrance foyer) before being told the “rules of attendance”.
While I have only recently started listening to Sufjan (pronounced /’suːfjɑːn/) Stevens (thanks to Matt), but what I had heard I really like. I guess Sufjan’s music is best described as folk rock, but seeing him live really made him seem more like a composer of an orchestra whose music fits the folk rock form. While Sufjan stuck mostly to playing piano and guitar, he had a backing ensemble featuring a brass and wind sections. The theatre had excellent acoustics and really helped the music come alive. In addition to a musician, Sufjan is also a (amature?) videographer and his work was featured behind the band during the set. Some of the videos told a story while others showed images that went along with the music.
The whole performance was about 2 hours long and featured mostly songs off of his albums Michigan and Illinois. One standout performance was a 5 minute extraction from his over 1-hr commissioned piece about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and featured a hula-hoop dancer on stage.
Overall Jess and I had a great time listening and watching Sufjan’s performance and exploring The State.
Next up: The National & Clogs at The City Recital Hall.
Saturday Jan. 13th – Sufjan Stevens
The performance took place at The State Theatre in downtown Sydney. At street level, the theatre doesn’t look too impressive, save for the large neon sign outside – however once inside you are immediately taken back to a different era (namely the late 1920’s when the theatre was built). The main entrance foyer is quite lavish, with art deco accents in every corner and a very large and ornate spiralling staircase on the right to the upper balcony and on the left down to the main floor level. In the center of the main theatre hangs a huge crystal chandelier, which the theatre boasts to be the second largest in the world (weighing over 4 tonnes) – although I can’t find anything to prove that claim.
I found out the hard way that theatre management won’t let you take pictures inside. Here is the one picture I was able to take (of the entrance foyer) before being told the “rules of attendance”.
While I have only recently started listening to Sufjan (pronounced /’suːfjɑːn/) Stevens (thanks to Matt), but what I had heard I really like. I guess Sufjan’s music is best described as folk rock, but seeing him live really made him seem more like a composer of an orchestra whose music fits the folk rock form. While Sufjan stuck mostly to playing piano and guitar, he had a backing ensemble featuring a brass and wind sections. The theatre had excellent acoustics and really helped the music come alive. In addition to a musician, Sufjan is also a (amature?) videographer and his work was featured behind the band during the set. Some of the videos told a story while others showed images that went along with the music.
The whole performance was about 2 hours long and featured mostly songs off of his albums Michigan and Illinois. One standout performance was a 5 minute extraction from his over 1-hr commissioned piece about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and featured a hula-hoop dancer on stage.
Overall Jess and I had a great time listening and watching Sufjan’s performance and exploring The State.
Next up: The National & Clogs at The City Recital Hall.
Labels: Music, Sufjan Stevens, Sydney Festival, Theatre
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