Sufjan Stevens writes and sings, extravagantly, about America, but his America is not a place you or I will recognise. He has dedicated two albums of delicate and affecting art-pop to US states and threatens to continue until he has serenaded all 50.
This isn’t a brash gesture. Stevens’ music, a graceful flutter of keyboards, guitars and brass, ardently and affectionately evokes the secret soul of his homeland.
He celebrates neighbourhood weirdoes and peculiar feats of topography, with the sort of self-seriousness musicians usually reserve for songs about their difficult childhoods and laboured romances.
On Illinois, his lavish paean to the Prairie State, Stevens lets his attentions ramble. They wander hither and thither, taking in Superman, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy and Casimir Pulaski, an obscure Polish general who has given his name to an American national holiday.
At times, the record suggests a piece of amateur anthropology trapped in a chamber-pop coffin. Yet, Stevens’ arrangements – sweet, epic, yearning – counter his tendency towards quirkiness. Illinois is often flighty and cartoonish, but always earnest.
In concert, Stevens, flanked by his six backing players, the Illinoise Makers, emphasises the quirky over the serious. The band take the stage in cheerleader costumes, shaking pom-poms and grinning sharply. The exception is Stevens, who is dressed in a stars-and-strips jumpsuit and orange track-pants and does not smile.
Instead, he sings with exaggerated solemnity, and leads the group in ditzy little cheerleader chants that, on native turf, are probably devastatingly ironic. Here, they feel twee and rather surreal.
An elaborate, generous songwriter, Stevens proves unexpectedly fuss-free as a live performer. He focuses on the new album, with only a handful of diversions into its predecessor, Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lake State.
Stevens’ most memorable compositions are his least obvious; quiet, fragmented, and strewn with bits of banjo, xylophone and brass.
For the encore, Stevens and the Illinoise Makers deliver a euphoric reading of his best song, the soaring ‘Chicago’, and the crowd seems to hug itself in delight and delirious disbelief.