Big Ears Festival 2010

Big Ears Festival is over- at least for me anyway. I arrived at the festival on Saturday and was left wondering where on earth it was at. Downtown Knoxville had a little hustle and bustle, but nothing compared to what I would’ve expected for a music festival with big headliners. This was what I liked least about the festival. I was really expecting more cohesiveness given that it was, you know, a festival. I only saw three street performers while I was downtown, and only one of them is worth mentioning. (A homeless man jamming out on a newspaper bin.) I think Big Ears’ lack of outdoor entertainment really makes it suffer. Knoxville’s layout could easily support outdoor acts. Perhaps, I’m just spoiled with Athens’ abundance of free music and outdoor entertainment during AthFest. Anyway, enough of the negativity, lets get down to why I ventured to Knoxville to begin with: Sufjan!

The Bijou ran way behind on starting the concert. I waited two and a half hours before guitarist Gyan Riley took the stage. Sufjan did walk across the stage before the show and gave a kind smile and wave to some girl who hollered, “Hey, Sufjan” at him. I got to the theater early enough to hear Clogs, Shara Worden, and Sufjan doing sound check through the door. Riley played 4 classically inspired pieces on guitar to open. He is mind-blowingly talented at what he does, but at the end of the day, it’s not my cup of tea. After waiting around forever, the last thing I wanted to hear was a sleepy guitar. To quote Stars, “I counted stars on the ceiling”- 34 to be exact.

After Riley, Clogs, Shara, Sufjan, and Aaron Dessner came on and played “Raise the Flag”. Sufjan peaced out for a bit after the song and the rest of the gang performed more songs from Clogs’ new album. At one point, Shara turned to the side, and I realized that she’s got a bun in the oven! Clogs eventually performed some of their instrumental stuff, and I was blown away. Padma Newsome is unbelievably talented. I was entranced by his performance on violin. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been so moved by an instrumental piece. I got a rush of tingles every time he played. Eventually, Sufjan came back out for “The Owl of Love”. After the song, Aaron said that he asked Sufjan if he’d perform one of his songs since it would be silly to come all the way down to sing on one song, so Sufjan performed what he called, “The Owl and The Tanager”. It’s better known as, “Barn Owl, Night Killer”. It was beautiful. I secretly taped it, but the visuals are rather poor. (The security guard at the Bijou was ridiculous, which is why I only have one crappy cell phone picture). Calder Quartet and Bryce Dessner came out for “Adages of Cleansing”. I was really looking forward to hearing Matt Berninger of The National perform “Last Song”, but when it came time for the song, Aaron informed the audience that Matt was delayed and Padma would be performing the song. It was a bit of a disappointment. The crowd erupted into a very long clap after this song. I think they thought “Last Song” meant the last song of the set. The actual last song was “We Were Here”. Sufjan played banjo for this one. 

I was hoping Sufjan was going to play more than the four songs that he did, but no, after “We Were Here”, the house lights came on and the show was over. I think the young people in the audience were hoping the same thing. The audience was a weird mix of grandpa and grandma types (I actually saw one lady knitting during the show!) contrasted with annoying hipster types. There were considerably less people at the show than I thought there would be. Before Clogs took the stage, the Bijou was maybe at 50% capacity. I guess most people didn’t care/didn’t know that Sufjan was playing, but my love knows no bounds, and I’ll say that it was worth the 5 hour drive and endless waiting to see him perform, even if it was only a handful of songs. I am sorely disappointed/unbelievably jealous I missed the film thing and show that Sufjan was at on Friday, but I was only just in-route to Knoxville.  Next time, Sufjan, next time!