I was introduced to Sufjan Steven’s music last summer by a girl I know. I remember thinking the whole sound was a little strange; I didn’t quite understand it. However, being bored one day this past winter, hungry for something new to listen to as well as being incredibly poor, I came across Sufjan again in my Pandora queue. The song “Chicago” completely blew me away and I was determined to find something immediately available by him.
I was lucky enough to find out that there is an entire, freely available, CC-licensed live concert available for anyone to listen to. It was recorded in 2004 and then put up on Archive.org as one gigantic stream of audio. You can get that here, however, I recommend getting it via the torrent on The Pirate Bay, as user tsilihineht was kind enough to cut up and label all the files into individual mp3 tracks for us! Get the torrent here.
The sound quality is really quite amazing, and the dialog in between is fantastic, adding another dimension to the concert. Small audio quirks appear at times; artifacts leftover from recording, which are easily ignorable. Steven’s only plays at small venues, and as such, he sells out very rapidly. You get a sense of real conversation between him and his audience in this set. Fans will appreciate hearing these songs live as they are rawer; many having yet to have been published on CD at the time of the concert. My favorites include…. oh just download the entire concert, it’s fantastic!
And RIAA take note; since having the pleasure of hearing this set I’ve bought 3 Sufjan CD’s and plan on attending concerts. I’ve been boycotting all RIAA stuff since they got sue-happy and started ruining people’s lives like helpless single mothers. (Please note, I don’t endorse illegal downloading; the Sufjan download here is Creative Commons Licensed, and hosted on Archive.org). But I do have to give Sufjan credit for being able to exist and compete in the digital economy of free. Stevens is currently signed to an independent label.
To all my happy readers, please enjoy the set as much as I do.
Once again, the torrent link.
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