Sufjan Stevens ***½

Zellerbach Auditorium, Berkeley, California October 10th, 2006 Indie pop’s most theatrical songsmith amps up his act with choir, strings, dolls

NO ONE IN INDIE ROCK COMBINES AMBITIOUS theatrics with homespun sincerity like Sufjan Stevens. On the first night of two sold-out shows at U.C. Berkeley’s stately Zellerbach Auditorium, the Brooklyn composer employed a choir of twenty-four singers from the Pacific Mozart Ensemble and led a string-heavy fourteen-member touring band. During the instrumental breaks, Stevens rocked back and forth, causing the large eagle wings strapped to his back to flap - as kites, cheerleaders and other kitschy iconography flashed on a screen flanked by a silver Mylar curtain.

For all the extravagance, Stevens was restrained. By his own admission, his soft, unassuming voice competed with sweeping orchestrations and sometimes lost: Nearly every song began quietly with Stevens’ piano or banjo and built to full-blown choral furor. The symphonic splendor was too much of a good thing when applied to the tunes from Stevens’ subtle Christian allegory, Seven Swans, but wowed when drawing from last year’s extroverted, extraordinary Illinois.

During the set’s second song, “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts,” Superman blowup dolls fell from the balcony and bounced over the crowd. Inflatable Santas followed during “That Was the Worst Christmas Ever!,” a winsome preview from Stevens’ upcoming holiday box set. The evening peaked with the Little Miss Sunshine-featured anthem “Chicago,” the swelling arrangement suiting the song’s heart-tugging melody. If the rest of the night felt charmingly like community theater, this was Broadway.