Sufjan Stevens is playing at Merrill Auditorium tomorrow, but you already knew that

This is a strange one for me –  as I was lucky enough to catch Sufjan Stevens the last time he played in Portland, which was  at Port City Music Hall in 2009 (seen in a clip above). It was during that period of dormancy following the immense aura and lore of Sufjan Stevens Invites You To: Come On Feel the Illinoise.

..Illinoise swept-up a small subset of an indie culture inthralled with Stevens’ Magnetic Fields—esque promise of writing, composing and producing 50 albums for all 50 states, a plan he later rebuked).

At some point during the post …Illinoise fervor and subsequent dormancy, Stevens was playing a string of small club shows with Brooklyn’s Cryptacize (RIP — the album Mythomania is great and worth a listen), and Port City Music Hall happened to be one of his stops in this “small clubs tour.”

It was of course, amazing, intimate and one of my personal favorite shows of all time (Third, behind Kanye/Kendrick at TDGarden and, Swearin’ at SPACE Gallery in 2014 with High Spirits and S.S. Cretins).

Tomorrow night’s show is tomorrow at Merrill Auditorium — tickets are still available for $40 at the door and wherever else tickets are available.

The venue and ticket price have both changed drastically from his last stop in Portland, so good for him and great for Portland and the arts. We’ve all already bought our tickets! It’ll be a trending topic on Twitter is our national submarket the moment you realize, “Damn, that really is his natural singing voice.”

And what if you haven’t bought tickets yet? You probably should. Listen to this — are you convinced? Good.

And just remember: “Maan, the last time he was here with those limited edition t-shirts and that tear-jerking version of “Chicago” He played to a smallish club — Port City, I think it was. It was during a beautiful moment of discovery in his career. YOU HAD TO BE THERE!).

UPDATE 4/13, 11AM: Sufjan just released a brand new Sufjam for y’all. Maybe he’ll play “Exploding Whale” for tomorrow’s show?