{"id":947752,"date":"2026-10-27T04:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947752\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T04:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T04:36:09","slug":"sufjan-stevens-makes-first-live-appearance-in-over-eight-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/947752\/","title":{"rendered":"Sufjan Stevens Makes First Live Appearance in Over Eight Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, Sufjan Stevens<\/a> made a surprise onstage appearance during Meg Lui\u2019s show at Tempo in Kingston, New York. Stevens accompanied the singer-songwriter on piano and backing vocals for her song \u201cElvis Queen<\/a>,\u201d taken from her new album Instant Validation, which Stevens produced. It marked his first public musical performance in over eight years. Back in 2023, Stevens revealed he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barr\u00e9 syndrome<\/a>\u2014a rare auto-immune disorder in which the body\u2019s immune system attacks the nerves\u2014and was working to relearn how to walk and use his hands. Watch a clip from the performance below.<\/p>\n

This September 25 concert was Lui\u2019s record release event for Instant Validation, which came out that same day via Asthmatic Kitty Records. Although it\u2019s technically her debut album, the Hudson Valley-based singer-songwriter has written music before and worked with Stevens in the past; she contributed background vocals to his most recent album, 2023\u2019s Javelin<\/a>. The two met through mutual friends in the Catskills and recorded Instant Validation at Stevens\u2019 home studio. \u201cWith Sufjan there was so much more out-of-the-box thinking, and we ended up adding layers upon layers that created an unrestrained soundscape for the record,\u201d Lui previously said of the experience.<\/p>\n

Last year, Stevens said he was doing \u201cokay\u201d in an interview with Vulture<\/a>\u2019s Craig Jenkins. \u201cI\u2019ve had some pretty difficult things happen to me, so I\u2019m in a state of repair and survival,\u201d Stevens elaborated. \u201cI\u2019m not really in any state of mind or any position to go on tour yet. But I\u2019m starting to see the light. I\u2019m starting to feel a sense of direction toward something meaningful and substantial. I\u2019ve been focusing on the moment and on things that feel very silly and Zen: serenity and acceptance and duty and stewardship.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the years following his diagnosis, Stevens reissued a 20th anniversary edition of Seven Swans<\/a> and a 10th anniversary version of Carrie & Lowell<\/a>, he produced a children\u2019s album<\/a> for John Legend, and the musical Illinoise<\/a>\u2014which was based off his 2005 album Illinois<\/a>\u2014won a Tony Award<\/a>. Stevens has also hopped on new songs by Mina Tindle<\/a> and Mouse on Mars\u2019 Jan St. Werner<\/a>. These days, he\u2019s busy taking a more hands-on approach at his label Asthmatic Kitty and in his backyard garden at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Sufjan Stevens made a surprise onstage appearance during Meg Lui\u2019s show at Tempo in Kingston, New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,1062],"class_list":["post-947752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}