"What? This isn't the Beck show?" we heard a guy ahead of us in line cry out in the Great American ticket line last night. Nope, the sold-out show was for quirky folkster Sufjan Stevens, who's touring on the second of his albums dedicated to the American states, . (Beck was about five blocks down the street, at the Bill Graham.)

According to Asthmatic Kitty, the label that's putting out Illinois, they got an angry letter from DC Comics complaining about a picture of Illinois resident Superman on the cover art for Sufjan's album. They managed to work out a deal where they can sell the CDs they have but future albums won't have Clark Kent on them. So naturally, we ran to the merch table as soon as we got in, and, to our delight, they were selling off the CDs with the pictures of the Man of Steel. No, we didn't buy two (one to listen to, one to sell) -- but we thought about it!

Making the pre-concert settling-in process complete, we looked up from lovingly caressing our new purchase to see -- not only SFist Krissy, but also -- Jason Schwartzman! Well, it was either Jason Schwartzman or a guy with Jason's distinctive nose and bad posture, wearing an aqua tank top and swimming upstream with his posse to get closer to the stage.

Uneven metered time, the Fighting Illini, a loud guy in the back, and a song about John Wayne Gacy, after the jump.

Illinois