Sufjan Stevens and a band of misfit merrymakers (superman chicken, zombie nun, skeleton santas, Beirut's Ben Lanz as one of two trombone players, Rosie Thomas in the form a bass-playing snowwoman sidekick) landed their sleigh at the Neptune on Saturday night for the Seattle installation of Surfjohn Stevens Christmas Sing-A-Long: Seasonal Affective Disorder Yuletide Disaster Pageant on Ice. Once the early-arriving around-the-block crowd made it through the theater's door, they (we) were greeted with a unicorn-clad "Christmess" songbook containing the lyrics to several holiday classics, inscribed on its front cover with the fourth instruction from John Wesley's Select Hymns:

Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, then when you sung the songs of Satan.

The audience, many bedecked their finest reindeer antlers, fair isle sweaters, battery powered strings of holiday lights, santa hats, rosy cheeks, jingle bells or acoustic guitars, were the sort who won the mad scramble that sold out the show in a matter of minutes and who were very likely to have done their (OK, our) homework by watching the whole series of "bonkers" infomercials to arrive prepared to follow these guidelines to the letter.

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