[ATTENDED: November 20, 2021] Dan Deacon [rescheduled from April 30, 2020]
The only thing I knew about Dan Deacon was his outrageous “remix” of “Call Me Maybe” in which he looped the entire song on top of itself some 147 times. It was weird and irritating and funny.
And then a little while later he did a Tiny Desk Concert and it blew my mind and I knew that I wanted to see him in concert. That was six years ago.
I finally got to see him live and it was everything I imagined.
I don’t really know Deacon’s music. That’s not strictly true, I know a lot of his early self-released stuff which is really weird. His newer stuff is less weird, but still unusual–but his albums are usually beloved. And he has amassed a huge fan base.
Deacon is an unlikely electronic music hero, but hero he is. He is heavy (he joked about how he should have gotten in shape for this tour), balding and wears glasses. But he’s got a great sense of humor and an amazing gift for music. He has a college degree in electro-acoustic and computer music composition. And he has played in all kinds of bands throughout his career (from ska to grindcore). But it’s his electronic music, often with his voice pitch-shifted to beyond cartoon level, that makes the night.
Because his songs are four on the floor energy-ravers (although he has the good sense to throw in a breather or two).
Deacon started the night talking about Dracula. Dracula and vampires became a recurring joke throughout the night. And there were lots of jokes because Deacon is all about having fun–sweaty, grooving fun, with your closest strangers.
Because Dan wants crowd participation and interaction at his shows. On two separate occasions, he divided the room in half and had the two sides of the room interact in one way or another–in other words, not looking at him at all.
The first time was during “Paddling Ghost” when he set up a non-competitive dance contest. He picked the first two people and they did an interpretive dance for up to 30 seconds at which time, they tagged in someone else. The one woman misunderstood that and tagged people in but stayed, so the effects was somewhat lost, but, eh who cares. It was really fun watching people do their own weird thing and imagining what I would do if I was dragged out there (which at first I recoiled from, but then wished would happen).
For the second time, he had pre-selected dance captains comes out and do slow, broad movements for the rest of his or her side to follow. So all of us on the right side of the club were to do what our captain was doing while facing the the left side of the club who were all doing what their captain was doing. Every minute or so, the captain would switch out with someone else. It was certainly difficult to see what the captain was doing, but it was fun trying.
But before the dance off(s), there was some music. The joyful “Become a Mountain” (like a catchy Philip Glass song) and the insane high pitched vocal mania of “The Crystal Cat.” It’s funny to think of this guy, who could be your dad, bopping around, waving his arms like a wizard and conjuring up this wild music.
He got everything to calm down as he recited some calming words designed to make us relax and feel better, all to the tune “Learning to Relax”
There’s not a lot of singing along to Dan Deacon (although everyone seems to know the words), but he requested a sing along for “Sat By a Tree.” He broke the audience into thirds and we each took a part of the doo-doo-doo section.
He also made a very convincing argument that Lenny Kravitz is a 600 year old vampire [note his scarf collection]. He imagined a 600 year old version of “Are You Gonna Go My Way” that he’d been sitting on for centuries until the time was right to release it.
After slowing things down somewhat with the lengthy “Arp” suite, he broght things back up for the end with the super catchy song about death “Sat By a Tree” and “Feel the Lightning,” a slower song with some really fun fast verses.
10, 000 Eyes and 400 hands
And all of my arms are made of the sands
And oceans have all been dried up and left
They became the skies and then they all wept
The first time they heard the song from Tom Petty
The one where Johnny Depp plays the rebel named Eddie
The sky was the limit and then it came crashing down
And we came crashing down. Dan encouraged us to jump as high as we could. It was weirdly liberating. Like everything Dan does.
I would absolutely see him again, even if I need to wait another six years.
- Become a Mountain ⊄
- The Crystal Cat ‰
- Paddling Ghost ß
- Learning to Relax ∝
- Snookered ß
- Wham City ‰
- Change Your Life (You Can Do It) [single]
- Arp I: Wide Eyed ⊄
- Arp II: Float Away ⊄
- Arp III: Far From Shore ⊄
- Arp IV: Any Moment ⊄
- Sat By A Tree ⊄
- When I was Done Dying ∝
- Feel the Lightning ∝
⊄ Mystic Familiar
∝ Glass Riffer
ß Bromst
‰ Spiderman of the Rings
Change Your Life (2016)
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