DAN! MOTHERFUCKING! DEACON!
Right, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Dan had dislocated his shoulder earlier that day, meaning he couldn’t get up as close as normal, although it didn’t stop him energetically directing the action from a safe vantage point. And yes, they ballsed up Snookered. The drums were slightly off, it didn’t quite sync together and although by no means a disaster, it did add a small tinge of disappointment to what otherwise could have been one of my Top 5 shows ever. But that apart, it was every bit as utterly, gloriously, dementedly sublime as I’d prayed it be. Dan Deacon doesn’t play gigs- he puts on a fucking party, and from the first song onwards he had the entire audience eating out of the palm of his hand. When they weren’t moshing like mentalists, he had them engaging in various silly games- perennial favourites like The Dance-Off mingled with new additions such as The Race, but it was The Gauntlet where the Master Of The Trippy Green Skull truly hit his peak. Two audience members were picked out at random, and asked to form an arch with their hands- the rest of the venue was then requested to dance through this arch, and upon reaching the other side, to continue it so it would eventually wind round the ground floor, head up the stairs, circumnavigate the balcony before returning downstairs- all to the musical accompaniment of Baltihorse. It could have all fallen completely flat, but the audience were totally up for it and it resulted in the most goddamn brilliant moment of audience participation I’ve ever seen at a gig. The videos and photos cannot even start to capture the atmosphere in that room- it made an I’m From Barcelona show look like a morgue in comparison.
Naturally, musical considerations may have played second fiddle to all the antics, but let’s give the 14-piece ensemble their dues- apart from the aforementioned fuck-up of That Song, they were superb (when you could hear them) and added vibrancy and texture to the songs a mere laptop could never hope to replicate. Special kudos to the drummers, who maintained the madcap tempo Deacon’s compositions required without breaking a sweat, especially during Paddling Ghost, one of the set‘s highlights. The venue was brilliant too (imagine the Koko if shrunk to half the size and actually good)- small enough to be intimate, but spacious enough so one could escape the crush once in a while, it was perfect for a show of this sort. Shame they didn’t play the mighty Wham City, but I can live with that- as it stands, this show so overshadows every else I’ve seen this year (except maybe David Byrne and MBV) I’m slightly concerned nothing will live up to it. Well, except for Dan Deacon’s European dates, of course.
(Photo: Kata Rokkar (Flickr))
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