KXSC Fest Presents: Dan Deacon

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Dan Deacon

As Dan Deacon and his supporting cast scurry on to the stage at the Campus Center Grand Ballroom on Saturday, you might think to yourself, “Ah yes, I am quite familiar with this merry prankster and his intricate arrangement of blips, bloops, whistles, bells, honks, squeals, squirts, and squicks on critically-acclaimed records like America and Bromst. However, I simply cannot fathom a live experience that can do justice to the immaculate complexity of those compositions. Pity.” Your inner monologue resumes nibbling on that indulgent and illegal plate of foie gras, unaware that Deacon and co. are prepared to offer a stirring rebuttal.

And then the searing synthesized cacophony of, say, “Guilford Avenue Bridge” or “Red F” roars to life, blasting your hoity-toity thought process across a psychedelic landscape cluttered with Dayglo chipmunk carcasses and sputtering cyberpunk locomotives (can trains really benefit from such an overhaul? This metaphor cares not). The communal dance circle envelops you as you thrust your smartphone aloft, the official Dan Deacon App transforming your screen into a dizzying spectacle of light perfectly synchronized with the music. Deacon commands you to kneel to the ground and whisper sweet nothings into your own palm, thanking it for granting you the ability to use HBO Go. You perform this task without hesitation – in fact, you revel in the sheer grandiosity of such a spectacle of nonsense. The two drummers on stage begin to pound out a primal rhythm and the room erupts in kinetic energy once again. You are the music; you are the mob. A human spiral materializes.

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-Zach Nivens, Music Director, Negative Fun