Live Review: Dan Deacon - Northfield, Minnesota (Carleton College)

Download: Dan Deacon - "Snake Mistakes"
Download: Dan Deacon - "Totally Boner Eat Shit"

"There's a wolf with your face on its tip. If it doesn't catch you, it will die. That's how fast you have to run."

The whole audience was standing in a circle, around which a few audience members at a time were supposed to be running, giving epic high-fives along the way. I made it about two feet before slipping in a puddle of what I hope was someone else's sweat and spilling my ass all over the floor. That wolf would have ripped my throat out.

You know it's a good show when humiliation in front of 90-110 really fucking pretentious hipsters doesn't even matter to you.

So, I totally went and saw Dan Deacon Friday night at Carleton College. Afterwards, he went up to MPLS and opened for Girl Talk, where those of you who have money might have seen him.

I suppose I need to describe this concert somehow. Imagine the most awesome dance party ever. Speakers pump beats, a strobe light gives people epileptic seizures and everyone is showing the fuck off.

Now, feed that party, like, 9 kinds of psychedelics. The song lyrics change from being about "luvin' u, gurl" to being about rattlesnake guns and they transport your mind to some freaked-out place called Wham City. And you're being watched by a green skull on a pole. Maybe Dan Deacon bought that skull at Walgreens, maybe he killed an opponent and used voodoo magic to turn his skull into green polyvinyl compound. You just don't know, so out of fear of upsetting the Deac, you dance for your life. By the end of the set, the entirety of the Cave, Carleton's Pub, was dripping with sweat and other kinds of condensation (almost electrocuting the Deac at one point). I was standing under a dripping beam dancing my ass off and screaming jibberish because it just kinda felt like the right thing to do.

I'd say that wraps up the atmosphere at a Dan Deacon show pretty well: Dancing just kinda feels like the right thing to do. But it fails to mention something else: a Dan Deacon show is a testament to the awesomeness that is the human spirit.

Oh, yes, that was cheesy, but hear me out. I first heard about the Deac on Liam Lynch's podcast. Lynchland is a total DIY thing. It's just one dude going out there and making something that he cares about. And that's true for Dan Deacon, too.

He's not the typical techno guy with all kinds of hyper-produced beats and, well, really any idea how to write a song. He's just some dude who rigged up some weird beat-making device out of light bulbs and toys and shit. Anyone could be the next Dan Deacon. You could be the next Dan Deacon.

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(April Wright)