Photos: Yours Truly (Forgive some blur, it ’twas my first time)

Dan Deacon likes to fuck with people; Dan Deacon likes to help people. The paradox lying in the previous statement might not carry weight anywhere else other than the psychosomatic world of sonic recreation that Deacon has on a leash. From one angle, the man toys with the crowd and has disregarded the contextual English language for the more fun phonetical fantasies, while from the other angle I’ve never witnessed such a communal experience – Deacon thrives on this, destroying all inhibitions and parting the sea of people like an electronic Moses – more on that later. On Wednesday April 22, the Troubadour hosted Baltimore natives Teeth Mountain, Future Islands, and Dan Deacon with his ensemble, giving the sold out crowd more than they could have ever hoped.

Being somewhat untrained in navigating through West LA, I found myself lost somewhere between Sunset and Santa Monica Blvd. Never giving up, I made multiple stops to ask directions, each time receiving a different path. It figures that when I finally arrived, Teeth Mountain were done and Future Islands had already taken stage. Future Islands took us for a ride in a sound-ship that uses bass as its main fuel, with reserves in drums and synths, cranking out repetitious rifts while Samuel T. Herring switches between a rhythm induced soulful serenade and a shriek that sounds too familiar to not be good.

When Future Islands left the stage it was time for the cavalry to arrive. If Deacon wasn’t deeply in love with sonic vibrations, I could see him in an upper management corner office, with full windows as walls. I say this because it was apparent that he was suffering from a cold, the water, tea, and vodka told me he knew how to quell it, yet he still controlled the entire scene, screaming out orders and asking for help from anyone and everyone around him – he even talked shit on the venue (rightfully so) for not turning out the ceiling lights. He had to have everything perfect, playing around with knobs and buttons until it sounded just right, the virtues of a true 21st century virtuoso. After the initial shenanigans, Deacon fed the crowd slowly, starting off with his intro-team building exercise and then beginning “Of the Mountains,” which built into a set of eclectic peaks and valleys, stopping every now and again for a communal gathering or piss break.

There were almost too many instances to remember in which Deacon got the crowd involved. The first time happened as more of a precaution, Dan stepping in front of his now infamous MacGyver’d together table to stop the kids from pushing it over, a little less community than basic respect. But when everyone found his or her place Deacon decided to get a snap wave going, which if your confused is just what it sounds like, a wave of snaps through the crowd. After the snaps died Deacon thought it proper to have a solo dance off by parting the crowd in the middle and having each side pick names. Left got to be named Chile, while the right was left with the egotistically planned name of the birthday girl, who, you guessed it, named it after herself. From there Deacon slid through another couple of songs until he started planning a hand tunnel that would lead from downstairs up the balcony and back down the other side to loop into itself. It worked out fantastically well as kids jumped and jived their way through an endless spirit tunnel. After the tunnel collapsed there was another brick of music added to the wall while Deacon schemed up a quirky concoction. This time it involved the right side chanting “If you like Pinacoladas” while the left side laid down some basic chants. To finish things off in proper Wham City fashion, Deacon lost the ensemble and found the iPod, taking it back to the basics as he proceeded to bring down the house with none other than “Wham City.”

Whether Dan Deacon purposely toys with people or not has nothing to do with what the man does. One thing that is still resonating with me as I write this is that instead of soaking up the entire spotlight, he actually introduced all 13 or something members of the ensemble, a customary act that I have not seen in a while. Deacon is a testament to community, from Wham City, to the communal happenings during his shows, Deacon finds a way to penetrate your mental barrier and create a dancing, screaming, hand snapping kid out of you again.