Mr. Deacon Comes to Eugene.
Dan deacon gave the kids of Eugene a taste of the East of Coast’s ‘wham city’ last night with his beautifully absurd performance at the Wow Hall. Despite false rumors of a fourteen-piece ensemble accompanying Mr. Deacon, the morale of fellow observers was higher than I anticipated. In the furry of week four I found myself almost studying through the show, but decided to drop everything and let myself get a little sweaty.
As a relative newbie to the Dan Deacon legacy, and a virgin to his live performances, the show dominated my expectations. I was comforted with Deacon’s familiar staples of oversized eyeglasses, grainy backdrop videos and that glowing green skull as I nestled into the crowd. From the start he had us on our knees smacking kisses onto each other’s foreheads, making us countdown to fifty before the music came. Set up on ground level he led our newly founded dance community with his digitally synthesized orchestra. Fidgeting with his light fixtures just as much as his switchboards, Deacon’s symphony of sound and light consumed the lower floor of the venue. The high pitched hum of his voice rang through the modulators along side the electronica waves. By his instruction we all partook in a tag-team dance contest, formed a synchronized interpretive dance and made a human tunnel that wrapped around Wow Hall. His social experiment/dance party glory left us all a little lighter.
