Dan Deacon at The Big Top, October 7, 2009

The first time I saw Dan Deacon was also the first time I had ever heard of Dan Deacon. I had caught faint snippets of conversation regarding the show in the weeks preceding its happening, but had paid them no mind, the way most unknown things are dismissed as inconsequential by most people. What little details I had of the show held no appeal for me: it had been booked by my boss from the university library, cost seven dollars, and was taking place not at a bar or other usual venue but instead in...an art gallery.

It was mere hours before the show before I finally had a serious conversation about attending. More like an argument. My friend was insisting to me that we go, and I, for reasons unknown to myself, was belligerently refusing. Eventually, though, I came to the agreement with him that I had no real reason to say no.

It was raining and there was huddle of bodies under black umbrellas surrounding the entrance. The streets glowed with that particular golden phosphorescence of wet asphalt under streetlights, like oil slick about to burn. We were there even before they had opened the doors, and the crowd had gathered in a scattered clump around the entrance rather than anything that suggested a line. As soon as word came from the front that they were about to start taking our money, the clump compressed in semi urgent forward manner.

One by one, we filed in. Inside, low green lights fell across a stage that had been erected in the center of the gallery. Piled upon it were all manner of strange props and set pieces, clearly handmade. They were painted in fluorescent paint that emitted a garishly bright reflection of the dim light within the place.

The first two bands were great, I'll say that. They were freaky psychedelic folk types, with masks on and and a habit of growling and screaming throughout their songs, marching their legs in place emphatically and with flawless rhythm, like some hallucinated army. People responded to them with the usual enthusiasm of concert goers, but there wasn't much depth beyond that. While impressed with them, I still hadn't been led with the two openers to believe that I was about to witness anything particularly spectacular.

There was a lull of darkness between sets, and the conversation around me grew steadily more tense and excited. A commotion up front caused me to crane my neck in curiosity, and I saw that there were towers of light being set up not on the stage, but in front of it. Over the lights were more masks, and immediately before them had been placed a regular variety wooden folding table, against which the crowd was pressing anxiously.

Somehow, in the confusion, I found myself thrown up at the very front of the crowd, among those who were having their thighs dug into by the table. Every face around me had an ecstatic look on it, whereas I'm sure the look on mine was closer to bewilderment, still having no idea what was about to befall me.

Suddenly the crowd went quiet, and shifted inexplicably backward. From my periphery a large man in a dirty t shirt and rhinestoned hat started pushing his way towards the center and the table. I stepped back to allow him through, and he came to settle in a spot immediately next to me. I wasn't sure who he was, I didn't believe that he could be the hotly anticipated Dan Deacon himself, but then he picked up the microphone and started to speak to the crowd.

He spoke to us so familiarly, and instantly the air seemed to change in that room. There was a mysticism of sorts hanging over his head, as though his bald fatness gave him some sort of eerie power over people. He stood with his back to us, working on the equipment at his table, bobbing in time to the beat while the crowd pulsed wildly around him, dancing under the flashing lights, sweating and laughing.

His music was only the superficial layer of his performance, though. I found myself taking part in an enormous game after some time, with this bizarre man as our puppet master. He was telling us, as a crowd, to do things and, magically, they happened. I was surprised when I became part of a dance contest, with the crowd divided and rooting in halves for whatever dancer happened to be on the floor in front of them. Dan Deacon had us holding hands, touching each other's heads, breathing, swaying in unison; we participated without question. At each moment, I wondered to myself how he had possessed us so. He had, in the matter of minutes, turned us into a giant family, a fortuitous gathering of all our favorite strangers.

For grand finale, he constructed something so grand and wonderful that is never should have worked. He sent all of us in that gallery back to the third grade. "Link your hands together above your head," he said, "like a London bridge." Pair by pair, we swooped into position, forming into a great snake that ran all around the room and, in a shocking twist, out the door and down the block. Somewhere down the street the beast looped back on itself, pointing its tail end back down the street. "Now," he instructed, "run through." single file, we broke free from the chain and ran through the tunnel of arms constructed after us, falling out at the other end and linking back up at the end to keep the train going. The music kept playing, and he himself ran through, flailing his arms and spinning, a wild child. We were jovial and energetic, caught in some dream world where adults could play like children, in the most grownup fashion.

When we were all set back in the gallery, he was gone.

It was like some spirit had visited us, and we weren't exactly clear on how to handle it. I stood in an awkward group of acquaintances outside, and we made conversation about small things that didn't include the show. It seemed none of us had much we felt we could say. Nothing seemed appropriate or correct. The feeling he had left with us was impossible to articulate. To this day, I say that that show was the best I ever saw, but find myself stuck in a rather speechless place when asked to explain what it was that made it so great. Even times I saw Dan Deacon after that night didn't compare. I suppose it was the incidental collision of circumstances, the way it so often is when wonderful things happen.