hooves on the turf

A lot of love came Dan Deacon’s way at McCarren Pool. People offered him hugs, someone his sunglasses and another a bag of ice to keep cool (the first he warmly accepted, the last two politely declined). Most impressively, fans offered the kind of devotion that comes from being well-versed in all Deaconian traditions involving sing-alongs, chants and co-ordinated finger waves with stretched arms (whatever is the technical term for this particular move). I’m guessing it’s official: Dan Deacon is a movement!

While I was taking photos, Borchers was down in the pit:

As a 3rd tier opener for Octopus Project, Dan Deacon’s set was a fraction of what it usually is. But at about 5 feet from his signature, crowd-level table (equipped with his colorful gadgets), Deacon might as well have been a headlining act. The set was filled out by opener OCDJ, friend and fellow Baltimorite.

More after the jump.

Deacon. The man, the myth, the same awful blue shirt and shorts (one of my favorite artists this year). A champion of getting people to have a great time, he decided to begin with a unique countdown, whose explanation first confused the piss out of me. Once executed, it made (less than) complete sense, as, when the countdown reached 2, he began to draw out every syllable of “MCCARREN POOL PARTY” until he was out of breath- and this guy can hold a note.

From there he kicked it off by hitting play on his new blue iPod shuffle, which seems to have replaced his classic 90’s discman he had so much trouble finding batteries for at his Mecury Lounge show. However, when he had it paused for a while and it turned off automatically, he complained to whoever had given it to him that this was a terrible feature.

So he didnt have the lyric sheets to “Wham City” this time, but we got another round of the dance-off and a sing-along to “Silence like the wind over take me …. OOOOOoooOOOoooo”. Deacon said in excitement, “Can you believe these words were written? In this order?”

(sarahana’s note: Explaining the tradition of a tag dance-off, Deacon asked people to not be a coward but also not hog the floor. The first girl hogged all the way, joined even by her friend, so it didn’t turn out to be the traditional tag dance-off after all. There were just a bunch of people dancing at the same time.)