The Button Factory, Dublin
Trying to describe a Dan Deacon show is like trying to capture lightning in a jam jar, but on this night, returning to a city he holds so dear, there is certainly something electrifying at work, as he sets about creating his own stage on the floor of the darkly-lit venue, with a green glowing skull on a pole, keeping watch over proceedings.
With the crowd gathered around this rosy-cheeked, red-shorted musical wizard, his table resembles something like an inventor’s, with copious amounts of coloured wires, knobs, and buttons to help create his layered soundscapes, which are dizzyingly inventive and all-encompassing, drawing you in to a place of joyous mystery.
That place is one where space-pop, classical and electronic music meet to create the kind of synth-heavy, percussively brilliant compositions unlike anything you will have heard before.
Deacon’s live performances are about breaking down barriers between artist and audience, getting lost in a hazy radiance as he does so.
Though he is so prolific, from collaborating with Francis Ford Coppola to composing for orchestra, creating a comedy project and heading the Wham City collective, his most natural home is in a live context, and he moves between 2007's Spiderman of the Ringsand 2009's Bromstwith a gleeful ease, with Paddling Ghostas a particular highlight, its child-like, playful vocals and euphoric explosion of beats and psychedelic organ acting as a kind of prayer.
Much of his work is in some way spiritual.
He acknowledges that we are all emotional pilgrims, and transmits this message continuously throughout his work; in the pleasing bassline of Woof Woofor the darkly pretty xylophone on Get Older; there is a clarity and generosity to his music.
His clear-sighted sense of possibility means that, as tradition dictates, we find ourselves creating a human tunnel, with his sweet cries of "safety first!" framing the endeavour, and later on, as the crowd erupts to the inspiring strains of The Crystal Cat,we realise that there is nothing safe about Dan Deacon's music.
