Quiet Color

by rafi silver (pic by frank hamilton)

Saturday night, I dragged my girlfriend over the Williamsburg Bridge to the Dan Deacon midnight show at the Bowery Ballroom. She had no idea what to expect. In fact she had only heard one Dan Deacon song late one night in my room and said, “Oh, I like this!” So, I thought “Sweet! How about I buy two midnight tickets, without asking her, to go see him live at the Bowery Ballroom? Why not, right?  It’s only 12 bucks.”  I mean, the only things I had heard about his shows were from friends who said they were fun and hard to describe. Well, they were right. It certainly is hard to describe, but it’s my goal here to try and give you a step-by-step description of what this was like for me and leave you to be the judge or whether you think this is brilliance or buffoonery.

Artist: Dan Deacon Song: Don Mattingly

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As I approached the ballroom at 11:15 p.m. last night I saw a mob of young hipsters who had just left the earlier show surrounding this overweight, half bald, smelly man in a white jump suit waiting outside. I said to my girlfriend “That’s Dan Deacon.”  She was shocked. “Really? If I saw him on the street I would walk the other way?”  Well, that didn’t seem to stop anyone.  They hugged and kissed him and took pictures with him like he was their idol. “Anyone have any acid?”  I heard from a guy waiting in line to get into the later show. “Oh. So this is what I’m about to get myself into,” I thought. Then all of a sudden a random guy came right up to my girlfriend shook our hands and said “Hey, what’s up? I’m Dave. What are your names? Are you excited?”  “Ummm…Yeah, sure,”  I said. “Nice! I’ll see you in there!”  “Okay, Dave. See you there.”  My girlfriend, then gave me a look, like “Where did you take me?” To be honest, I had no idea.

We entered the ballroom, overpaid for a couple of beers and waited for Dan while we watched the two highly mediocre open bands. It was finally 2 a.m., my girlfriend was getting antsy, and it was time for Dan to start. They turned down the house lights, the crowd cheered and the DJ in the back of the house started to blast Enya. Nice way of getting the crowd ready for some cool electronic music.  During the end of the song Dan and the rest of the band came out. Someone behind me screamed, “Count off.” Dan seemed to think this was a great idea. “Yeah. We haven’t done a count off in a while. Let’s do a count off,” Dan said. He instructed the crowd to raise their left hands and look up to the balcony/ down to the crowd and say “Hello old friend. I’ve missed you.” The crowd was into it. Then he instructed us to start the count off by whispering 25 all the way to one while raising our voices on each ascending number. By the time we got to one, the crowd was screaming and ready to roll. Finally, Dan flipped a switch and the music blasted. The crowd, as if told what to do, started to jump in unison and my girlfriend and I found ourselves in the middle of a mosh pit. But, this wasn’t any ordinary mosh pit. It was the safest mosh pit I have ever been in. No pushing. No punching. Just jumping and moving together in a very aggressive, yet controlled way. We were into it.

Artist: Dan Deacon Song: C I’m a 100% Fun

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After a couple of songs Dan asked for the house lights to be turned on and directed the crowd to make a huge open circle in the middle of the ballroom. He then asked a random guy to jump into the middle of the open space and follow his direct instructions. He told him to run as fast as he could around the circle high fiving everyone he passed. Then, once another person felt like they were ready, they could join in and so on until the entire crowd would be moving in a big circle while listening to “Of the Mountains.” The exercise didn’t seem to work, but I could see how cool it would have been if it did.  “It’d be a lot cooler if you did it!” Dan continued to try different crowd experiments by having us tango with each other to “Woof Woof,” kneel down on the floor together, and move as one to the entire other side of the room. But the one exercise that stuck out to me and made this concert one of the coolest events I have ever been to, was when he made the entire crowd do London Bridges Falling Down. He had it start in the main room, out the door, pass the merchandise, down the stairs, through the bar, back up the stairs, and end back up on the other side of the main stage. My girlfriend and I ended up on the stairs holding our hands up together watching everyone pass below, thinking, “This is never going to work.” But sure enough five minutes of people passing below, it was our turn to pass under. I have got to say that when you are passing under hundreds of hands and smiling encouraging faces above through the Bowery Ballroom to some cool electronic music, it takes you on a journey that I didn’t think I could experience at a concert.

Artist: Dan Deacon Song: Mr. Big Stuff Cover

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In result, I realized that a Dan Deacon show isn’t a concert. It’s more of a social experiment using music. Being part of it makes me feel like I had participated in the making of the music.  As long as the crowd continues to stay positive and play by the rules, this could be the future of live electronic music. But, if it goes wrong, it would just be ridiculous. Crowd participation. Not such a bad idea. Or is it?