Trippy Green Skull

Tweet Last night I found myself swept up in the frenzied worship of a strobing green neon skull on a stick. A man who looked like Timmy Mallet after losing a fight with a barber had erected said skull as part of his live show. It was a cunning focal point for the crowd's attention while he kneeled on the floor sending out wave after enormous wave of jackhammering electrochip noise. The skull, flickering evilly in the centre of all this, made the endeavour one of the strangest and most exhilarating gigs I've ever been to. By setting up in a tiny spot of floor in the centre of the venue, Dan Deacon subverted the dynamics of how performers and audiences traditionally interact, making the madness unfolding around the skull feel revelatory. It was a giant, democratic free-for-all freak out. Lots of stuff happened. There was a dance off. The audience engaged in a bit of pre-techno yoga. We sang off lyric sheets. But this was all beside the point. The real point of Dan Deacon's show were those moments of almost ejaculatory abandon when the music hit another impossible sky-high freakout. Here, the skull seemed to take complete control of the crowd, mercilessly whipping it into a single juddering mass of sweaty, gawky, elbowy kids whose inhibitions had long since been shot to pieces by Mr Deacon. Here's the free pitchfork MP3: Dan Deacon-The Crystal Cat Update: Nialler 9 just posted a great review of this gig, and he includes some self-shot camera footage that goes someway to capturing the wild magic of the show