Dan Deacon brought his colorful glitch pop to No Fun in Troy on Thursday, June 8th. This is his first tour since the pandemic, he had a huge tour planned in support (he was scheduled to play Ithaca) of his studio album from 2020, Mystic Familar, and it was just about to kick off as everything shut down.
During the downtime, Dan turned his energy towards writing numerous film scores, including the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Ascension”, and the Adam Sandler Netflix film “Hustle.” The Troy show was almost at end of a scattered tour that started in March, and even though he was pulling double duty (there was an early and a late show) the passion of his performance had not faltered or aged from years past, once the music started, he still had the charm of a mad man possessed.
Joining Dan Deacon on the tour was drummer Jeremy Hyman. Hyman has played for Ponytail, Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks and also toured with Animal Collective when Panda Bear decided to sit out on drums during the Painting With tour. You know that if Panda Bear turned over the drumsticks to Jeremy for a tour, that he is an absolute monster behind the drum kit.
Starting out the night was Jeremy Hyman with a DJ set of some lovely ambient/house music that was the perfect appetizer for the night. His set entranced the crowd with some tripped out soundscapes, while occasionally locking into a deep house beat that would get the crowd moving. After his set he came back out with Dan to play drums, and since there were two shows and he played both sets, that made for an impressive 4 sets over the course of the night for Jeremy Hyman, a monster indeed.
Seeing a Dan Deacon show isn’t an average electronic music dance party, it is that, but it’s also an interactive slumber party with some like-minded strangers. It’s like going to a concert and all of a sudden that day in gym class breaks out where you didn’t have to play sports, and you just got to play silly games with a parachute. There is a lot of focus on the crowd and their dancing, which makes everyone feel silly and goofy, which is perfect mood for the kind of insane pitched up, ADHD-riddled, electronic pop music providing the soundtrack to all of this. Dan Deacon has really built up a nice catalogue of tunes to play live, and when you really distill down all of those earcandy electronic pop songs into a single show it’s a very impressive concert, musically, along with everything else going on. With the tour wrapped up and all of those scores under his belt, I think it’s a safe bet that Dan will be returning to the studio at some point in the near future for his next full length album.
Setlist: Become a Mountain, The Crystal Cat, Change Your Life (You Can Do It), Learning to Relax, Arp I: Wide Eyed, Arp II: Float Away, Arp III: Far From Shore, Arp IV: Any Moment, Wham City, Snookered, Sat By A Tree, Paddling Ghost, When I was Done Dying, Feel the Lightning
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