Concert Review: Dan Deacon, Future Islands, and Teeth Mountain at the Foundation Room, May 1, 2009
Dan Deacon‘s current tour, in support of his new album, Bromst, is to electronica what a live performance by the Roots is to hip hop. Times ten. Rather than turning knobs and tickling a keyboard over only a programmed drum loop, Deacon employed a guy pounding furiously on a drum kit. And another guy on a drum kit. Not content with the percussive fury of two ?uestloves, he recruited four or five musicians to play a gauntlet of electronic mallet instruments and floor toms. Add in a pack of guitarists and bassists, a flock of keyboardists (or is it a ‘gaggle’ of keyboardists?), and a glowing green skull, and Dan Deacon’s electronic assault orchestra was complete.
An NPR story on Deacon pegs the number of supporting musicians as 15. I had trouble getting close enough to the mayhem to get a full count, and the flashing red and green lights didn’t help. If watching the performance from the sidelines felt like an epileptic aura, approaching the thrashing mass surrounding Deacon was a grand mal seizure.
