Dan Deacon Coaches Noise Pop Audience on Self-Improvement

On Wednesday, the second night of San Francisco's Noise Pop festival, East Coaster Dan Deacon performed in front of a sold-out crowd at Rickshaw Stop. But unlike Deacon's show the previous night, legendary director Francis Ford Coppola wasn't in attendance. (The idiosyncratic musician is scoring Coppola's new film, 'Twixt Now and Sunrise,' and is also staying at the director's Napa Valley pad with Val Kilmer this week.)

At the Rickshaw, Deacon set up his equipment on the floor near the stage while a dense crowd encircled the maestro from every direction, not allowing him much breathing room. Before he got to the music portion of the show, Deacon spouted a monologue in during he introduced himself as Dave Duncan, made the audience do stretching exercises and told a disturbing anecdote about pets dying and virtual dog avatars. After riling up the fans with a countdown, Deacon began his Vocoder manipulations on opener 'Okie Dokie' from his first record 'Spiderman of the Rings.'

"It's more fun to move up and down than left to right," Deacon told the crowd before commanding the audience to form a big circle, which quickly widened into a full-fledged dance party. Deacon then tried out some new material including a still-untitled song that sounded more melodic than his previous endeavors but equally electro-focused.

Near the end of his 90-minute set, Deacon performed 'Woof Woof' from 'Bromst' and got personal on 'Snookered.' As a "junior prom" mirror ball spun around the ceiling, Deacon pervaded the crowd with his notions of self-improvement. He coerced them to put their hands in the air, create a canopy of hands and think about something they've done that caused them great guilt. With audience members rubbing strangers' heads, Deacon confessed 'Snookered' evolved from him having done a bad thing but didn't elaborate any further.

During 'Of the Mountains,' a friend of Deacon's stood in a middle of a circle and led the crowd in an interpretative dance that had them methodically kneel on the ground and move their arms akin to a yoga session. For his final two songs, Deacon performed the rambunctious 'The Crystal Cat' and the lengthy 'Wham City,' which incited dancing, smokiness and strobe effects. Once the journey was complete, Deacon profusely thanked the crowd and promised he'd be back to the West Coast soon enough.

Dan Deacon Performs 'Snookered' in 2009