Dan Deacon Happened At KXSC Fest
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Ed. note: As a journalist, it's good practice to put some space between you and your subject. As a music journalist, this means keeping a certain amount of distance from the act, even if (or rather, especially if) you're going into the show already enjoying the artist's music.
That mentality went out the window about 15 minutes into Dan Deacon's set.
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KXSC Fest, the annual event put on by the namesake student-run radio station, has traditionally been held outdoors on USC's campus. The show, known as just "Fest" in shorthand, is a combination of food trucks, local vendors, and live music.
This year, Fest took place in the Campus Center Ballroom, but just because the space was inside didn't mean that the show was limited in its scope.
Outside on Trousdale, Buttermilk Truck and LudoTruck served up red velvet pancakes and fried chicken, while inside, booths from vendors like USC Program Board and the very trippy Future Eyes stood alongside fractal projections and Ground Zero milkshakes.
This writer caught three of the evening's sets:
This twofer took the stage and seemed to lift off into a different plane. The energy in the room went up considerably, as trap beats and some stellar song selections (this writer couldn't believe it when the speakers started blasting a remix of Danity Kane's "Bad Girl") shook the Ballroom. Even though their name is impossible to pronounce by memory (Guzun Guzu?), their music ethos is easy to understand—move your bodies, pleibs.
With red lights on full blast and a residual creepy vibe (left by the hooded KXSC hosts of Grimmrobe Incantations), Chelsea Wolfe and her musical entourage took the stage. As evidenced by the rise of other witchy vibe songstresses like Florence Welch and Lizzy Plapinger (of MS MR), Wolfe's soft grunge/gothic aesthetic doesn't detract from the depth of her voice and the snarl of her guitar and drum licks. Wolfe gives off a serious vibe—when the host of Fest stepped on stage before her set was over, she turned to her violinist and angrily mouthed "What the fuck"—but that seriousness is the result of extreme concentration, not just aesthetic schtick.
Oh man. Dan Deacon.
Deacon's notorious among live music fanatics because of the unparalleled craziness that happens during his show. This much is evident from any video of his live show, but when it actually happens in front of you, it's tempting to close your eyes and think, "No, this isn't really happening," right before you open them back up and leap into the fray.
Deacon's show consists of him directing the crowd, whether in cult-like "Goldmember"-worshipping chants or in human tunnels or impromptu dance-offs, and his clear enthusiasm for his music and for the spontaneous moments inherent to live shows carries through. When his lights weren't working, instead of pitching a fit, he implored the venue operators to turn up all the lights in the room, even the thin Cylon lights on the ceiling.
Then, even when his own lights, including a glowing skull-topped strobe by his equipment, started working, he continued drawing from his surroundings, whether by asking to shut down all the other lights in the room or by asking the smartphone users in the crowd to download and then use his Dan Deacon app.
It's impossible to articulate the feeling in the room after Deacon finished his set with a seemingly neverending rendition of "America," but suffice it to say, nobody walked out of the Ballroom without breaking a considerable sweat and smiling deliriously as they emerged from the sauna-like gut of the Campus Center into the cold bite of the night.
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During the night, KXSC unveiled their new fundraising initiative, and you can help out by clicking through here. The station's site has also undergone a considerable redesign, and it looks as retrofuture cool as their robot mascot.
Read more of NT's show reviews here.
Reach Music Editor Lilian Min here; follow her on Twitter here and on Google+ here.
