Opening the festivities for the evening was local noise rapper B L A C K I E (it is always to be written in all caps with spaces). I’ve caught him quite a few times now, and each show gets better and better. Screaming his rhymes through his home made amps,   B L A C K I E gets his point loud and clear. A lot of his songs are true stories, and they are filled with raw emotion. As soon as the rapping started a large crowd gathered around to dance and scream along, as this is a staple of all of his shows. If you haven’t heard this young rapper yet, go to his next show. You won’t be disappointed.

The next couple of bands to play around the Orange Show were decent at best. I never caught their names, but really wasn’t too inclined to find out. I spent my time during these sets enjoying the odd but nice seating at the Orange Show with some friends of mine thinking of ways to convince the gods to make the rain stop.

Unfortunately by the time the rain stopped, which was just in time for Dan Deacon to play, the decision had already been made for him to not play with his full 10+ piece ensemble. This was disappointing as his set lacked a lot of live performing. Even though Dan Deacon was forced to play solo, it was one of the wildest performances I have ever seen. His audience participation is second to none. The highlight of his audience participation came when he forced the audience to form a human tunnel (audience members put their hands together to make a tunnel, when one runs through they keep adding to the tunnel and so on). The tunnel idea actually worked, much to my surprise. The tunnel went all the way from the middle of the Orange Show to the side walk across the street, and back into the venue.

In addition to great audience participation, the music was top notch. Deacon’s latest record “Bromst” is a fantastic record for any dance party. The tracks played off the release ignited a dance frenzy, which from above looked very visually impressive with the crazy lighting going on with the music.

In spite of getting rained on early in the show and Deacon being forced to play solo, the show was a stellar dance party, and sounded great. Hopefully Deacon will return to our city soon on a nicer day to play with the full band.