words by Josh Phelps
photos by Jane Briggs
Bonus: Bmoremusic.net has the audio
It’s really hard to make plans on New Year’s Day. Rather, it’s hard to keep plans on New Year’s Day, a day usually reserved for one of your top 5 to 10 hangovers of the past 12 months. But, when Ottobar announces the first solo show ever by Deacon of Animal Collective with support by Daniel Higgs of Dischord’s Lungfish, you may as well quit your bitching, scrape the ice off the windshield and the whiskey off your teeth, turn up the Stevie Wonder to 11 and head north to Howard Street.
We arrived to an already packed Ottobar (big up to Leg Up! management for the press/photo pass after my 5-hours-before-the-show-request) to find Baltimore’s own Dan Deacon and DC’s Ian MacKaye holding court amongst the teeming hipster masses. Notwithstanding this early validation of the trip, I was still surprised at the volume of people due to the date and the freezing temperatures. Since the headliner is a Baltimore native and still associated with one of the most celebrated groups and albums of 2009, if not actually participating in Merriweather Post Pavilion, it makes sense, especially in a town that seems to support their own instead of eating them alive.
Describing Daniel Higgs’ presence as a curiosity would be a gross understatement. He lumbered onstage to a small chair with a lyric book, tobacco pouch, squeezebox, and nothing else save for some worn bells strapped to weathered shoes. As he peered and grimaced across the crowd through his unwieldy beard, I had the feeling that this was the sort of man who might grab your arm on the street, wild eyed, but seeing right through all the bullshit you tried to pull off in 2009.
Appropriate for the New Year. The tattoo across his left knuckles said “fast” but the set was anything but with Higgs heaving, lunging, and preaching his self described “spectral harmonies” with the slow burn of the incense stage right. Over the course of 2 songs, but a singular rhythm and melody, we were treated to foot stomping stories of life, death, love, and God more reminiscent of a fervent revival than a rock show.
Over refrain’s of “Holy Biiiiible Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiime,” Higgs alternately held the Bible up as a “Golden lion head with a mane of doves” and then instructed us to burn it, ignore it, and stand on top of it until our tears ran dry. I’m not sure I understood his Gospel completely or the etching on his box, “Hoofprints on the ceiling of your mind,” but I felt the power of it. By the end he had the entire crowd speaking to the mystical revolution, a roomful bellowing harmonies that weren’t on key but certainly on point.
Joshua Dibb, aka Deakin, aka Deakon, aka Deacon, took the stage shortly thereafter as the crowd compressed closer to the front of the stage in anticipation of, well, no one really knew. Deacon hadn’t toured extensively, if at all, since supporting the Animal Collective records preceding Merriweather Post Pavilion. A cursory review of the always-reliable interwebz would lead one to believe that the touring and performing were not necessarily his glass of Natty Boh ($3 at The Ottobar – awesome) and he gave away as much with the opening remarks:”A lot of people, with everything I’ve gone through, have been telling me to just breathe. I have to be honest, I haven’t breathed tonight until Dan’s set.”
He gave away more as he commenced a five-song set initially as notable for the nerves as the performance. This was more endearing than anything else as we hung on every twitch, every finger shake and toe tap from one sample to the next, silently rooting for the hometown hero.
By song two, Deacon’s shoe shuffling slowly shifted to a genuine dance as we all breathed with him, basking in his soft vocals while he bathed in the protection of a twinkling semi-circle of at least eight pedals and writhing cables. Still, you might expect him to have had his hands sheepishly in pockets if he wasn’t so busy with the strumming and twisting. An amalgamation of bells, pan-flute, and whistles looped with a beat that melded with the thumping dance party from upstairs before disappearing with the languid trickling of water.
By song three, the prom dress was off and Deacon focused less on the overhead lights, closing his eyes and gripping the microphone to dispense soulful, if unintelligible to me, vocals over a three-note piano loop and strumming guitar shrieks and screeches. This could be the sound of future influence as he plans to take field recordings over the course of his supporting spot in Africa for fellow AnCo member/B-more native Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear.
The last two songs broke from the first three with the first danceable, head-nod factor of the evening. Constant strumming of fuzzed-out ethereal guitar noise marked the first as much as playful solos infected the second. The crowd danced through to the end of the set, Deacon crooning “I can’t see, my glasses fell, I need direction.” For a man heading on an African tour and raising money for anti-slavery charities, you could be comfortable assuming he’s finding it now. “This was a pretty sweet start to one-one-oh-one.” Indeed.
Before leaving the stage, Deacon paused to give voice to his mission in Africa which is being funded entirely by donations for which you get field recordings, art, and original packaging upon his return. While there, he’ll be raising funds and awareness for the movement to end slavery of the black Tuareg tribe. Find out more at Inspiration Community.
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