Dan Deacon's NYC Whitney Museum Dance-Off

Dan Deacon makes music for the hipster acid trip. Part maniacal, part incomprehensive, part fantastical and all parts genius. There hasn't been a Dan Deacon concert I've gone to where some sort of authority have tried to shut down the operation. At Pitchfork last year the fire marshal's tried to nix Deacon's set after too many people showed up at the tent. Earlier this evening I hustled my ass up to the upper east side for Dan Deacon's show at the Whitney Museum. The Whitney Museum is dedicated to American art and likes to give younger and less well-known artists exhibitions (see Whitney Biennial.) Almost as soon as Deacon's show started security stepped outside to examine if the large window wall separating the dance floor and pseudo-stage area would take it down. From the inside you could see Deacon's music pulsating the glass.The costumed crowd, which narrowed in from a line that wrapped around an entire street corner, included a tiger, superheroes, wigs, people dressed in fluorescents (yes! its finally coming back) and Deacon's dad (who is rad). I felt like I was walking into a neo-rave.Security guardsDeacon started the whole thing off by leading the crowd in a group stretch. His reasoning "we're going to be doing a lot of dancing." Dancing they did. I watched as Deacon formed a dance circle with fans from NYC and Baltimore staging a city dance-off. The dance-offThere were crowd surfers. A crowd sing along for Billy Joel's "In The Middle Of the Night" and more than one shout out to Ethan Hawke and his role in Gattaca. But perhaps the best crowd involvement was for what Deacon called "The Gauntlet." Everyone was commanded to join hands and create a human tunnel that spiraled through out the crowd. Inside you were in the wormhole. The GauntletInside the wormhole Ceiling at the WhitneyBut the best part was when lyrics to Deacon's new track "Wham City" were thrown into the crowd for an all group sing along. Ahmamamamamamamamamama.