Photo Credit: thetripwire.com

Dan Deacon’s Thursday, May 7, show at The Metro had all the billings of another knock out performance, but on this night, the show never reached the ultra-high levels of fun for which his performances are known. Deacon and his band were not to blame, but instead a poor venue setup, sound troubles and a boorish and uncooperative crowd put a bit of a damper on the evening’s proceedings.

Deacon recently dislocated his shoulder and had one arm in a sling, which was quite troublesome knowing his performing style. Deacon’s playing requires two hands about as much as any musician out there. He soldiered on admirably in spite of the injury, leaning extra close to his table of musical gadgets and gizmos so that his hand on the injured arm could still manipulate the dozens of knobs and keys before him. Also admirable was his decision to keep with his usual practice of playing in the audience. Though this time he wisely surrounded himself with venue security staff.

It’s fitting that Deacon had protection because Thursday night’s crowd was unreasonably aggressive. There was constant pushing and shoving, which Deacon repeatedly addressed. Becoming so annoyed from the get-go, he stopped the show after the first song to lead everyone in a repeat-after-me style pledge to quit all the pushing, which was later ignored.

The performance itself worked with Deacon running through a good portion of his excellent new album Bromst, while trying to hide his frustration with the crowd and the sound issues. The stage monitors were spotty, and his instruments and gadgets didn’t always respond the way he expected. Deacon tried his usual crowd participation activities like the human tunnel and the dance-off, but once again the crowd was uncooperative and reluctant to clear out the necessary space.

An obvious off-night from a usually phenomenal live performer, Deacon overcame these problems and played some of his great, earlier tracks like “Wham City,” “Crystal Cat,” and “Silence Like the Wind” without any major pauses. The show was salvaged with that run and ended, like most Dan Deacon shows, on a high note.