(all photos by Keith Klenowski)
The line stretched out the door and halfway down the street in front of the Southgate House when I arrived, and even though nobody likes lines, I knew I had no choice but to take my place at the back of the crowd. It moved quickly enough though, and I soon entered the historic house setting my sights on one of the more sought after gigs in the Cincinnati area in some time, at least for the indie crowd.

When I made it into the Southgate ballroom, one of three opening bands were already performing and the crowd was already thick. I looked around and asked myself, when did Cincinnati get so many hipsters? Of course, our fair city probably does not have as many hipsters dwelling within its limits, because a show like this was pulling from all over the region. You see, when Dan Deacon, the mastermind behind the “Round Robin” tour, came up with the idea, he knew that it would be a limited run, and as a result, decided to book the tour with certain “centralized” locations to pull in from an entire region. So, it made more sense to see the crowd of ironic facial hair and 1980′s t-shirts when I realized they had come from Lexington, Louisville, Dayton and probably even Columbus.

The lineup, of course, which in was cleverly being dubbed “No Deachunter” to include all three band names, took the stage at around 10:30 and any doubts I had about how they would pull this off. To the left of the audience, both members of No Age set up shop, while no the far right, Deerhunter was ready to go. In the center of it all was Dan Deacon, complete with his light show, which basically resembles a three sides stoplight with a glowing skull on top.

Deerhunter would play the first song, although the other musicians supported throughout and “Cryptograms” may not have sounded better as a result. The volume was already pretty high and the energy was beginning to well up too and as soon as Deerhunter ended the song, No Age jumped into one of their songs, and as you can imagine, the volume level peaked. Dan Deacon was the last of the three to feature a song, and the crowd went nothing short of bonkers when his light started to flash and he began to sing into his vocal distortion thingy.

All of a sudden, the energy exploded and there were people being hurled up on the hands of the audience and throwing light-sticks around the venue. The temperature rose in more ways than one as you could feel the heat from the stage and on the ballroom floor. The trio of bands continued to alternate songs for a couple more rounds until each then took a turn alone on stage as well. Deerhunter, the band among the three that I was most interested in, played their amazing hit “Nothing Ever Happened” two times during the night, which seemed odd, but I’m not complaining, and No Age had everyone bouncing when “Teen Creeps” came booming out of the speakers. But I have to say, Dan Deacon stole the show. I’m not a big fan of Deacon’s music, but you have to give the man credit, he knows how to throw a great party.

From his intoxicating backing beats to his ability to “micro-manage” the crowd into making a circle on the ballroom floor, nominate a dance troupe leader and then have everyone take a knee and follow said leaders movements was nothing less than hilarious.

Overall, there was plenty to be excited about on a night like this. After all, Cincinnati briefly became the center of hipster culture and instead of dissapointing, showed up and partied in a way not seen since Girl Talk last hit the Queen City. And just in case I would forget it, my ears continue to ring as a reminder of the nights reckless festivities.

Lots more pictures await you after the jump…

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.