Dan Deacon brings the party to a converted pharmaceutical warehouse in Bethnal Green

For those who have never experienced the sheer wonder of a Dan Deacon gig, it’s quite difficult to convey the strange euphoria they elicit, especially in a city famed for the reserve and studied aloofness of its inhabitants but it’s almost if, for the space of ninety minutes, the denizens of the capital’s live music scene are given a free pass to shed their inhibitions, forget about looking “cool” and have actual, non-ironic fun.

Now, some might posit this sounds like sorcery and that everyone involved should be dragged to Hoxton Square to be burned on an artisanal wooden stake, but there’s a completely rational explanation to why Dan Deacon’s psychedelic noise-raves are so irresistibly joyous. Firstly, there’s the music. On record, it certainly isn’t to everyone’s taste, being a smorgasbord of bleeps, bloops, chipmunk vocals and technicolour synths that do not so much caress the eardrums as pummel them into rainbow-tinted submission. But tonight (16th June) at Oval Space, it’s perfect dance music- upbeat, percussive (especially with the addition of a drummer for this tour) and relentlessly effervescent. It doesn’t hurt that for this show Deacon has selected the finest cuts from his back catalogue, from the fuzzy electro-punk of “The Crystal Cat” and kaleidoscopic synth odyssey “Wham City” to the twinkling beauty of “Snookered” and the stately majesty of the marvellous “USA” suite.

Secondly, there’s the audience participation. Normally an artist’s attempts to cajole an audience into doing something more complex than taking crap photos or half-heartedly clapping is treated as a low-level war crime, but not only does it work in the context of a DD show, it massively enhances the experience. There’s the trademark dance-off, where two audience members throw their most compelling shapes at each other before finding another pair to take their place. There’s an interpretative dance contest, where the crowd is split in half and attempts to collectively emulate the moves of their chosen leader, no matter how ill-advised that might be. There’s the WALL OF LOVE, a hippie-ish counterpoint to the Wall of Death involving high-fives rather than body slams. It’s all completely ridiculous and silly and not all-that-grown-up, yet by the end of it, even the most sedate audience is inexorably transformed into a full-on mass of dancing bodies and massive smiles.

And finally, there’s Dan Deacon himself, an unabashed nerd whose energy and self-depreciating humour is the glue that holds everything together. You need to have a great deal of charisma to compel naturally self-conscious audiences to let themselves go, and Deacon’s unusual combination of unpretentiousness and sincerity in what he does achieves that perfectly. Sure, his performances may not be for those who take themselves too seriously, or for those with an steadfast aversion to joy but for the rest of us, for sheer unalloyed delight Dan Deacon’s shows are simply without peer.