Dan Deacon is absurd. Consider the following: a grown man wearing a sparkly purple hat, oversized, thick-rimmed glasses and a Flintstones T-shirt that looks a size too small approaches you on the street and invites you to watch him and his band play. Would you follow him into a small, dark performance space attached to a seedy bar? What if he asked you to play a game resembling leap frog and London Bridge with a room full of strangers that leads out into the streets of Minneapolis? Deacon and countless fans found the answers to these questions and many more at his May 2 concert at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis.

Billing Deacon as a musician is selling him short; he is equal parts aerobics instructor, kindergarten teacher, social experimenter, stand-up comedian and bandleader. His live show resembles a performance by the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, except the second violins are all playing toy keyboards and the percussionists have been instructed to break as many sticks as possible. The score has been indiscriminately marked with crayon drawings and Power Rangers stickers and the audience members have left their seats to build a human pyramid. The conductor is screaming chipmunk vocals into a microphone connected to a band saw while his sweat pours over a table full of electronic pitch-shifters, sign-wave generators and a single Casio keyboard. As gimmicky and bizarre as his setup may seem, Deacon manages to create some of the catchiest music on this side of Timbaland, minus the overwrought vocals of Ashlee Simpson.

Sure, there are plenty of dizzying noise-rock bands out there, trying to reinvent music at every turn, and countless magnetic lead singers can work a crowd to the boiling point and leave people screaming for more. But Deacon is different. He explores the fine line between extravagance and insanity, reaching unparalleled levels of crowd participation, backed by his 14-piece ensemble of drummers, synthesizer players and electronic sound-manipulators. His music is whimsical and experimental, and his vision is as excessive as it is abstruse. But Deacon no sooner takes the stage than he is greeted by a legion of loyal fans and newcomers alike who are more than ready to become part of his show for an hour or two.

Not once did Deacon’s stage put a wall between him and the audience. After a lengthy delay, with ostensible troubles setting up for 15 people and their instruments on the meager stage of the Triple Rock, Deacon announced, “We’ve taken our feet out of our asses, and we’re ready to play some music.” Before anyone on stage played a single note, Deacon asked the audience to follow him in a series of movements from behind his table of electronics center stage, starting with a simple fist in the air and ending with everyone on the floor in contrived positions. After he was satisfied that the crowd was ready, he asked everyone to sing with him. Getting his desired sound, he recorded the collective voices and looped it back, immediately sounding his signature blend of the electronic and organic, performer and spectator.

Deacon’s ensemble came into the mix, fusing seamlessly with the electronic sounds he produced. At this point, the concert took a radical turn at the whims of its eccentric ringleader. Deacon led the audience in dance contests; he had the audience wrapped up in lengthy monologues about nothing and everything; he also convinced everyone to partake in a crowd-swallowing rendition of London Bridge, in which everybody in the house ran through a tunnel of human hands that snaked out onto the street, around the corner and eventually made its way back into the cramped venue, which seemed powered only by Deacon’s perspiration. All the while he and his band pumped out an intoxicating blend of Looney Tunes-inspired baroque pop brimming with enough danceability to uncross the most sober spectator’s arms.

Deacon is as revolutionary in his traveling habits as he is with his music. Parked outside the Triple Rock Social Club, the host to two performances by Deacon and his ensemble last Saturday night, was a modified school bus painted pink and green, the S and the H of the word “school” justly covered by duct tape. Inside, Deacon could be seen napping with his head against a window before the show. A gallon milk jug, with its contents labeled “pee” blocked entry to the bus’s otherwise open door. The bus, according to Deacon’s website, runs on vegetable oil, and he promises free entry to any of his shows in exchange for five gallons of waste vegetable oil, as long as it’s clean and filtered. Bring thirty gallons and Deacon and his band will cook you dinner.

Deacon’s music is perfectly catered to today’s youth. Its spastic nature reflects the current ADD culture that has resulted from excessive internet tab-browsing and twitter usage. But his live shows induce extended euphoria focused on one man, extending concentrically to all surrounding him; the result is a focused epicenter of rowdiness and childlike camaraderie. I can only imagine what the 21+ show was like later that evening.

I give the show 3 out of 3 crowns.