Girl Talk

Henry Fonda Theatre - October 24, 2008

Live Review by Alexis Roberts

The boy genius, Greg Gillis, better known by his DJ moniker Girl Talk, took the Henry Fonda by storm for two full nights of dance partying, It was no surprise that Gillis would easily be able to pack the house on a Friday night, but I came to find out that he had easily sold out both shows, as people were posting their tickets on craigslist for outrageous prices and I’m sure there were people buying. Just about a year ago, almost to the exact day, he was spinning at the Echoplex, which resides beneath the Echo in (you guessed it- Echo Park). It’s a spacious club in its own respects but The Fonda is a large venue and to sell out one night there is a feat. Two nights in a row is downright impressive. But Girl Talk is sort of the current God of the moment and all of these people basically worship at the altar of his Macbooks and speakers.

I went to Friday night’s festivities. There are always benefits to seeing the first day of a two-day stop at any particular place. Going on the second day usually makes me feel like I’m going to get some sort of grand finale treat (which actually seldom- if ever happens) but on the first night everyone is fresh, raring to go and pumped to get the party started.

Obviously he had brought friends on tour with him, but the anticipation was almost too much to bear as the other acts did their best to keep the anxious crowd entertained, until it was time for Girl Talk to finally take the stage. Grand Buffet was the act (I call it an act and not a band for a reason) that took the stage before Girl Talk, and they were surprisingly entertaining and novel in their own drug-induced way.  Their white-boy laptop-hip-hop was powered by odd lyrical content, and even more strange banter in between songs (Beavis and Butthead for office in 2008). They were accompanied on stage by a friend (well, I think it was their friend) whom opened their set for them with a 45-second extemporaneous, interpretive dance routine, and then proceeded to continue the dancing the entire time they played, never getting tired or missing a beat. Grand Buffet, all be it they were entertaining, is something that I would never want to have to sit through again, but for the interim they kept me from checking my blackberry incessantly, which is more than most bands/acts/movies/TV shows and people in general can do for me.

As soon as Girl Talk was ready to go, the security gave in to Gillis’ requests to let people from the crowd onto the stage with him. Kids down in the front bum-rushed the barricade so as to get up on stage and have their moment in the ass shaking spotlight, a glimpse of the programs Gillis uses to make these intricately layered mash-ups or to just snap a picture of themselves next to him while he was at work.
Gillis radiates energy like an ADHD kid who stopped taking his aderall would. He quite literally bounced out onto the stage and opened up the set immediately with a very familiar version of "Play Your Part (Pt.1)", which is the opener on his most recent album Feed The Animals, which was released at the end of last spring “Radiohead style” ("pay what you will”).

The Girl Talk style is really a big mash-up of Top 40 (of today and yesterday), popular hip-hop and rock and roll. There is something for everyone. It’s clear how Gillis clearly hears things differently than the average human does. He attests to this when he has mash-ups in which he mixes the likes of The Verve’s "Bittersweet Symphony" over top of the Ying Yang Twin’s "Wait (The Whisper Song)" and it makes you stop and say “holy shit- those two songs DO have similar melodies”. Typically there are about 3 songs going at once and usually you can clearly pick out 2 of the three easily, but before you can figure out where that drum fill is from he has already up and moved onto something else. This is truly music for those with radio ADD.  If you ever get stuck on a song and wonder what the hell that one that you can’t quite decipher is, you can always just check out his Wikipedia page which lists every song he mixes, in chronological order.

The set bobbed and weaved intricately with familiar versions of his album mash-up’s as well as some other stuff that isn’t on the albums. Gillis knows how to keep his crowd captivated and often switches it up just enough that it’s familiar but still certainly not predictable. The crowd went crazy at a few key moments yelling and clapping when specific songs like MIA’s "Paper Planes" were showcased.

Gillis moved around the entire time, occasionally shouting inaudible but passionate thank yous into his microphone.  The room pulsated with bass, flickering stage lights and dancing. It was a full-blown dance party and most of the dancing was safe and harmless, although when dancing hard it’s easy to accidentally catch an elbow to the eye or get dry humped by a drunken, sweaty minor in a neon headband. The trick is to hang back a bit as all of the serious dancers migrate toward the front.
After just about two solid hours of music, Gillis called it a night and the lights switched on to reveal a sea of humans covered in perspiration, hair frizzed and tousled and faces smeared with make-up and sequins. The glow jewelry was no longer illuminating them through the sea of people, the party had stopped, and it was time to go. As we filed out into the evening there were the murmurs of how fucking good that show was and a whole lot of his disciples rambling on about wishing they had his job. It’s not easy being worshipped - but somebody has to do it and I can’t think of a more deserving DJ.