How Girl Talk Left Me Speechless
One of the most critical music choices we all make happens at the gym. Six weeks ago, I was getting bored with my usual workout playlist, and I asked a friend, a gym regular, if he had any recommendations.
“Girl Talk,” he said. “Cue up his new album Feed the Animals, take a deep breath, and try not to put your face through a wall.” I was skeptical that anything called “Girl Talk” could deliver the promised results. But I downloaded the album, slipped it into the shuffle, and hit the gym. The next thing I knew, I had bench-pressed 400 pounds 50 times without breaking a sweat. I then moved to the treadmill and ran a full marathon at 5 minutes per mile. For a warm-up.
Lesson learned: there is something about Girl Talk music that makes people go insane.
Seconds after Friday night’s Showcase Live show commenced, the audience rushed the stage in exuberance, completely taking it over. Girl Talk (Greg Gillis) was instantaneously engulfed by the most imposing storm of humanity I have ever seen. (Look at those pictures!) Yet, somehow, in the eye of this gleeful underage-drunkenness-fueled squall, Girl Talk seamlessly mashed up hit after hit, song after song. As he gradually lost his shirt, the audience rapidly lost their minds.
I spent most of the show in the relative safety of the periphery, where there was room to breathe and practice my B-boy moves. However, photos were needed for this review, so I made a foray into the voracious pit. That may have been the most intense ten minutes I have ever lived through. To begin with, the temperature was at least 50 degrees hotter than my previous position. Second, it was impossible to dance, or even move; you had to surrender to the heave and pinballing of the crowd. Despite the rabid intensity, the vibe was upbeat and friendly. People sang along to songs they liked, shouted like hyenas any time Girl Talk asked for it, and I’m quite certain more than a few couples were becoming intimately acquainted. Come to think of it, perhaps the most apt description of Girl Talk's sound is “music that makes 16-23 year old white girls want to get it on.”
I have never seen a show’s energy level redline from the first note to the last as this one did. After the initial stage rush, several assistants helped fuel the party atmosphere by constantly throwing confetti and inflatables into the crowd. They also had these amazing guns that could instantly unfurl a roll of toilet paper and shoot it into the air. Nobody has a toilet paper budget like Girl Talk. Not Blue Man Group. Not your hospital’s gastroenterology department. Nobody. The music swept across genres and eras, from modern pop to old school hip-hop to classic rock and back to current rap, all backboned by non-stop irresistible dance beats. Girl Talk transcends the phrase “something for everybody” and comes frighteningly close to delivering “everything for everybody.” As the show ended, Girl Talk looped some beats and stood atop his turntables, towering over his devoted minions, hands up and facing the sky, looking as iconic as any musician ever could.
Heaven forbid, if Girl Talk were a girl, I would be running after the tour bus.
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