Boston was fortunate to have Girl Talk on one of the last weekends of the summer, along the water at the Bank of America Pavilion. It was a beautiful evening under the tent in the mid 70s. The crowd was a mix of people. Some were donning the new en-vogue neon colors, while others stuck to a more tradition casual night out garb. The homogenous mainstream crowd mixed well and was friendly and outgoing. However, everyone was at the Pavilion for one reason, to dance their faces off to Girl Talk.
EDMBoston was most interested in how Girl Talk's Boston show would work EDM, or Electronic Dance Music, into his set. Given EDM's new mainstream viability/crossover we believed this would be the perfect show to see how receptive a mainstream crowd was to the music.
Girl Talk ran onto the stage, literally, on or about 9:00 and came out to a loud roar as a song sample chanted "Girl Talk". Greg immediately took to the mic, standing on top the DJ table shouting, "BOSTON....Where we at Boston? How we Feeling Boston People? Front row back row you ready to celebrate Boston?!?". All the while, a balloon drop came down on the crowd. Girl Talk's energy was infectious from the start and it reverberated throughout the crowd.
Following Greg's loud greeting was his first sample of the familiar, "Play Your Part(Part 1)". Seconds into the track a group of fans joined him on stage. The special group of roughly 50 fans were hand selected from the crowd before the show. The only requirement from the stage was that dancers be full of energy and dance their butts off. It was unique to see an artist take the risk and have so many fans on stage with him. Nevertheless, it never seemed to pose a problem and added lots of entertainment value. The amateur dancers kept the crowd guessing as to what they'd see next from them but not more so than the music Girl Talk would play.
The music Greg played throughout the show changed at variable rates as different sound samples played out. For the most part Greg was able to maintain a flowing tempo. Although there were times during the set that his tempo made abrupt jagged changes, the crowd was never lost one bit. Throughout the entire show, Greg danced and bounced behind his laptop, only stopping to shed the many layers of clothes he was wearing.
Girl Talk’s performance was notable because of Greg’s impressive command of the crowd. For a dance party, this is an important tool because losing the crowd is the dagger in any party. When Greg would feel the crowd drift from his he attention would get on the microphone and pump them back up like only a seasoned professional could. It was impressive and given the amount of shows EDMBoston has been to, and that skill shouldn't be taken lightly.
As for EDM, we can say Girl Talk didn't work very much of it into his set. Calvin Harris' "Feels So Close" mashed up with Eminem's "Forget about Dre (vocals)" was the only track we caught that was played at length. Still, the performance was random, ridiculous, and why GirlTalk is who he is: a creative musician at the upper echelon of the mash-up game.
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