When perusing the weekly concert listings, one will notice that the Monday slots are generally pretty empty. Not so for this past week, when Ram’s Head sold out months in advance for mashup artist Girl Talk’s first Baltimore show in nearly two years. Girl Talk, the stage name of Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis, has been releasing albums since 2002, but really broke into the mainstream with 2008’s Feed the Animals.
Last Monday’s show was in support of his most recent release, All Day, and its clean, commercial-inspired nature was reflected by the wide range in style and age of the concert’s attendees.
Plaid-vested hipsters, glitter-covered high schoolers and balding thirty-somethings all waited eagerly to witness the man who sampled the main riff of Phantom Planet’s “California” with Paul Wall and made it sound entirely natural. First up, however, was Penguin Prison, the solo act of New York-born Chris Glover, opening for Gillis with his backup band.
“This is our first time playing in Baltimore.” Glover announced, and it was evident by the amount of skeptical and impatient looks worn by the audience. Nevertheless, halfway through the opening song, “Something I’m Not,” the funky bassline and Glover’s Michael Jackson-esque stuttering soprano had the floor bouncing on the balls of their toes. The retro keyboard riffs and tight, 80’s drum fills rounded out the group’s old school pop sound.
Penguin Prison only played for half an hour, but they took full advantage of the short time slot by filling it with catchy hooks and hip-shaking grooves. Each time bassist Adam Chilenski shook his head back and forth, dreads flying while jamming to “A Funny Thing,” the action was imitated across the crowd, whether dreads were present or not.
Closing with his breakout hit, “Animal Animal,” Chris Glover praised the enthusiasm of Baltimore’s crowd, saying, “We never thought we’d be so well received here, especially on a Monday!” They left the stage to whoops and cheers, and a mounting excitement for the main act to finally begin.
As soon as the lights were killed after Girl Talk’s set-up was complete, Rams Head exploded with sound. The din was only drowned out by a mechanical voiceover, which at first appeared to spout out mere gibberish, then progressively sped up to chant “Girl Talk,” with which the audience enthusiastically joined. A curtain dropped in the back of the stage to reveal an enormous LED screen, sporadically flashing neon “Girl Talk”s and “All Day”s.
When Gillis finally came on stage, all of the fans’ pent-up excitement was finally let loose; many didn’t even wait for the music to come on before breaking out dancing and pushing the crowd around.
“How you doing Baltimore?!” Gillis screamed out before launching into the intro track of All Day, beginning with Ludacris’s “Move Bitch” sampled over “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. From then on, the crowd did not stop pulsing until well after Gillis left the stage nearly two hours later.
While the undisputed catchiness of each mashup would have been enough to keep toes tapping, Girl Talk went above and beyond with props. Halfway through the second song, balloons were being thrown around the crowd and a select group of lucky fans were invited to dance on stage behind Gillis’ equipment. Assistants were constantly spraying water bottles and blowing giant fans on the audience to help them remain hydrated and cool through each addictive remix.
The only time Girl Talk’s fans even slightly stopped dancing was when the “Black and Yellow” sample in “Triple Double,” came on, and that was only to angrily chant “black and purple” in reference to the Ravens’s recent defeat against the Steelers.
Gillis went through the entirety of All Day, with a few minor alterations in certain songs, then after a quick break, relaunched into an encore. “Let’s take it back a few years,” he told the audience, having by now lost both sweatshirt and t-shirt, sweat pouring down his face as he bopped around the stage, beginning the opening song to Feed The Animals. He continued to play mostly samples from that album, although a few tracks from 2006’s “Night Ripper” made appearances.
Throughout the set, balloons flew through the crowd, and giant colored balls bounced around that, when popped, covered the crowd in confetti.
The accessibility of the samples heard, from Nelly, to Len’s “Steal My Sunshine,” to Journey, make it no mystery as to why Gillis has become a household name in dance music for all age groups.
As the final notes of DJ Smurf’s “Ride On It” over Van Halen’s “Jump” played, a parting explosion of confetti washed over the crowd, and Gillis progressively sped up the sound until all that was heard was, again, just a continuous slew of noise.
He left the stage to ear-splitting adulation, and many didn’t stop dancing until well after the entire stage had been cleared of equipment. Not bad for a wintry Monday night.
