Girl Talk brings in 2010 with a bang

Quick! What was the most important thing that happened in 2009? Kanye interrupting Taylor? All those celebrities dying? Barack Obama being inaugurated president? The Treaty of Lisbon coming into force? How about Girl Talk’s New Years Eve show at the Congress Theater? I think it’s the last one.
At 11:30, lights when out, suspicious smelling smoke filled the air, and music began playing: Gregg Gillis (that’s Girl Talk’s real name) came on stage. The scenery behind him was the most ridiculous/awesome/inspired set-up perhaps to ever grace a stage. A giant black curtain revealed a two story house—complete with a family room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Girl Talk played on a table set-up in front of the house, next to trees that were supposed to look like a front yard. How cool is a house party, on a stage, inside a dingy concert venue?!
At 11:59 pm, the house revealed another function. The borders of the house were LCD screens that counted down the last ten seconds of 2009. After that, two more giant screens lit up next to the trees and played a trippy video that fit nicely with the music. The party had officially started.
If you haven’t seen Girl Talk live before, rest assured, he does not just put a copy of Night Ripper in a big CD player. Instead, he changes most of his music, and plays some new songs that haven’t been released yet. His mash-up of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s “Next Episode” over Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” was particularly awesome. GT also brought some pretty things to look at like toilet paper snakes, streamers and confetti shot out of cannons, balloons dropped from the ceiling, and inflatable rafts that were pushed into the crowd. All the good music seemed to keep everybody in Congress Theater happy because after the first song the stage-house was filled with crowd members dancing alongside Mr. Gillis. The fun didn’t stop until 2 am, but a lot of people kept dancing anyway.
You might think he’s a post-modern mastermind with a brilliant understanding of how to craft a pop song, or a hack that steals other people’s music—but know this, Girl Talk puts on one of the craziest shows that sound and look like nobody else.

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