| Review | Jan. 26, 2008 | 9:54 pm |
Niteskool’s disappointing, overhyped Girl Talk show
By
If there’s one good thing to say about Friday night’s Girl Talk concert, it’s that DJ Gregg Gillis makes some fantastic mash-ups. Beyond that, almost everything about Niteskool’s Winter Quarter show was overhyped, misrepresented or mishandled. The unresponsive and, at times, hostile crowd didn’t make the experience any better.
People poured in around 7 p.m. Some went to the bar; others showed up trashed. Uninformed underclassmen met unfortunate fates using fake IDs, while police and paramedics were on hand for the better portion of the night taking stumbling drunk girls out of the show.
All of the flyers and advertisements around campus read something along the lines of “Girl Talk: 7 p.m. Louis Room.” They seemed to say that only the one-man mash-up wunderkind was going to play at 7 p.m. I had no idea until a day before the show that Butterfly Assassins were playing. After about twenty minutes of idle time, they took the stage and began a lackluster evening. The Assassins sound like an American version of Muse, and that type of music is more suited to large stadiums. Their set was great, but it just wasn’t in tune with the crowd.
Once Butterfly Assassins finished, many people assumed Girl Talk would be up next. So when a bunch of rappers and a DJ who definitely wasn’t Gregg Gillis took the stage, people looked puzzled. This was The Hustle Group, some hip-hop guy and an R&B guy, neither one of whom really had the chops to energize the crowd or do anything memorable.
Everyone paid to see Girl Talk. A&O’s Web site doesn’t even list opening acts for the show. By the end of this second set, the crowd was unhappy, and had pushed most of its members far too close together up at the front. A few turf scuffles broke out, with people pushing and shoving each other bitterly. Every drunk person I saw thought they were having the time of their life, but a large portion of the crowd looked sober and upset at how the concert was being run.
Around 9:30, a full two-and-a-half hours after the advertised beginning of the show, Girl Talk took the stage. The crowd was packed against the edge of the stage, and about five minutes into his set, the first ten rows of girls climbed onstage around Gillis and continued dancing. Everyone was finally into the music, and we’d gotten what we came there to see, hear and do. Gillis is a master at his craft, blending up to eight different songs into one new, hyper-danceable mix. He sampled Tears for Fears, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Rick Springfield, Kelly Clarkson and the ubiquitous Soulja Boy. Girl Talk’s also a wonderful stage presence, jumping wildly, dancing with the crowd, weaving in and out, and even throwing off his shirt at one point. It’s amazing to see a performer do so much with just a computer, some speakers and himself.
After two encores, Girl Talk had met my expectations, but Niteskool and A&O had given themselves a poor showing. Had they properly advertised the show and handled the crowd better, the unexpected openers would have been somewhat of an interesting change of pace, but they ended up with a tired, hostile crowd before Gillis could even attempt to win it all back. His shows seem to be notorious for their mismanagement, the worst example coming from a concert at Wash U in St. Louis last November. Girl Talk’s set was wildly fantastic, but the surrounding ambiguity and unpreparedness soured the night for what could have been one of the best concerts NU has ever seen.
Sarah Hayden said,
January 27, 2008 @ 5:10 am
Even if A&O and/or Niteskool didn’t advertise it, Butterfly Assassins have been advertising since last quarter that they would open for that concert.
I don’t know if that means anything to your article really, but people knew Butterfly Assassins were going on. I assume fans of the Hustle Group knew THEY were going on. I guess there was never a centralized advertisement that all of these things were happening at the same time.
But what do I know. I didn’t know who GirlTalk was until all of my roommates went day of, ha.
El Luchador said,
January 27, 2008 @ 1:56 pm
Besides A&O and Niteskool not preparing well enough for the show - I do agree that the problem was mostly the people there. While trying to dance - I witnessed 5 people fight over Gillis’ shirt. They shredded the shirt to pieces and pushed and elbowed their way through the crowd not caring about who they bothered. One thing though, although girls most of the bad rap in the article - there were a good amount of guys acting completely stupid - for example - two guys who weren’t dancing or anything, just falling on top of people and looking for a fight.
Overall - good show by Gillis’ but the people and set up was bad.
Alex said,
January 27, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
He is right. It should have been publicized that there were opening bands for Girl Talk on the tickets. However, anyone who goes to concerts should fully expect an opening act. The initial advertising campaign was minimal as rain prohibited a flyering campaign. Word of Mouth was all that was really needed to sell the show out in under 3 hours. At that point do you really expect A&O and Niteskool to flyer/advertise a show to which they can sell no more tickets? Furthermore, it wasn’t like students who showed up early were trapped. Fans who showed up at 7 when doors opened could leave (and many did) as this was a rare campus show with a full re-entry policy. Also, there was a BAR in Norris! Anyone over 21 could spend their time waiting for Girl Talk drinking Miller legally in the Lake Room.
Lastly, the author literally writes: After two encores, Girl Talk had met my expectations. The definition of overhyped is “failing to meet expectations.” I understand the need for journalists to sensationalize headlines although I wish NBN would give more care to accuracy than trying to create an article out of nothing.
Jeff said,
January 27, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
Are you seriously saying you did not expect opening bands to play for a concert? Have you ever been to a concert, like, ever?
K.M. said,
January 27, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
First, you’ve got your definition of overhyped wrong, so next time go look in a dictionary before you make a claim like that.
Second, I expected there to be some sort of publicity over who was performing. Other than Girl Talk, there was nothing posted, either with flyers or online announcing anything other than Girl Talk starting at 7pm. It is not suggested that anyone was trapped, but due to the uncertainty over the performance schedule many people smashed towards the front until Gillis got up to perform, which was over two hours after 7. Girl Talk put on a great show, but a review encompasses more than just the music on display; it involves the atmosphere created and the crowd involvement, so there were drawbacks to the night.
Third, this was my experience of the night, and this opinion was shared by many others that I talked too. A lot of other people really enjoyed themselves, but to claim that this is “making something out of nothing” when the opinion is shared by a lot of people is a bit of the sensationalizing you obviously don’t like. There are two contrasting articles on this site regarding the concert, and two sides to every story; ignoring the bad things that happened and the things that go wrong is no way of going about learning how to do things better the next time.