police show up to fend off girl talk fans at block party
crowds swell outside neumo’s demanding entrance to girl talk
…The main problem with booking the biggest act of a festival at the end of the night in a smallish venue is that a lot of people end up outside arguing with the (rather patient and sympathetic) police and the security about the injustice of not letting people in when others leave. As far as I could tell no new people were allowed into Neumo’s after the start of the Trucks’s set, possibly earlier.
Stuck outside for an hour and a half with the hippie dancers, chanters, occasional drunks, negotiators, believers, and refund-demanders I kept trying to figure out how was it that Murder City Devils closed last year’s Block Party on the mainstage while it sits empty tonight and Girl Talk is playing inside?
let’s all just hope that iamserio.us got in to tape it; otherwise the next time he’s in the neighborhood is 8 September in Portland [p'fork]
update: Brian posted .FLACs of the whole set [iamserio.us]
Related posts:
Just got home from the block party — the crowd was insane. Almost too much. Need to re-evaluate strategy for tomorrow.
yup, iamserio.us was there. got cancer rising and the trucks too.
too bad you didn’t get in, it was awesome. 4th time i’ve seen girl talk, and he has yet to let me down.
Great news about the tapes. Can’t wait to hear what I missed.
I really suspected that I’d be in trouble when I didn’t in to see the Trucks, but I thought waiting outside was worth a shot. Heard a bit of the set through the door, but eventually gave up on the bouncers letting anyone in (despite the unsubstantial number of people going out) a little before one.
Yeah the crowd was pretty insane. Good thing the fire department didn’t swing by. I’m sure Girl Talk was inside so Neumos could profit on the alcohol sales…funny how some people fight greed one minute and then uphold it other times. Note to high schoolers attending Block Party: if you throw your beer at me, or continue to push into me the ending will not be pretty.
The statement “biggest act of the festival” notwithstanding (is Spoon considered “over” or something?), the mainstage has to shut down at 11 (damn noise ordinances). They may have underestimated Greg Gillis’ audience or decided a club atmosphere/later time was better for Girl Talk. I’d bet on the latter, because that’s how the majority of dance acts have been presented.
Michael – I love Spoon and definitely don’t think they’re over. Yesterday, I mentioned that I think that their new album is fantastic. We were lucky to have them as the mainstage headliners tonight; their set was great.
Still, Girl Talk was the act that I was most excited about seeing and it felt like Gillis was the most (justifiably) hyped act of the whole block party. It’s really too bad that he couldn’t be on the mainstage — it would have been amazing to see him driving the block crazy with his musical genius. It was a letdown not to be able to get in, and this was exacerbated by the security not having a consistent story or policy about letting more people in.
With all the Gillis hype, it was a little strange to be in Neumos with a mix of those hellbent shaking their thing on stage with those there what the fuss was about. I hung out towards the back most of the set and there plenty of people who seemed to be enjoying the music but just standing there. As soon as the dancers got on stage, Gillis was swarmed and he’d only pop-up from his laptop(?) occasionally. So really they were just watching a bunch of Seattle folks dance their asses off. Which, don’t get me wrong, was pretty entertaining and featured a great soundtrack. Everybody seemed to enjoy it or at least seemed happy to be inside…
Anyone know what setyp Gillis uses? I watched from the side for a while and he was certainly rocking the mouse. Layering tracks live?
This doesn’t deserve its own post so I’ll add it to the comments.
Aesop Rock is a ridiculous genius. His was by far my favorite set of the weekend. Although, I missed Girl Talk and I probably would’ve enjoyed that a lot. Hopefully he’ll be back again soon.
I don’t know — my guess is a combination of pre-recorded stuff and a on-the-fly pointing-and-clicking to mix up new samples.
Psh. You know how I roll.
I roll hard and I roll deep.
And I roll tape: http://iamserio.us/2007/07/31/girl-talk-2007-07-27/
I hear tell that this man, this small man in tight pants named iamserio.us, I hear tell that he orchestrated this door-closing maneuver as a way to ensure that more people would need to seek out his recording, which he intends to charge exorbitant sums of money for now. Like, thousands of pesos. That’s what I hear.
-Yours Truly,
Olly
That is completely true. Every word.
Also: I feel bad knowing that people got shut out of the Girl Talk set while a girl was sitting in a chair next to me reading Harry Potter like some kind of über-reject.
Thanks Brian! Downloading now and preparing to ship my pesos by burro caravan to your giant taping compound.
I would love to know the story behind the reading girl. Maybe she expected something entirely different? Like an evening of girl talk instead of an evening of GIRL TALK?