Girl Talk by Joshua Brasted

But that’s an unkind way to look at a show that had more going on than that. First and foremost, it was a party, and Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) periodically paused for big, obvious moments that moved the crowd in simple, uncomplicated ways. Give people the opening to “Thriller” or the chorus to “Living on a Prayer” and they’ll go off, no mash-up required. And that party consciousness gave the show some space that the albums lack. He doesn’t move as swiftly from sample to sample, letting a good groove and a fun moment linger, and he periodically takes it down, and even stops. As such, the show’s not as relentless as the albums can be.

Girl Talk’s popularity has forced some changes that aren’t for the better. He has more show now, but much of the show seems to come from the Flaming Lips’ toy box. That doesn’t mean the confetti blasters and oversized balloons aren’t cool, but they’ve been done, and they’re not as compelling as the one bit of stagecraft the Flaming Lips haven’t had—the danger of being knocked off their own stage. The last time Girl Talk played House of Blues, there were so many dancers from the audience onstage that he and his rig were almost knocked off the stage lip by enthusiastic fans. That out of control element was missing this time as the number of fans allowed to surround him was kept manageable, and his set-up and table were far more stable. The new table was integrated into the light show and made it possible for him to climb on top of it, periodically working his laptops by hunching over them, but the drama was muted in the process.

Still, like the Flaming Lips, Girl Talk mines the pleasures found in ephemeral pieces, physically with confetti, toilet paper and balloons, and musically by mashing up cool and uncool songs alike, giving the Edie Brickells of the world fresh life. Or, more accurately, the Matthew Wilders; as my wife pointed out last night, the number of female voices in the mix were disappointingly few, and the amount of “bitch” and “ho” in the rap samples kept her at a bit of a distance from the show. In a show as generally inclusive and audience-friendly as Girl Talk’s, that blind spot carried weight.

Girl Talk plays the House of Blues again tonight with Penguin Prison opening. Show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are on sale.

As Kevin Griffin, lead vocalist, starts singing, “Good” the crowd screams a couple more “Who Dats?” before abandoning their chant to follow along the 1995 debut single. Having been warmed up by Howie Day and the excitement of Mardi Gras parades from the night before, the crowd is ready. As they sing along, hands desperately reach out to grab the Mardi Gras beads, doubloons, and frisbees the band members are tossing. Griffin stops halfway through the third song to ask how everyone’s Mardi Gras is so far. The crowd reacts with passionate shouts, whistles and more Saint’s chants. Then arbitrarily he tells bassist Tom Drummond to turn on the chorus of the Saints touchdown theme song “Halftime (Stand Up and Get Crunk).” The band dances and the audience is in a frenzy.

Returning to their own music, Better than Ezra plays a mix of old songs from albums including Friction, Baby and Closer to new songs from Paper Empire, released last May. Throughout the concert, they work the audience, stopping between or even mid-song to give shout outs and to recognize drummer Michael Jerome’s one year anniversary with the band. Griffin said Taylor Swift did a cover of their song “Breathless” for Hope for Haiti, and pleased the crowd with a drunken anecdote from their alma mater Louisiana State University.

While the devices stay the same, the details are updated. Several times they played mash-ups of covers and Better than Ezra originals, the funniest being “Desperately Wanting” and Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face”. When the women in the crowd primarily reacted to that, Griffin and Drummond complimented all the “sexy ladies of N’awlins.”

“This is the only city I can shout out, ‘Bend over and show me that tramp stamp!’ and still get good reactions,” Griffin said.

Still riding off the energy from playing the Super Bowl afterparty for the Saints players themselves, it’s no wonder the band was full of love for their audience. Whether it was the feel of their sequined masks or the draft beers Griffin downed by the end of the show, it was clear the only ones who enjoyed the concert more than the crowd was the band itself.

He goes for sentencing in early February, so tickets to Monday night’s Lil Wayne/Young Money show referred to the current run of dates as his “Farewell Tour,” but no one in the near-sold out New Orleans Arena seemed ready to say goodbye. The crowd was on its feet before the first notes of the opener, “A Milli,” and most remained up the entire show, which included a short DJ interlude, a mini-set with Birdman - Lil Wayne’s mentor, Bryan Williams – and the introduction of the new additions to the Young Money roster, all of which slowed the momentum.

Tha Carter III defined the night, with cuts from it sandwiching a set of older material that received as much explosive love from the audience as the recent hits. For the older material, he was accompanied only by his DJ; on Tha Carter III tracks, he was backed by a live band that helped to explain his fascination with rock. At times, it sounded like Living Colour was backing him, and the muscular funk-rock clearly moved him. He danced as if he was knocked backwards by beats, and his rap took on an additional musicality in the band context.

He previewed “Prom Queen” and “On Fire” from Rebirth, and while the former worked better live than in the studio, “On Fire” highlighted the problem with his rock efforts so far. One of Lil Wayne’s charms is his compulsive flow, as his overstuffed lines and overly clever rhymes are markers of someone who feels free in his art. As he confined himself to a verse/chorus structure with words chosen to fit a rock song style – as opposed to a rock-rap – he diminished himself and set aside his greatest gifts.

He never addressed his upcoming stay in jail beyond the language on the ticket, and if there was any hint of something special before going away, it was a show that played as if he never wanted to leave the stage. When he turned over the lead to Birdman and the Young Money crew, he and onstage side kick Mack Maine sat down on a stairstep in front of the drum riser, barking out backing parts as if there was nowhere else he’d rather be. He pointed out members of his family, who overflowed on to the edge of the stage and surrounded the lead guitarist, but they’d likely be there anyway, and he’d share the stage with Birdman whether he was going away or not.

There was certainly no sense that he has lost his swagger. Though he often repeated, “Without you, I ain’t shit,” he nonetheless paid tribute to his personal pantheon of rappers – Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, “and Weeeezyyyy,” he yelled. It was funny, but young rappers are going to claim the same list in a few years and be dead serious and right.

I can’t say that when you’ve seen one Flaming Lips show, you’ve seen them all, because the band puts on a better show than any other festival performer I’ve seen. But when mountains of confetti, dozens of huge balloons, and a human-sized hamster ball are de rigeur, it’s hard to ever top the last show.

The band opened with “Race for the Prize” from 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and mostly stuck to their last few albums for material, as they did at 2006’s Voodoo. While I’m sure a dedicated Flaming Lips concert would showcase the band’s older albums, it seems New Orleans just can’t catch a break on most band’s tour schedules. But the outdoor setting, with unlimited space for confetti clouds, the full moon and what Wayne Coyne, the Flaming Lips’ lead singer, called “the perfect festival temperature,” made for a ideal venue.

The band entered the stage through what one Twitter user called a “Psychedelic Vagina,” a trippy video feed of a naked girl with a door in place of anything truly obscene, followed immediately by Coyne walking around atop the crowd in his giant, inflatable bubble.  Coyne apologized for what he called his terrible singing voice – “But I just love to sing!” – and pointed out that, lo and behold, someone was smoking pot in the crowd. A hundred or so confetti cannon firings later, the band finished with “Do You Realize??” from 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the last few minutes a little rushed so as not to overlap with Lenny Kravitz’s prompt 7 p.m. start time.

Although it may have been because it was my first time seeing them live, the Flaming Lips’ last Voodoo performance was slightly more impressive. This was during Coyne’s Christmas on Mars phase, so the stage was clogged with enormous inflatable aliens and Santa Clauses, and dancing Martian girls and Santas, all of whom were local students recruited hours before the show.

 Tweets from the Fest:

“So many amps. So many guitars. So many hats halfway on the backs of Brand New’s heads.”

“There’s a guy climbing the set, still building Flaming Lips’ craziness, while the Pogues are playing in front of him.”

“Shane McGowan,the lead singer of the Pogues, was late and is sloppy drunk and even more hard to understand. The rest of the band looked like they wanted to stab him. (Chris Lane, the MC of Fleur de Tease, told the crowd he got a text about a fight on stage.)”

“First time seeing Fleur de Tease, first Lucky Dog in well over a decade.”

“Security guard with a lazy eye looking at me. Maybe.”

“SO much confetti. Wayne Coyne’s personal confetti gun. Got some in my drink.”

”It’s so perfect to be alive right now, don’t you think?” #waynecoyne

“Guitar player has a tiny plastic bubble around his guitar? Confetti shield?”

The set kicked off to a psychedelic video of a girl dancing to a beat backed by a heart-rhythm-changing bass. It only got louder as the screen zoomed to the middle of her legs, covered by a pulsating shape that would make many girls blush. After the band members emerged from the screen and Coyne was rolled back onto the stage, they played a set that leaned heavily on At War with the Mystics, and only included two songs – “Silver Trembling Hands” and “Convinced of the Hex” - from Embryonic, their latest album.

Between the balloons, confetti, video, Coyne, and the costumed dancers, there is a lot to see and experience at a Flaming Lips show. If you are not on some sort of illegal substance, it can be a little much when the lead singer keeps begging you to freak out with him. It would have been nice if Coyne and the rest of the crew would have let the audience experience the show instead relentlessly requesting that the crowd join in, but the point of their live shows is to whip the crowd into a frenzied fever that ebbs and flows as the songs transition, and so they kept trying. Eventually, Coyne’s efforts to goad the audience into action were largely successful, and the show managed to leave the crowd high, literally or otherwise.

Greeted by a display of Star Wars memorabilia from George Lucas’ collection, fans filed into the New Orleans Arena for the show. The stage was set with a full orchestra and choir conducted by Dirk Brosse and backed by a mammoth LED screen which showed clips from all six episodes of the Star Wars series. 

One of the best decisions was bringing aboard a veteran Star Wars actor to narrate the selections and clips. Anthony Daniels, the man behind C-3PO in all six movies, guided the audience from the rise of Empire through the Rebel victory, all the while introducing pivotal characters and plot twists. He even slipped into character at points, provoking howls of laughter from an audience familiar with C-3PO’s stiff babblings. 

Each clip was tied to important events (Anakin and Padmé’s ill-fated love, the rise of the Empire, the formation of the Rebel Alliance) and characters (Anakin, the droids, Han and the Millennium Falcon, Yoda, Luke and Leia). The producers of the concert also included clips based solely on flying, battle scenes, and even the jazz-influenced bar scenes.

While the scenes from the movies provided visual background, the music was the honoree at the show. It has become so memorable that now most fans’ favorite piece is the Imperial March, written to introduce Darth Vader, but also chosen as the encore for the show. At the end of the night, it was clear that the vision of Star Wars belonged to George Lucas, but his space opera  would not have been complete without Williams.

The group’s stage show was an all-out assault on the senses. Williams and his band mates jumped around wildly as they were surrounded by neon strobe lights and the brash sounds of their accompanying band. As the intense stage show continued through the night, the crowd was moved by several underground rebel anthems including 2008’s “Spaz” and “Rockstar”. While these tracks started a makeshift mosh pit in the front, older attendees looked on in awe. The night reached its climax with “Lap Dance” which featured several attractive female attendees parading around the stage while Williams took the liberty to introduce himself to the ladies.

In addition to its headliners, the show featured newcomer Mickey Facts. Like N.E.R.D., Facts’ sound is an eclectic mixture of rock and hip-hop. He even went as far as to feature the group in the title for his In Search of N.E.R.D. mixtape. While both acts gave solid performances, the most interesting aspect of the night was their crowd. It consisted of young hip-hoppers, middle-aged couples, and frenetic rockers. In an age filled with artists purposely aiming for “crossover” success, it’s amazing to see a concert full of renegades actually achieve it.

While Meth and crew dissed the status quo during their night onstage, hip-hop phenomenon T-Pain eagerly defended it on August 11. Unlike the “Footprints …” tour, the rapper-turned-singer entered the stage with a full band, several backup singers and a group of energetic dancers. He performed while wearing a chain worth a quarter of a million dollars – one that read “Big Ass Chain” in diamonds. While running through his solo hits, he also stated his thoughts on the industry’s current critics and Jay-Z’s “Death of Auto Tune” in particular. “Don’t listen to the industry and don’t listen to Jay-Z,” he said.

But when it comes to the stage, the veterans apparently have the upper hand. While chart-toppers bring an overdose of cockiness and bravado, the old schoolers easily trounce with their  love and pure passion for their art. T-Pain’s show ended with a traditional last song and thank you to the audience. When it came time for Red and Meth to exit the stage, they jumped off and crowd surfed out. The stark contrast in the way the shows ended just displays the main difference between the two schools. Unlike their younger counterparts, hip-hop is a way of life for Red and Meth, not  just another way to get paid. When some of today’s hit makers make this mental transition the rankings may even up. Until then, today’s hip-hop will only serve as a bleak reminder of what the music and the culture as a whole once was.

Protected by menacing brambles of tattoos and Gwar T-shirts, the crowd only appeared unapproachable. These metal fans are a genial bunch of unassuming, Falstaffian pot smokers who like their rock ‘n’ roll sprinkled with a little gravitas.

They are all part of a dwindling heard that sprouted in the ’80s, flourished in the ’90s, and dipped to the fringe during the present decade. Most of them sit in stasis as functioning members of an ever-tempering society, but they are always ready to be thawed out and to thrive in the glow of Brann Dailor’s gleaming drum set, itself a steely obelisk to a bygone era of heavy metal.

Each song is a self-conscious ode to a time when people danced without irony. The music itself makes no grand statements. That would be too explicatory in an inexplicable world of human tunnels and monstrous projections of Jack Russell terriers (a video accompaniment). The dancing men with beards wearing neon headbands and short shorts are not here for a thesis on post-modern music. That’s why they left their laptops for the night.

Deacon’s songs find themselves through meticulously constructed percussion and synthesizers, with less of the pretension or procrastination of art rock. These songs make you want to dance and, maybe, participate in some corporal architecture. Some of them sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks swallowed your Nintendo; others like Ennio Morricone discovered the synthesizer.

After the body tunnel has broken apart, Deacon fans scramble back into the auditorium to resume gyrating and pumping their fists in the air. One guy without a shirt falls over. A girl, also shirtless – though the bra remains – stands on a chair. Most of them are without shoes, too. Bottles and cans litter the rugs.
Last time I was here, Ralph Nader was pushing for a three-party system in American government. He had to ask for applause at appropriate points. Tonight, our keynote speaker could tell the audience to do anything, and they would.

“Raise your hands in the air,” Deacon says. “Now open them wide. Now put one hand on your side. Now get down on one knee. Thank you.”

All of this seems to be executed in mimicry of some evangelist catharsis or, maybe, in mockery. Yet there is something religious about it. A flickering, multi-colored mountain peak graces the screen behind the band. The ensemble wears matching white body suits – the prophets. They play deep, almost soulful rhythms on loop that encourage even the most timid listeners to finally run in, remove their New Balances, and sweat it out with the others. And as Deacon starts in on the final song, I too begin to toe my right heel with my left foot – it’s time to flail about, I mean, to dance.