Girl Talk Fails at Harvard University

A concert by mash-up artist Girl Talk -- aka Gregg Gillis -- is sure to spawn a raucous dance party, with fans bum-rushing the stage to be part of the action. On Girl Talk's current tour behind his recent album, 'Feed the Animals,' most venues have been receptive to this jubilant atmosphere, which Gillis avidly promotes. Save for Harvard University.

"We always talk with the venue beforehand and explain what it's gonna be like," Gillis tells Spinner. "At the Harvard show, maybe a minute or two before I went on, they announced to me that people weren't allowed onstage. So they were kind of in panic mode before anything even happened."

The Harvard set began with the party safely on the ground, but campus police were still concerned about crowd control and quickly pulled the plug.



"To be honest, I thought the crowd was somewhat reserved," Gillis says. "It was one of the most calm performances I've been a part of in a long time. They stopped the music five minutes in and I was shocked."

Trying to appease the campus police, Gillis set up his gear on the ground but apparently that didn't work either. "I played for maybe two minutes on the floor and a police officer, I think, grabbed me by the hand and started screaming at me to turn the music off," he explains. "At that point, it was beyond me. I did my best to keep it together, and I really didn't see any issues with the show whatsoever."

As for the rest of Girl Talk's gigs, Gillis describes it as "somewhere between a house party and a rock 'n' roll show." You can catch it at a non-Ivy League venue near you.