Girl Talk
Tuesday November 11th, 2008
Crofoot – Pontiac, MI

I feel the need to start this review off with a short message about concert etiquette. I feel that people may have forgotten some fundamentals. I have never before been to a venue that decided to serve glass bottles of beer at a sold out show. Glass is dangerous. Please put your bottles back on the bar and not on the floor, or worse, dump your beer all over our heads and then throw it on the floor. Also, ladies, please start taking hair ties to shows. It’s very annoying to have sweaty long hair near you, and we all know that by the end of the show your hair would have looked much better in a ponytail anyway. Shit, you can even do what I do and wear one permanently on your wrist, and throw your hair up half way through. Lastly, I didn’t come to a concert to watch you and your significant other make out and hump each other. I came to listen to some live music. Take that shit to the car, thanks.

The venue did a fantastic job of getting everyone inside and out of the cold in a timely manner. We showed up at approximately 7:50, and were admitted about five minutes later. Although going from outside to inside was fast, waiting for the show to start was another story. I believe the wait for CX Kidtronik to arrive on stage was over an hour after our entrance. The crowd was so antsy that one girl even decided to crowd surf before the performance started. At first, I wasn’t sure what to make a CX Kidtronik. A man that looks like Mr. T and jumps around stage screaming and rapping along with songs, you have got to be kidding me. I think they were attempting to sound like The Knux, who are a classy combination of electronica and rap. Halfway through the second or third song, girls wearing low rise jeans were invited on stage to help promote their album, Krack Attack. Which is about, you guessed it, ass crack. I’m not sure how you feel, but it’s not in my personal interest to look at a lot of girls butt cracks on stage. Needless to say I was rather disgusted. Kidtronik does have a few redeeming qualities. The men know how to work a crowd, and the beats that they made were good. The constant reference to asscrack and low-rise jeans however, makes it seem as though they’re desperate to find common ground with the audience instead of having legitimately meaningful lyrics.

After Cx Kidtronik’s set was over, we were again left to wait for approximately an hour for The Death Set to come on. As soon as they took the stage, the entire atmosphere of the show changed. They’re probably one of the most energetic bands I have ever seen live. The lead singer jumped all around stage, throwing himself and his guitar into the crowd as far as he dared. Their short, punk sounding songs kept the crowd off their feet, and in a good mood. The differences between the two opening bands was astounding. While I hope to never listen to Cx Kidtronik again, I wouldn’t mind seeing The Death Set.

Girl Talk finally took the stage some time after 11pm, over three hours after we were admitted into the venue. I realized that the crowd was going to go crazy, but what happened was completely unexpected. I have only been knocked to the ground once before this show, at Aiden’s set at Warped Tour ‘06. This show, I ended up on the floor twice (big thank you to the kid in the tie dyed t-shirt that pulled me up!). After I fell for the second time, I decided to get out of the crazy mosh pit like center, and moved to the side of the stage by one of the speakers. What I witnessed with the security while standing there was horrific. As expected, several kids rushed the stage to stand next to Mr. Gillis while he did his set. The security hired to keep concert goers safe seem to have turned on anyone attempting to get on stage. I witnessed people getting kneed in the back, stepped on, and treated like crap. Despite the security, the show was amazing. I have never been showered by so much toilet paper and confetti. We got to hear new mashups featuring N*E*R*D and M.I.A. , and Greg really does perform in his boxers on stage. It was after midnight by the time the show got over, and we were exhausted. Almost hitting a deer on the three hour drive back to Ferris kept us awake for the trip though.

*Written By: Sarah Rodda*

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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