The building popularity of Girl Talk is well evidenced by remembering his past visits to Melbourne. Three years ago he played to a meagre crowd in the front room at Revolver, returning twice since to larger shows at Brown Alley and Prince. His current visit as part of the rolling Big Day Out circus has him not only moving on up to the near 2000 capacity Palace Theatre, but selling it out well in advance.

While the man behind the laptop, Gregg Gillis, has widespread radio play largely to thank for this bump in followers, he has also carved a reputation as a must-see performer in the live setting. To try to evolve his performance from previous visits, Gillis this time brought the promise of an enhanced stage show as well as a swag of new material, setting the expectations at lofty for new and old fans alike.

When the lights were dropped the man of the moment was introduced with a somewhat cheesy backing track which simply remixed the repeated chant ‘Girl Talk! Girl Talk! Girl Talk!’. Gillis ran on stage sporting the standard hood and headband, galloping around as if he were about to throw down for the heavyweight boxing title. With little more than a table and two laptops (one of which doesn’t get used) on stage, we are immediately taken back to the opening sample from breakout record Night Ripper, Ciara’s Goodies.

With last February’s gig at Prince bringing an immediate, uncontrolled storming of the stage due to the customary Girl Talk party format, it wasn’t surprising to see a pre-selected crew of fans dance in from the wings in a ploy to keep the stage-rushers at bay.

The set was rather lacklustre to begin, likely bringing a few frowns and questioning along the lines of ‘what’s all the fuss about?’. But within about ten minutes Gillis had the Palace getting down like nobody’s business, leading the way as he flailed about in front of some basic yet bizarre backdrops on the big screen such as giant hamburgers, Halloween pumpkins, laptops and his long running ‘I’M NOT A DJ’ slogan.

It was great to see Gillis walk his talk after recently commenting that he makes every effort to provide a unique show each time he hits the stage. There were a load of previously unused and new samples, from Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over to Phoenix’s 1901, and despite a wealth of material over his three mash-up offerings to date, limited his use of the same two samples together as heard on record.

In terms of the new visual element of the Girl Talk show, leaf blowers altered to fire out toilet paper were a strange but effective touch. Unfortunately, the overall idea reeked a bit too much of Flaming Lips, which was to be expected, with confetti, balloons and of course balloons filled with confetti the only other visual additions to speak of.

But don’t let this miniscule misdemeanour fool you, this will go down as one of the parties of the year. Not only does Girl Talk bring an incredibly danceable mix of music from a wide range of eras and genres, but it’s about the only place outside of being locked in your bedroom where you can indulge in the guilty pleasure of going absolutely ape droppings to Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone.

On top of this was the startling run of tracks that were never meant to go together, such as one streak that saw Killing In The Name with MSTRKRFT’s Bounce before Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun spliced with 2 Live Crew’s I Wanna Rock, leading into The Darkness’ I Believe In A Thing Called Love and Tag Team’s Whoomp There It Is. Phew!

The feeling in the building became one you wish would never end, as a sweaty Gillis stripped down to his singlet which only half clung onto one shoulder ala The Big Show. After wiping his brow with a pile of the mass of toilet paper on stage, the show came to an end with perhaps the most talked about Girl Talk mix, Elton’s Tiny Dancer coupled with Juicy from The Notorious B.I.G.

Gillis has drawn his share of critics for what he does, exploiting other people’s music to create his own ‘art’. But the man must be given the utmost credit for how good he is at it, as well as the time and effort he consistently puts into his work, despite some tagging him as an example of a lazy artist. If the knockers think it’s easy to blend hundreds of samples together into a record or show rivalling that of Girl Talk, by all means, we’ll be waiting.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS OF THE MADNESS HERE