Girl Talk roused the crowd with a light show, an on-stage party and an blasting mix of rock, pop and dance. (Tim Lee / Photo Editor)

What did College Union Board’s (CUB) Spring Music Mash-up, featuring Girl Talk, Matt and Kim and Asher Roth, have in common with Washington’s crossing of the Delaware?

According to Roth, the end-of-the-semester bash made for one of the greatest nights in New Jersey’s history.

The April 29 concert, which introduced a new, non-stop lineup and blended the talents of three genre-bending artists, produced some of the most energetic scenes the campus has witnessed this year. More than a thousand crowded the floor of the Student Recreation Center until well past midnight, dancing, crowd-surfing and cheering on mash-up ace Greg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, whose performance resembled an absurd, off-the-wall high school prom.

Gillis, shaggy-haired and headbanded, rocked to-and-fro behind his laptop as blue men infiltrated the crowd, leaf blowers sprayed toilet paper from the stage and confetti and colored balls showered overhead. In the background, a video screen flashed images of fruit, angry clowns, statues and skulls like a twisted MTV retrospective.

The mash-up artist rocked the crowd with a continuous flow of sound that spliced a slew of pop, hip-hop, electronic and rock songs.

The focus was on keeping the crowd moving, but Gillis created a number of remarkable combinations in the process. The crowd threw its hands up to the buzzing mix of The Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and Missy Elliot’s “Get Ur Freak On,” and the rec center boomed with explosive beats on a “Killing in the Name”/“Bounce (All I Do Is Party)” mash.

Many of the tracks were refitted hits, and the crowd ate them up. “Thriller,” “Tick Tock” and “Party in the USA” all made appearances.

But in the process of pleasing everyone, Girl Talk’s set bore a lot of irony. The Hannah Montana riff underpinned a Snoop Dogg weed-smoking rap, and Gillis sliced open “Since You Been Gone” with bursts of white noise. Later on, the all-confident “All I Do Is Win” met the devastated piano refrain of Radiohead’s “Karma Police.”

The eclectic mash-ups only bolstered the energy of the crowd. On stage, students danced in a bunch around the DJ deck.

“I was really nervous because I don’t dance very often and I usually try to avoid being in front of crowds,” said Christa Hannon, a sophomore from Rutgers University who had the opportunity to dance with Girl Talk. “Once I was on stage though, I didn’t really think about it. I was just kind of in disbelief that I was standing next to Greg Gillis.”

The bumping final set closed a night of similarly action-packed performances.

Roth’s stage time saw the rapper touting the merits of the “blunt cruise,” protesting the restriction of personal freedoms, and railing through a string of songs that led up to the inevitable closer, “I Love College.”

Asher Roth rapped about getting high with a little help from his friends. (Tim Lee / Photo Editor)

Roth and his crew, a DJ and a drummer, took the stage in a blowout opening. Roth jerked chaotically and his red hair flapped about as he motioned through the first set of aggressive rhymes.

Most of his set was playful, to say the least. Before “Blunt Cruisin’,” a song about getting high in a car, Roth asked the crowd if they wanted to get high. Many responded with cheers.

“I like to think that college shows tend to be a little bit more rambunctious than a conventional show,” Roth told The Signal. “You’re closer to your audience, it’s a little bit more intimate.”

Shenanigans between Roth and co-rapper Brain Bangly included a scroll through a “mix-tape” — pretended by Roth in short clips — and a frolic with female students on “She Don’t Wanna Man,” during which Bangly ambled about and grinded on a few of the ladies.

Yet the heavier dynamic of other raps may have impressed those who only know Roth by his hit single. “As I Em” sounded like a Rage Against The Machine crawl even as the duo rhymed about ironing.

He got a sing-along going on “La Di Da,” a song about pressure and escape.

“If you don’t smoke, you use music as a release,” he told the crowd.

But it was “I Love College,” the party hit, which excited the crowd most. At the first chance he had, Roth swapped out the main line, instead shouting, “I love Jersey!” Students cheered and sang along enthusiastically as surfers floated across the crowd.

Live instrumentation braced the songs and Roth emphasized the set-up in a pre-show interview.

“It’s just that extra element that just really takes it there,” he said. “It’s not some huge ordeal. I don’t need some huge fireworks and all these pyro effects going off … just put a drum set in there.”

Indie duo Matt and Kim drilled out a set of upbeat tunes. (Abby Hocking / Photo Assistant)

Matt and Kim, the indie-rock duo that followed Roth, stirred the crowd with an even simpler set up. The pair jolted through a mixed bag of tunes with its minimalistic drum-and-keys.

Singer and keyboardist Matt Johnson and drummer Kim Schifino emerged with big, unflagging smiles to a tape of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Running Your Mouth.” An outsized beginning had Johnson waving on the keyed-up crowd like a maestro before the two ran into a splashy intro packed with buzzing, lo-fi stabs.

Both Matt and Kim’s jubilance and cheerful genre-breaking flavor followed them throughout the set.

“We listen to … a lot of stuff that we just consider fun, genre aside,” Johnson said after the set. Hot 97 and Power 105 are “number one and two on our speed dial,” he said.

While the group rolled through fan favorites like “Good Old Fashioned Nightmare” and “Yea, Yeah” with sprightly power, they loaded the set with pop and hip-hop bits. Dance leads and a Dead Prez bassline made their way in, as did Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll” (“The Hey Song”), which locked the crowd in a boisterous cheer.

The performers went out of their way to engage the audience — Schifino frequently stood up on her seat, and Johnson climbed a tall speaker at one point. Johnson elicited a roar when he announced that his mother graduated from the College.

“The more the crowd gets into it we get into it, and we feed off the crowd … it’s kind of this cycle,” Schifino said. “We go out there to have a good time and we’ve been lucky enough where we’re getting that back at us from the crowd.”

As the duo began its last and most popular song, “Daylight,” the crowd loudly sang out the keyboard riff and jumped to the rhythm. The drummer stood over the crowd and mouthed the words, forming a visceral connection. Balloons flew about.

Following that song, the crowd showed its admiration by pulling Johnson in as he reached out to them.

“I was psyched to come play this show,” Schifino said. “Us, Girl Talk and Asher Roth … it just seems like a party. And that’s what we want our shows to be like.”

Supporting the three main acts were two bands — student group The Poor Player and an NYC cover act, The Dexter Lake Club Band.

The Poor Player, who won the opening spot at the “Here For Haiti Battle of the Bands” on April 9, performed after doors opened. Fronted by singer and guitarist Erik Romero, senior music education major, the band mixed classic, grunge and jazz vibes. Its five members, four of them music majors at the College, navigated the multi-part songs with precision.

The Dexter Lake Club Band played covers in between sets, luring students to a second stage, opposite the main one, with classic rock hits like “Dancing With Myself,” “American Girl” and “Come on Eileen.” After a warm-up period, an interim audience massed and students soon took to the stage.

With the cover band filling the gaps in between headliners, the spring concert kept students’ eyes and ears occupied from start to finish.

“This year, I wanted to keep the energy up in between the three headliners,” CUB director Raquel Fleig said. “Since all of their sets were so upbeat and fun, I didn’t want the show to lose momentum during set changes … The show was basically a non-stop party to celebrate the end of the school year.”

Clips of The Signal’s interviews with Asher Roth and Matt and Kim are available here.