Skip to content
Reviews

Spin’s Year in Music Party

The kicker to a killer year of music, Girl Talk, Cold War Kids, and Gogol Bordello, came together at New York City’s intimate Hiro Ballroom for Spin‘s 2006 Year in Music celebration, presented by Boost Mobile and Heineken. Fans eager to hear the artists straight from Spin‘s 40 Best Albums of 2006 list (read more) sipped gratis brew from Heineken while Yeah Yeah Yeah Nick Zinner and TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone stayed behind the decks to DJ.

Gregg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, hit the stage wearing a shirt proclaiming, “I’m Not a DJ,” and ordered the crowd to move. “This is going to be a dancing sort of party,” he shouted, before dropping his non-sequitur samples and showering the crowd with confetti.

Cold War Kids brought their signature rhythmic rock, and singer Nathan Willett wore his Americana on the sleeve of his lumberjack plaid shirt. Their second song of the set, “Saint John,” got the crowd pumping fists and nodding along.

Headliners Gogol Bordello closed the night in a rush of Gypsy punk. Mustachioed frontman Eugene Hutz, a stringbean in striped pants, hopped shirtless about the stage as his band fiddled up a frenzy, wringing every last drop of sweat out of the flailing, moshing crowd. A dancing sort of party, indeed. BRIANA MOWREY / PHOTOS BY JAY CHEN

>> Stay tuned to SPIN.com for video footage of Gogol Bordello, Cold War Kids, and Girl Talk, plus interviews with partygoers.

We asked: If you could hear one artist reinterpreting a holiday song, what would your dream pairing be? COMMENT