“I want to see you move!” Travis McCoy, front man of the band Gym Class Heroes, yelled to an excited crowd at their show Saturday night. “Alright… let’s dance!”

And the people in the room broke out in dance.

Following the lead of McCoy, who took a minute to exhibit his own dance skills on stage, students swayed and grinded to the music. While some had fun laughing at their own over exaggerated dance moves, others danced on chairs on the outskirts of the crowd.

“Some college shows feel like you’re playing at a college, but this one didn’t,” said Tyler Pursel, touring keyboardist and guitarist for Gym Class Heroes. “It was kind of club-like.”

Six hundred fans bought tickets for the show, which took place in the VU Multipurpose Room. The show featured a unique melding of hip-hop, rock and pop.

A tightly-packed crowd dancing in dim lighting and a small stage to perform on added to the club-like vibe, Pursel said.

“Despite [the stage] being small, we managed not to step all over each other,” bassist Eric Roberts said.

Drummer Matt McGinley said it was a fun show with a great deal of positive energy from the crowd.

“You know it’s a good show when from front to back the whole crowd is into it,” McGinley said.

And Gym Class Heroes’ explosion onto the stage to play their hour-long set did have the whole crowd excited for the show.

One of the first songs played was hip-hop anthem “Peace Sign/Index Down.”

“Now I need everyone to put their peace signs up!” McCoy yelled to the crowd.

Peace signs were immediately thrown up throughout the room and stayed up for the duration of the song.

On McCoy’s command the crowd jumped. Mid-song, “De Jesus,” who has been the band’s flag-waver and all around “hype-man” on tour with them for three years, climbed the barricade and surfed through the crowd.

Guitarist Lumumba-Kasongo said he almost followed “De Jesus.”

“I almost crowd surfed,” Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo said, “but at the last second I chickened out.”

“Cookie Jar,” a playfully metaphoric song with an urban-club feel, featured a peek at “crabcore” dancing, a style in which the guitarist plays in a wide, squat-like stance.

Lumumba-Kasongo and Pursel said they do this as a joke every time they play “Cookie Jar.”

Roberts said Saturday’s show was the first time the band has played in Bellingham. During previous tours in the Pacific Northwest, they had only played in Seattle and Tacoma.

The show opened with band Somebody Cares, a neo hip-hop group from Bellingham, and guest performer Mike Harris, vocalist for the Bellingham-based band Idiot Pilot.

As the crowd cheered during Gym Class Heroes’ encore, McCoy prefaced the song with a lesson on being friendly and challenged the crowd to say “hello” to a stranger.

After the show, McCoy stayed backstage, but the rest of Gym Class Heroes ventured out to what was left of the crowd to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

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