LIVE: LADY GAGA (O2 Arena, London)
Verdict: Theatrical tour de force
You can usually rely on Lady Gaga to bring something fresh to the live stage. Since her 2009 breakthrough, I’ve seen her play intimate club gigs, big pop shows, sing jazz duets with Tony Bennett at the Royal Albert Hall and take her music into stadiums. Bennett called her ‘the Picasso of pop’, and her latest outing — ‘The Mayhem Ball’ — is her most ambitious canvas yet.
Launching the UK leg of the tour in front of 20,000 fans at this sold-out London concert, the American superstar famous for voluminous wigs and meat dresses delivered a tightly-choreographed tour de force that combined Marie Antoinette-like costumes, Rocky Horror-style visuals, dancing zombies, and the energy levels of a fancy dress rave.
Before the New Yorker had even sung a note, it was obvious that a theatrical night lay ahead. To the portentous backdrop of an operatic soundtrack by Berlioz and Bizet, fans were shown a lengthy, pre-recorded film of Gaga, perched high above the stage, writing on a piece of parchment with a huge feathered quill. If she was making last-minute adjustments to her script, it worked a treat.
Mistress of Mayhem: Gaga in full gothic getup dances in front of a giant skull during one of the tightly choreographed numbers on Monday night at the O2 arena
Like most of today’s pop spectaculars, the night was split into four acts plus an encore.
The first began with Gaga, introducing herself as ‘the mistress of mayhem’, at the top of a two-storey-high ball gown that opened underneath her to reveal dancers inside a metal cage. The opening songs, Bloody Mary and Abracadabra, set the tone for a two-and-a-half hour show dominated by dance music.
As the night progressed, the staging became ever more over-the-top and gothic. Perfect Celebrity, from this year’s Mayhem album, was sung from inside a shallow grave, tilted to face the audience.
Killah, a throwback to vintage 1970s funk, was performed after Gaga emerged from a giant skull.
For Paparazzi, she hobbled down an extended walkway on crutches, which were then theatrically kicked away, while actresses Emma Myers and Evie Templeton, young stars of Tim Burton’s Netflix series Wednesday, joined her for a surprise appearance during The Dead Dance.
The show, produced by Gaga and her fiancé Michael Polansky, is based around a battle between the forces of good and evil for the singer’s soul. During Poker Face, there was a staged confrontation between Gaga, sporting a black wig, and a masked blonde doppelgänger, played by one of her dancers, on a giant chessboard. But the onus was generally on crowd-pleasing singalongs, and with songs such as Just Dance, Born This Way, Bad Romance and Shallow in her repertoire, there was no shortage of those.
The art of concealment: Gaga makes a grand entrance at the O2 Arena in a two-storey high ball gown which then opened to reveal a metal cage full of backing dancers.
Spooky support: Gaga goes gothic, with help from special guests Evie Templeton and Emma Myers, of Tim Burton’s Netflix hit Wednesday
Making waves: Gaga gets a lift in a boat during the opening night of her UK tour. The Mayhem Ball is billed as a battle for the singer’s soul, between the forces of good, and evil
The night’s meticulous choreography, while highly impressive, didn’t leave much room for improvisation or intimacy at first. But when Gaga did finally add a personal touch, in the fourth and final act, the results were sensational.
Sitting alone at the piano on a B-stage in the centre of The O2, she reduced one female fan near me to floods of tears with emotional renditions of the soulful Die With A Smile, the rarely-played Speechless and The Edge Of Glory, a bombastic rocker reimagined as an intimate ballad. It was a roof-raising finale.
‘I’m so happy to be here,’ she said. ‘It’s been almost 20 years that we’ve been doing this together. There have been some high-highs and some low-lows, but we’ve found each other through music. If I come back 20 years from now, will you come to the show? Otherwise, I’ll just roll up with a keyboard and play in the street. I’ll be here, no matter what.’
I wouldn’t bet against it: a Cher-like return to Britain’s arenas in 2045. Six months short of her 40th birthday, pop’s most eccentric star has become a diva for the ages.
Lady Gaga’s UK tour continues tomorrow (Oct 4) at The O2, London, before two nights at Co-Op Live, Manchester (livenation.co.uk).
BEST OF THE NEW RELEASES…
DODIE: Not For Lack Of Trying (Decca)
Moving confidently away from her acoustic roots as a YouTuber with a microphone and ukulele, quirky London singer-songwriter Dodie Clark takes on a more sophisticated persona without losing any youthful charm on her second album. She addresses turning 30 on I’m Fine, salutes her pet cat on Darling, Angel, Baby and — adding weight to her whimsy — calls out a keyboard warrior who targeted a friend on the bossa nova-tinged I Feel Bad For You, Dave.
JAMES MORRISON: Fight Another Day (Cooking Vinyl)
Anguished ballads are still his forte — and there are plenty of weepies here — but James Morrison also stretches his bluesy voice to impressive effect on his first album in six years. The raspy Fight Another Day harks back to his chart-topping debut, Undiscovered, and there are polished Motown pastiches in the Stevie Wonder-like Little Wings, about James’s two daughters, and the funky Fill My Glass, which nods to Marvin Gaye.
PERRIE: Perrie (Columbia)
Hot on the heels of her bandmate Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards is the second Little Mix member to release a new album this autumn — although her self-titled effort is more conventional than That’s Showbiz Baby!, Jade’s impressively chaotic solo bow. Forget About Us and If He Wanted To He Would are catchy, but generic. Perrie’s show-stopping voice cuts through on the power ballads. As she sings on Bonnie And Clyde: ‘I might be small, but I pack a punch.’
