Lady Gaga keeps it weird (and wonderful) at MGM Grand with ‘Born This Way Ball’
By Andrea Domanick
Lady Gaga returned to MGM Grand Garden Arena on Friday night with her “Born This Way Ball” tour, a two-hour extravaganza involving heaping doses of camp, fashion, theatrics and a couch made out of meat.
Wearing a high-fashion variation of a nun’s habit-***-bridal gown, Gaga kicked off the night with a rousing, call-to-arms rendition of “Government Hooker” flanked by an army of backup dancers across the stage and its diamond-shaped catwalk extending into the crowd.
The song and “Born This Way” served as a thesis of sorts for the show’s plot line, which ostensibly tells the story of “Mother Monster” (Gaga) vs. “Mother G.O.A.T” (Government Owned Alien Territory in space), the latter of which narrates the show and was personified in a giant floating animatronic replication of Gaga’s head.
The smoke and strobes of the opening number cleared to reveal Mother G.O.A.T. hovering down above the towering three-story set, a castle-cathedral-dungeon hybrid featuring iron gates, carved crucifixes and a stone watch tower to house each member of Gaga’s standout, four-person band.
Aesthetic oversaturation is Gaga’s signature as a performer, and her creative team and she have mastered the delicate art of keeping the audience equally focused on Gaga as an individual as they were on the rest of the set and performers. After all, fans don’t just come to see Lady Gaga -- they come to see a Lady Gaga show.
Gaga herself stood out, but never detracted from, her backup dancers in a bubblegum-gothic variety of costume changes that included a flowing pastel pink wig, black latex, white lace -- wedding dresses abounded -- and her signature fishnet stockings.
“I’ve been wearing these fishnets since I was 16 years old,” she declared during one of the many self-affirmation speeches that are a hallmark of the “Born This Way” tour. “I’ve been wearing this leather, too. And you know I would’ve worn this wig, but I couldn’t afford it. You better believe I can f*cking affording it now!”
As for the set, each song came with its own over-the-top accoutrements: For “Bloody Mary,” fog flooded the stage for an eerie graveyard setting as Gaga and two dancers rolled around the stage in animatronic, zombie-like bride costumes. During breakout hit “Just Dance,” the second floor of the castle opened up to reveal a dressing room, complete with career-referencing details: a pop art portrait of Gaga, a framed sweetheart photo of herself in drag and a clothing rack retrospective of her most iconic outfits, such as her Kermit the Frog dress and the white geode dress popularized in her video for “Poker Face.”
Her most notorious garment -- the infamous “meat dress” -- was absent from the rack but made an appearance later during “Americano,” for which the set was transformed from a wedding scene into a literal meat market, complete with human meat grinders with flailing dancers’ legs -- and beef carcasses hanging in place of her outfits in the dressing room. A meat couch was eventually rolled out, upon which she languished during the sultry tango of "Alejandro."
The visual overload is a wise decision on the part of her directors and set designers, keeping the audience distracted while set pieces were changed or when Gaga slipped away for a costume change. As a result, the show rarely lagged at any point during its 120 minutes.
The show’s plot was admittedly not as cohesive as the journey-through-New-York saga of her previous “Monster Ball” tour -- it was never really clear who or what Mother G.O.A.T. was, or that she was Gaga’s nemesis until Gaga emerged to “kill” her with her disco stick during “Paparazzi.” It also relied on many of the same spectacle tropes that defined her “Monster Ball” tour: There was a keyboard on the handles of her motorcycle, much like the previous tour featured a keyboard under the hood of a car; Gaga once again “called” a fan in the crowd to surprise her (though it was a nonetheless tear-jerking moment); and there was another monster to fight on the road to glory.
But in this case, the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” aphorism couldn’t apply more. Gaga isn’t a musician -- she’s a showwoman, and those tropes highlight what ultimately set her apart as a true pop star. The hidden keyboards set solo moments to showcase her very real talent as a singer; the phone calls exemplify her commitment to maintaining a connection with fans; and the monsters capture the “us vs. them” ethos upon which she built her career, and that allows her to be at once relatable and larger than life.
Gaga wrapped the show with a promise to “take over the world with Art Pop ARTPOP” -- a reference to her upcoming album. I don’t doubt that she will.
The second night of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way Ball" kicks off tonight at 7:30 at MGM Grand Garden Arena with openers DJ Starlight and Madeon.
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