Well, as it happened we didn't want our money back. It had it's cons, but 'boy' did it have it's pros. The Monster Ball starring Lady GaGa rolled into London on Friday night and yours truly were there to bathe in the glory, filth and glow of the hermy herself. Upon seeing the YouTube videos from the beginning of the tour in the US, we were extremely skeptical. The show looked like it was lacking in basic choreography and movement, with much of it based on GaGa standing astride a large LED-framed box and barking commands at the audience. The barking was apparent in the revamped UK tour, yet we could not have asked for more kinetic activity. We loved seeing the choreographies directly lifted and brought to the stage from "Just Dance", "Poker Face", "LoveGame" and "Bad Romance" - the routine in the performance of "Telephone" got us all warm and tingly simply because of the anticipation for the (now revealed to be twelve minutes in length) video coming soooooooon.
The costumes were typical GaGa - what do you expect? - and the huge fuck-off new disco stick was
fabulous. She could not have been more energetic - engaging with the crowd constantly, a brand new routine in each consecutive song or so it seemed, shouting out to her gay boys... We did leave the arena feeling a little oversaturated with the constant ramming down our throats (not often we get tired with that) of the "monster/little monster/Glitter Way/Monster Ball" shit though. To be honest, it's great and it's imaginative and different that she attempted to make her concert a little more musical theatrey and bring more showy elements but it just wasn't executed well enough to seem remotely convincing. The different themes and skits were too much of a detraction from the performances themselves, and we simply believe they should have been there to bolster and enhance them. The gaps between songs and performances took its toll towards the end of the night - it just seemed like there was too much excess which could have easily been cut out. We've seen a great deal of succinct, tight and consistent concerts before to not notice this with GaGa.
We don't want to overly concentrate on the negatives though. Apparently it shortens your life. The opening number is easily in our top five concert entrances of all time (ooh there goes a new idea for Top Ten of the Week!), with the brilliantly atmospheric projections giving way to lots of vogueing and posturing. With every fluid movement of her limbs the crowd roared, and who could blame them? Everyone in that quite large room was in awe of the ho on stage and quite rightly. The finest show we have ever seen for someone's very first solo arena tour, and we probably wouldn't expect anything less from Lady GaGa.
Well, as it happened we didn't want our money back. It had it's cons, but 'boy' did it have it's pros. The Monster Ball starring Lady GaGa rolled into London on Friday night and yours truly were there to bathe in the glory, filth and glow of the hermy herself. Upon seeing the YouTube videos from the beginning of the tour in the US, we were extremely skeptical. The show looked like it was lacking in basic choreography and movement, with much of it based on GaGa standing astride a large LED-framed box and barking commands at the audience. The barking was apparent in the revamped UK tour, yet we could not have asked for more kinetic activity. We loved seeing the choreographies directly lifted and brought to the stage from "Just Dance", "Poker Face", "LoveGame" and "Bad Romance" - the routine in the performance of "Telephone" got us all warm and tingly simply because of the anticipation for the (now revealed to be twelve minutes in length) video coming soooooooon.
The costumes were typical GaGa - what do you expect? - and the huge fuck-off new disco stick was fabulous. She could not have been more energetic - engaging with the crowd constantly, a brand new routine in each consecutive song or so it seemed, shouting out to her gay boys... We did leave the arena feeling a little oversaturated with the constant ramming down our throats (not often we get tired with that) of the "monster/little monster/Glitter Way/Monster Ball" shit though. To be honest, it's great and it's imaginative and different that she attempted to make her concert a little more musical theatrey and bring more showy elements but it just wasn't executed well enough to seem remotely convincing. The different themes and skits were too much of a detraction from the performances themselves, and we simply believe they should have been there to bolster and enhance them. The gaps between songs and performances took its toll towards the end of the night - it just seemed like there was too much excess which could have easily been cut out. We've seen a great deal of succinct, tight and consistent concerts before to not notice this with GaGa.
We don't want to overly concentrate on the negatives though. Apparently it shortens your life. The opening number is easily in our top five concert entrances of all time (ooh there goes a new idea for Top Ten of the Week!), with the brilliantly atmospheric projections giving way to lots of vogueing and posturing. With every fluid movement of her limbs the crowd roared, and who could blame them? Everyone in that quite large room was in awe of the ho on stage and quite rightly. The finest show we have ever seen for someone's very first solo arena tour, and we probably wouldn't expect anything less from Lady GaGa.
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