{"id":398451,"date":"2026-04-14T19:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398451\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:37:07","slug":"lady-gagas-final-mayhem-ball-show-tears-tributes-setlist-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398451\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Gaga’s Final Mayhem Ball Show: Tears, Tributes, Setlist Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAccording to \u201cThere\u2019s No Business Like Show Business,\u201d Irving Berlin\u2019s 80-year-old ode to showbiz, the life of a stage production goes as follows: \u201cThe opening, when your heart beats like a drum \/ The closing, when the customers don\u2019t come.\u201d Having attended both the sold-out opening night and the sold-out closing night of Lady Gaga<\/a>\u2019s Mayhem Ball concert<\/a> tour, I can confidently report only the first half of Berlin\u2019s observation applies to Mother Monster\u2019s Mayhem.<\/p>\n

\n\tNine months ago, when Gaga kicked off the tour<\/a> in Las Vegas\u2019 T-Mobile Arena, the crowd\u2019s energy felt electric but uncertain\u2014what songs was she going to sing, and what would she skip? Would she build upon the ambitious vision of her 2025 Coachella headlining set, or start anew? Would it be a sonically cohesive concert, or a show that flaunted her remarkable stylistic diversity? And most importantly, how weird was the boundary-pushing pop star going to get? During the encore of that very first Mayhem Ball concert in Vegas, Gaga told the crowd<\/a> about fighting some backstage nerves, particularly since she hadn\u2019t planned on touring prior to dropping the Billboard 200-topping<\/a> Mayhem album: \u201cBefore I came on stage tonight, I couldn\u2019t even believe you were here for me,\u201d she admitted.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Monday (April 13) night at New York City\u2019s Madison Square Garden, Lady Gaga closed the chapter on her Mayhem era with a performance that, despite having mostly the same setlist<\/a>, felt like an entirely different experience: more assured, joyous and emotionally rich, radiating with gratitude and a symbiotic love between audience and performer.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s strange to say a 20,000-capacity venue can feel intimate, but MSG somehow pulls that trick off, and the fact that this was a hometown show for the native New Yorker undoubtedly contributed to that familiarity. \u201cI want to thank you for selling every ticket to this show,\u201d she told the MSG Monsters (which included Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz) while seated at an upright piano on a runway. \u201cI hope that you know how much you all mean to me; I hope you know how much we will all miss you. I\u2019d like to sing this to you, New York, from my heart to yours.\u201d Standing at the piano, she busted out surprise song \u201cThe Edge of Glory\u201d for a crowd sing-along that genuinely sounded lovely\u2014somehow an arena of thousands managed to find the right tonal softness to accompany Gaga\u2019s full-bodied voice on the chorus.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere was a humble ease to her singing and stage presence over the course of the nearly three-hour event. Instead of having something to prove (as one does on the opening night of a tour), she seemed to relish the delicious sets\u2014like the skeletal sandbox of \u201cPerfect Celebrity,\u201d which truly feels like an art film unto itself\u2014and arresting choreography, such as on the operatic struggle of \u201cPaparazzi.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf New York taught me anything, it\u2019s that there\u2019s no getting around hard work\u2014you just have to do it,\u201d Gaga said, reflecting on her two-decade journey from playing to skeptical crowds in Lower East Side joints to adoring fans in arenas. \u201cIf I can\u2019t fill the Garden or a stadium [in the future], I\u2019ll pull up to a New York bar or Central Park,\u201d she promised.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother setlist switch-up was the inclusion of Mayhem ballad \u201cBlade of Grass,\u201d which she dedicated to Michael Polansky. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have done this without my fianc\u00e9 Michael. It\u2019s a very emotional show for all of us to say goodbye to something that means so much to all of us.\u201d After belting it at the piano (\u201cI can\u2019t wait to go home with you\u201d she told her fianc\u00e9), Gaga put her head down, shed a few tears and talked about how strange it was to bid adieu to a show she\u2019s done 95 times (even more when you toss in dress rehearsals, she added, mostly speaking to her cast and crew).<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing her final encore (\u201cHow Bad Do U Want Me\u201d) of the tour, a gracious Gaga shared the stage and spotlight with her Mayhem Ball cohorts, bringing out her live rock band, the captivating cast of dancers and characters (including her alter ego Mayhem sans face covering) and crew for numerous thank yous, bows and hugs while a recording of \u201cAlways Remember Us This Way\u201d played. Scanning the arena from the runway, Gaga seemed to be taking a series of pre-nostalgic mental pictures before closing the chapter on Mayhem by bouncing around the stage while \u201cMarry the Night\u201d blared over the speakers. Only not quite\u2014after what seemed to be the final bow, Gaga and her cast ran back out for one for-real final moment of mayhem, hugging the stage and planting kisses on the Gothic Mayhem set design.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll be back,\u201d Gaga promised\u2014after all, there\u2019s no business like show business. And while ups and downs are inevitable, with 18 years of iconoclastic excellence under her garter belt (including 16 Grammys, one Oscar and six Billboard Hot 100 No. 1s), it\u2019s safe to say that Stefani Germanotta, you will always be famous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to \u201cThere\u2019s No Business Like Show Business,\u201d Irving Berlin\u2019s 80-year-old ode to showbiz, the life of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[20880,93,821,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-398451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-concert","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-genre-pop","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}