What do Lady Gaga and the Wu-Tang Clan have in common?
While both are technically from New York, their New Jersey ties are so undeniable it’s about time we claimed them as our own. I’ve made the Wu-Tang argument before, but for Gaga, it’s all in the family. Her father, Joe Germanotta, was born in Elizabeth and was raised in North Jersey. As a child, Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) spent many days crossing bridges and tunnels from Manhattan to Montville, to sit at her grandmother, Angelina’s, table. When Angelina died last fall, the funeral was held in Pompton Plains.
The audacious Gaga persona was largely born in Parsippany, as a 19-year-old Stefani commuted to Jersey producer Rob Fusari’s studio seven days a week in 2006 to hone her style and adopt her defining synth-pop sound.
Moreover, Gaga worships Bruce Springsteen, speaking effusively of The Boss to Stephen Colbert last year: “I felt like he had narrated my childhood, my life. I felt like I understood my father through Bruce’s music because my dad grew up in Jersey.”
Sound familiar, fellow Garden State music lovers?
Gaga also famously tapped E Street Band sax legend Clarence Clemons to play on her 2011 hit “The Edge of Glory,” Clemons’ final high-profile performance (the music video featuring him was released two days before his death).
So, yes, Gaga is ours now. Even if we must cross the river to see her.
Lady Gaga performed at Madison Square Garden in New York Friday, March 20, 2026. Gaga is seen here onstage during The MAYHEM Ball Tour at The Kia Forum on July 28, 2025 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Liv
Following her mammoth “Chromatica Ball” concert at MetLife Stadium in 2022, Gaga commandeered a slightly more modest Madison Square Garden Friday night for her ongoing “Mayhem Ball” tour, which began last summer, supporting the chart-topping eponymous LP.
“Mayhem” the album was Gaga’s most exhilarating work since 2011’s “Born this Way,” a deeply addicting collection of dark dance-pop led by the Grammy-winning single “Abracadabra.”
Though the 2025 project’s full, implosive force may not be felt until witnessing its ferocious stage adaptation, a brain-melting gothic opera that even by Gaga’s exceeding standards was a triumph of pop art direction. The very sold-out night (cheapest resale tickets neared $1,000 each) was a torrent of crimson and obsidian, a histrionic queer-horror banquet channeling Guillermo Del Toro, “Phantom of the Opera” and ballroom bombast: category is “dance or die!”
Lady Gaga performed at Madison Square Garden in New York Friday, March 20, 2026. Gaga is seen here on stage at The O2 Arena on September 29, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation)Samir Hussein/Getty Images for L
The blood-lusting spectacle began with Gaga standing atop a 15-foot-tall “dress,” the hoop of the skirt hiding a cage full of animalistic dancers — as many as 20 joined Gaga on stage throughout the two-and-a-half-hour marathon, often flailing on the “opera house” balcony set pieces. This opening segment, with “Abracadabra” flowing into past high-tempo hell-raisers “Judas” and “Scheiße” (German for “s—”), found Gaga as a wide-eyed pop fire heart, a blistering demigoddess barely contained in her 5-foot-2 frame, just a week before her 40th birthday.
A barrage of stunts propelled the maximalist performance forward, from Gaga laid in a large sandbox dancing with a prop skeleton for newbie “Perfect Celebrity” — she’s never without a dash of camp — to her waltzing down the stage’s center ramp with a 50-foot-long, silken white wedding train that lit up rainbow during “Paparazzi.”
Lady Gaga performed at Madison Square Garden in New York Friday, March 20, 2026. Gaga is seen here on stage at The O2 Arena on September 29, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation)Samir Hussein/Getty Images for L
“To the queer community here in my hometown, this show is for you. You’re proud, you’re free … (this show) is for your strength.”
The center ramp, which jutted halfway down the arena floor, was shaped like a guillotine blade — fitting as Gaga stood on the precipice after “Poker Face,” screaming “off with her head!” to a poor doppelganger dancer. In other moments the star was a bit more subdued, riffing on an electric guitar for her lesser-known oldie “SummerBoy,” clad in sunglasses and grooving under low lights, her dancers slinking around her mimicking an underground nightclub.
The show was broken into acts with melodramatic titles like “And She Fell Into A Gothic Dream” and “The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name.” But perhaps the most affecting moment was the simplest, as Gaga sat alone at her piano late in the set, speaking candidly to the crowd.
“I’m so proud to be a New Yorker,” she said, tears streaming. “It feels nice to come out here and say to you all how much this community means to me, thank you. Thank you for celebrating all my hard work, I celebrate yours, too. When I reflect on this city, I think about how it always inspired me to be myself, that it was okay to be different and I found myself in places I never thought I’d find myself, and whenever I was unsure what to do next, I just changed my hair.”
Lady Gaga performed at Madison Square Garden in New York Friday, March 20, 2026. Gaga is seen here onstage during The MAYHEM Ball Tour at Madison Square Garden on August 22, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Liv
From there she launched into the night’s true rarity, an acoustic performance of her 2011 album track “Hair,” a song of identity and perseverance that unleashed the show’s most full-throated, emphatic vocals, enough to shake the rails in Penn Station below.
Soon after, still at the piano, Gaga noted how she still gets nervous before every show, and that her late collaborator Tony Bennett — another New Yorker with loads of Jersey connections — told her “you’re nervous because you care about the audience.”
Her fans, many of whom have followed the singer for nearly 20 years, roared as she went on: “Thank you for loving me in all my iterations. I think it’s okay to iterate on who you are.”
And such is Gaga’s greater power over her devout “little monsters”: through her unwavering commitment to her own evolution, pushing the boundaries of beauty, fashion and gender, she’s inspired many to do the same, to say “Hey, if Gaga can wear a meat dress or show up to an award show in a giant egg, the least I can do is be a little more honest with myself.”
That emotional tether is very real for her fans, and was apparent as couples clutched each other during “Die with a Smile” and wept during “Hair.” Nearing the end of the set, as she sang her new ballad “Vanish into You,” she hopped off stage and walked among the crowd, signing autographs and accepting flowers.
Fans jumped and wailed from wire to wire, locked in as Gaga reveled in the zenith of her magnetism, appearing more comfortable in the arena setting than a cavernous football stadium. It was a night of power, precision and a commitment to dream big, loud and weird — the top of top-tier pop bonanzas. One more MSG performance awaits, April 13 to close the tour.
It was a night of reflection, too, as the artist entering middle-age considered what the next 20 years may bring.
“If I can’t fill the Garden, or can’t fill a stadium, maybe we can fill a bar,” she quipped. She’s going to need a big bar. We can think of a few — in New Jersey.
Lady Gaga’s setlist
March 20, 2026 — Madison Square Garden, New York
“Bloody Mary“ (shortened; alternative operatic version preceded by a pre-recorded operatic intro)”Abracadabra“ (alternative partially acapella intro)”Judas“ (contains elements of “Abracadabra”)”Aura“ (shortened; contains elements of “Judas” and “Scheiße”)”Scheiße“ (shortened; extended intro with elements of “Judas” and “Aura”)”Garden of Eden“ (extended operatic & orchestral intro; Lady Gaga played guitar)”Poker Face“ (extended operatic & orchestral intro; “Off With Her Head” operatic & orchestral outro)”Perfect Celebrity“ (shortened; extended intro)”Disease“ (extended intro)”Paparazzi“ (alternative version; extended intro & outro)”LoveGame“ (shortened; extended intro)”Alejandro“ (shortened)”The Beast“ (Lady Gaga on guitar after second chorus)”Killah“ (extended intro & outro)”Zombieboy“ (extended intro & outro)”LoveDrug“”Applause“ (shortened; extended intro)”Just Dance“ (shortened; alternative version; extended outro)”Shadow of a Man“ (extended intro)”Kill for Love“ (shortened)”Summerboy“ (shortened; Lady Gaga on guitar)”Born This Way“ (extended intro)”Million Reasons“ (extended intro containing elements of “Tears” by Giorgio Moroder and “Abracadabra”)”Shallow“ (Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper song) (alternative version)”Die With a Smile“ (Gaga on piano)“Hair“ (solo acoustic on piano)”Vanish Into You“”Bad Romance“Encore:”How Bad Do U Want Me”