A Lady Gaga show attracts the country club crowd, the gay men crowd, straight women, teen girls, one middle aged-guy in an orange golf shirt with tennis shoes, plus some random wearing an Oklahoma City Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander jersey.
Amid all of these people dressed for the greatest gothic Halloween party ever, Lady Gaga’s shows also have this unmistakable “Hunger Games” vibe; very capital citizen attire. Under normal circumstances, Lady Gaga’s fans would have stolen the show had it not been for Lady Gaga herself.
Gaga’s “Mayhem Ball” tour played the second of its two-night run at Dickies Arena before a packed house for a show that featured a set list of 29 songs in a performance that went beyond two hours, and featured one charming “stripped down” encore.
With the glaring exception of not playing “Edge of Glory” from Sunday night’s performance, Lady Gaga delivered a Lady Gaga concert, which is more of a theatrical production than a standard show.
A full gothic style set that looked like it was stolen from a Broadway theater. Twenty dancers. A band. And one person who looked like he/she was on keyboard, a DJ.
Watching the entire well-coordinated “four act” show, someone might just ask, “Is this performance actually live, or is pre-recorded?”
Lady Gaga’s ‘Mayhem’ show leans heavily into theatrical production
With technology so advanced, it’s increasingly difficult to determine at concerts, or anywhere, what is actually real. The people at Dickies Arena on Sunday night didn’t seem to care, either.
Any regular person could jump on stage with a pre-recorded audio and entertain an audience. That’s why “lip sync” battles, or drag shows, exist. But the not everyone can perform live and sound good enough to appease a full arena, which in Gaga’s case 95 percent of which are there dressed just like the performer.
Every artist nowadays has backup vocals to support them, and Gaga is no exception. Lady Gaga was evidently singing live in this concert, with her often adjusting her microphone to be closer to her mouth, or the breathing that you could hear in quieter moments.
Her inflection varied while she performed “Paparazzi.” Lady Gaga’s range is so vast she could sit on stage behind a piano and entertain an audience.
Her guitar, however, sounded less than authentic. Whenever she played the guitar, another guitarist would happen to play with her. It’s nearly impossible to tell who is doing what.
As this entertaining show progressed, and Lady Gaga played her hits like “Poker Face, “Abracadabra,” “Disease,” “Love Game,” “Alejandro,” and “Just Dance,” a question arose – does it even matter in this day and age if the artist is actually performing live?
A good performance is a good performance, and does lip-syncing take away from the live experience of being entertained by the pop star? We’ve seen what happens when untalented people take the stage, just think of Ashley Simpson. Couldn’t tell you who that is now after her fall off, but my parents could.
In a flooded market of performers, Gaga’s talent for singing and performing is unlike anyone else going these days. Her acoustic performances on the piano of songs like “Shallow,” and “Marry The Night” on Sunday night are just more examples of what make her Gaga, and set her apart from other performers.
One of the most attractive parts of her “Mayhem Ball” show is a production so extensive that after the performance ended, it featured a full roll of credits on the large TV monitor behind the stage.
Her performance of “Zombie Boy” had a heavy Michael Jackson “Thriller” vibe with its elaborate choreography of her 20-member dance team. For “Paparazzi” she leaned on large metal crutches while wearing a veil that stretched the length of the stage.
And when it was all over, she was called back by the audience for a final encore, at which point the cameras “caught” her underneath the stage as she took off all her makeup. There she was – just her face, and her hair covered in a wrap, brilliantly performing one final song for an adoring audience.
When you take away the wigs, the gothic outfits, the makeup, the lights, the explosions and other theatrics, the woman born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and known to the world as Lady Gaga relies heavily on production, and maybe a few tricks, but she is one uber talented performer who knows how to entertain her audience.
Which is all that matters.