LADY GAGA proved she is still at the top of her game on the opening night of her Mayhem Ball tour – which was as much performance art as power pop.
The Bad Romance singer took over the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas to kick off the global trek, bringing things back to her old-school, dark-pop roots – with jaw-dropping visuals.
In one segment, Gaga was buried alive in sand before emerging in a tattered white dress and armour, limping on crutches.
The show is a dramatic depiction of Gaga’s lifelong battles with the “light and dark” inside herself.
Despite being one of the biggest-selling singers of all time, Gaga halted the show to admit she can’t believe she’s still selling out giant venues and that she still practices her singing and her piano playing daily.
Fighting back tears as she sat at her piano in a gothic veil, the humble star said: “I hope that you know that the ritual of being yourself is a beautiful practice.
Multiple wigs
“I know you know that. It’s a practice that you deserve to have every day of your life. When things get hard, you can return to you.
“You can practice the small things that you’re good at, the things that you’ve always held true to your heart.
“I practice singing every day. I play piano.
“I do it again and I do it again.”
She added: “When I feel sad, I do it again. That’s how I’ve learned to have my own back.”
Going all-out from the start with her opera-inspired first act, she served up a two-hours-and-ten-minute spectacle, including a string of costume changes, multiple wigs and seriously impressive choreography.
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And if that wasn’t enough, at one point the pop icon made her way down the catwalk in a gondola, steered by her dark alter ego Mistress of Mayhem.
Gaga’s career has seen a meteoric resurgence this year, following the release of her seventh album Mayhem in March.
Singles Abracadabra and Disease broke into the Top Ten, while her Bruno Mars collaboration Die With A Smile became one of the biggest hits of the year worldwide.
She will reach the UK in September for four sold-out shows at London’s O2 Arena and two gigs at Manchester’s Co-op Live.
Speaking to Bizarre as Mayhem was released, a source explained that Gaga has finally found inner peace after years of struggling with her pop star persona and the real person behind it, Stefani Germanotta.
The person she wakes up as is the same person who hits the stage.
Insider
The insider explained: “Gaga has never hidden her real self from the world.
“But she’s more comfortable now in her ability to associate herself as the creator instead of the product.
“The person she wakes up as is the same person who hits the stage.”
The singer’s energetic routines showed that she has fully recovered from a hip injury and fibromyalgia, a condition which caused musculoskeletal pain, extreme fatigue and deep anxiety — and resulted in the cancellation of part of her Joanne world tour in 2018.
Delivering the biggest arena production of the year, Gaga’s new show includes 12-foot-high skulls, a 100-foot long dress train — and the theatrics of the performance had many of her 20,000 “Little Monsters” in tears.
The show was watched by Gaga’s proud fiancé Michael Polansky and her parents Joe and Cynthia.
Prior to the show, her mum and dad were spotted checking out an exhibition of their daughter at Las Vegas resort, Park MGM.
Keeping coy about the gig, Cynthia told one fan she was sworn to secrecy before adding: “I can’t say much, but you’ll be very happy.”
And judging by the reaction from fans in the audience and online, Gaga has achieved that and then some.
The countdown is on until Gaga is back on UK soil.
