There is good reason to be suspicious of concerts by pop stars. Most of them don't actually sing, and when they do, it's often...downright bad. Right now I'm resisting the urge to provide a mean link to a certain country star who annoys the hell out of me, even though she's not technically done anything to deserve my ire. Sorry, Taylor, but I'm just not buying it.
Lady Gaga can sing -- she's proven that time and time again in live performances on TV shows and at festivals -- but the first 20 minutes of this show still feel like a haphazard circus, a mishmash of the weird and the absurd, a breathless race through her radio hits "Born This Way," "Bad Romance," "Telephone," "Poker Face," and "Alejandro." Through all the dancing, she hits 95% of the notes with no problem, but it lacks soul, even when she's banging on a cymbal with a stray drumstick or chiding the audience. It feels forced.
But then, just as I'm ready to turn it off and give up -- maybe a full Lady Gaga concert isn't a good idea -- a trumpet blares out from the darkened stage. What's this? A jazz interlude? Lady Gaga emerges to flirt with the trumpeter, make a few remarks about how she was a nerd in high school jazz band, and then belt a cover of Nat King Cole's "Orange Colored Sky." Now we're talking. Her voice sounds relaxed, confident, unstrained by the pressure to dance and sing and throw out all the stops; it's the right balance of smooth vibrato and gritty growl. And proving herself as adaptable as ever, she spits a verse she penned about the Royal Wedding, which had gripped the entire United Kingdom just two weeks earlier. The audience eats it up.
For her next song, Gaga flounces to the piano to pound out a rendition of "Speechless," which she'd performed earlier in the year with Elton John at the Grammys, and suddenly the transformation from Little Monster Orgy to Lounge Act is complete. She's mesmerizing in both roles -- Crazy Head Monster and Sensitive Singer-Songwriter -- but only the latter makes me melt with affection for the pop singer. She transitions into an acoustic piano version of "The Edge of Glory," which had been released digitally just two days prior, but you can still hear a few dedicated fans who already know the words. (They probably downloaded it illegally, the Monsters.) She wraps up the acoustic section with the now-familiar "You and I," which was also on the Born This Way album released later that month.
And just to prove you should never assume you know what to expect from Gaga, she tops off the acoustic set with what appears to be a pop-induced seizure on top of the piano, a return of the trumpeter, some devil-possessed scat-singing, and a moody, Latino-infused transition song.
When she returns, it's back to business -- pop hits "Just Dance" and "Judas" -- but it's clear how in control Gaga is -- in control of her performance, of the audience, of the record industry, of the future of her own slice of pop music. She did her hits, but she also did music that meant something to her, that proved her diversity as an artist. It wasn't all great, but hell -- I'm sold. I'd see her live. Would you?
To fully appreciate the transformation, check out this performance from when she was a student at NYU, still known as Stefani Germanotta. She's right where she belongs -- behind the piano.
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