“Get your dicks out, and dance you motherfuckers!”
I’m all for audience participation but, I’m sorry Ms. Germanotta, there are limits!
While the Clarkian todger remained firmly under wraps, we got to see plenty of flesh nonetheless, as Lady Gaga and her baker’s dozen of fetish-wear clad dancers treated us to an XXX-rated outing to the Monster Ball.
The alleged 23-year-old had promised that her new show would be a feast for the senses, and duly delivered with simulated group masturbation scenes, a flame-throwing bra, a green taxi that morphed Power Rangers-style into a piano, and a hydraulic platform which lifted her 40 feet above the audience during the set-closing ‘Bad Romance’ – one of half a dozen songs tonight that a certain other famous Italian-American, Madonna, would kill for.
Equal parts Westside Story, Grease and Starlight Express, the stage set was every bit as gloriously OTT as the Lady, who changed cossies every other song, had said it would be – and therein lies the rub.
While Gaga’s ambition and work-rate are to be applauded, there were times tonight when the music got completely lost amidst the largesse of the show.
It came as a relief then when the backing dancers buggered off for a cup of tea and a sit-down, and the New Yorker performed a stripped-down version of ‘Brown Eyes’, which underlined just what a fabulous voice she has. Britney and Cheryl please note – most of the vocals tonight were unmistakably live.
Other highlights included the Moroder-esque thump of ‘Lovegame’; the outrageously catchy ‘Boys Boys Boys’; the super-sultry ‘So Happy I Could Die’; and the perfect pop double-whammy of ‘Poker Face’ and ‘Paparazzi’, which was the cue for the O2 to go completely fucking nuts.
She may be guilty on occasion of trying too hard, but when Lady Gaga gets it right she really is a phenomenal force of nature.