Lady Gaga

[Drunk Monk]

@ BGC 12/14/9

Gayest show ever. Reminded Dm of fencing in a warehouse window with a yeti.

Great show - outrageous sexy costumes, artsy fartsy videos to cover costume changes, big base dance mixes, cool special effects. The set was this weird box-shaped series of screens with a forced perspective which allowed for all sorts of colorful video projections. Gaga herself evokes an 80's Madonna crossed with a technicolor Bjork. As a dancer, she's ok, not as polished as most divas, but makes up for it with her youthful fly-your-freak-flag messages. She's a nasal singer, ala Streisand or Chrissie Hynde, but seems strangely bashful of her large nose so she hides it lace masks. She was also wiping her nose a lot, reminding me of Stevie in her Gold Dust Woman days. ;-)

I'm glad I saw her now. I'll be curious to see what she does next - if she can keep on rising or if she'll burn out.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Didn't you find all the songs a bit repetitive? Granted, it's dance music. But how many times can you sing the same lyric, Poker Face?

[Drunk Monk]

She did a short acoustic version in the middle of the show during her piano interlude. That was cool. Everyone is all raving about the fact that she can actually play an instrument, unlike so many other divas, but she's really not that great of a pianist. Still, the piano interlude was amusing, and made up for the soulful ballad interlude that most divas would drop at that point. Gaga doesn't quite have the pipes for that yet. She could some day, but not quite yet. Got to pay your dues before you can sing the blues and that just hasn't happened to this 23 year old yet. Later, she went for the full out dance number pop version of p-p-p-p-poker, as if we haven't heard that enough.

In truth, I was a tad underwhelmed. I expected just a little more, but my diva bar is set pretty high. Gaga clearly has potential to stand amongst the megadivas some day, but she needs to survive her own fame monster first, especially that nose wipe if it's a symptom of what I'm thinking. That could be a real deal breaker, especially with a nasal orifice of her magnitude.

She did encore with a reggae-influenced tune, which always wins me over (I know, I'm such a pushover that way) and then Bad Romance, which was totally predictable, given the set list at that point.

[Drunk Monk]

[youtube]Du0zS1CEiAs[/youtube]

[Drunk Monk]

I guess he's up and coming. I saw him mentioned in EW somewhere in the last issue. He got kicked off LG's tour for assaulting some patron or something. He sucked. Most plodding stupid hip hop ever. There was some song about getting sticky with champagne on your birthday that was simply laughable. Made me think of pancake syrup.

[thatguy]

Walken style

[youtube]AJDx3H_hvI8[/youtube]

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

This show was very surreal for me. Firstly, I was greeted with news that a long time friend and fellow volunteer with Rock Med passed away. She had had a break with the organization, so I hadn't seen her in a few years, but there was word that she was debating returning. Her death was shocking and sad.

Aside from that, dm had a phenomenal gagalicious night. There's just nothing like seeing the reigning diva of pop at the height of her powers. The show was sold out tight and replete with all the trappings that pop success can buy - major videoscreen effects, massive props including cars, flaming pianos and the fame monster, which looks like a Lovecraftian deep sea angler fish with tentacles and stands nearly 20 feet high. Her legion of fans are loyal, putting their paws up on command like a massive army of gay nazis being freed by their queen to storm the world with their freakiness. She looked better than the last time I saw her. She's in better shape physically and better voice. I didn't notice her wiping her nose at all, but I may have been distracted by the fame monster, which I liked a lot.

dm had got there early, done the load-in, helped a patient who had got poked in the eye by accident (ironically a vegetarian ex-gymnast named tara). SCISSOR SISTERS opened and they did nothing for dm whatsoever. Then in an odd twist of fate, he got a text from two friends who had access to a suite. A pro MMA fighter and her mom were invited by a client (MMA fighters make their livings as trainers and coaches typically). That client lays industrial astroturf - like for football fields and such - and invited them to go at that morning. So they were stoked and introduced dm with great honor, got him to regale mr. astroturf with a few wacky RM tales and dm was in. Welcome to the sweet suite! Fully stocked with food, drink and engaging conversationalists, not to mention a superb view of the show! Dm hung at the sweet for the first couple of songs, then he felt guilty and sulked back to rm where there were a lot of etoh, crowd syndrome and fashion casualties (ankle twists from stiletto heels mostly). They all felt it was super busy, but it wasn't overwhelming, so dm assuaged his guilt by helping a few lost patients find their way back to friends, and then formally told all the supervisors about the suite and went back for the end of the show. It was very enjoyable. He returned to help clean up and load out where got some smack talk from a young new vol who's been working a ton of shows, but he's not even of legal drinking age and lives at home with his folks, to which dm just shook his head and grinned like a cheshire cat.

[Drunk Monk]

I’m guessing KB will give this one a miss…

LADY GAGA
THE CHROMATICA BALL
17 SHOWS

SEP8
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA
ORACLE PARK