Awesome music + fashion – boredom with material existence = Lady Gaga. Photos by .
I don’t recall the last time I went to a show where a performer inspired the audience actually dress up. (Unless you count Slipknot, but that just entails wearing giant pants and a creepy mask.)
The Lady Gaga show at the Saturday night was a cabaret of boys and girls in heels, glitter and Gaga inspired crystal-spattered sunglasses, human homages to the club star’s burning image shaking and giggling through every square foot of the venue.
Dressed in a “Scarface”-era Michelle Pfeiffer blonde bob, Malibu tan and oversized opaque shades, Gaga rose from a human mountain of glittering mirrors, her Jetson-esque black dress fastened with a shard of glass across her chest.
Between snippets of her own pseudo avant-garde film “Who Shot Candy Warhol,” Gaga pushed out “Paparazzi,” “Disco Stick” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” as she marched the stage with a glowing sceptre in hand and muscular dancers writhing at her feet.
An outfit change found the Lady in her most natural state of black and white underwear and a plastic bodice, complete with nipple impressions and a matching Vespa by her side. As she blazed through “Fame” and “Money Honey” and “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” Gaga channeled her inner-Debbie Harry, proving her pipes were legitimate.
The stage went black for another ensemble switch, a gloriously revealing suit of plastic bubbles with Lady Gaga appearing nearly naked under the clear distractions. A transparent upright piano filled with the same bubbles was rolled out, finding Gaga alone with her instrument to play a saloon-like version of “Poker Face.”
Changing into a fluttery lilac space dress for the final songs, Gaga and her dancers appeased the devoted audience with “Just Dance,” and the spry figure popped and locked with a gracious smile. For the encore, the Lady appeared in nothing but a peachy mesh-like leotard speckled with rhinestones and a military hat that read “GAGA,” finishing the incredible evening with “”Boys, Boys, Boys” and the traditional club-ready version of “Poker Face.”
Gaga’s vocal abilities and visual parade made for an incredible show, but the genius of her appeal is hidden in a carefully vapid, Valium-laced speaking voice that pins her as the ultimate tease. No doubt she pulls from filthy handbooks of Peaches, Freddie Mercury and Madonna, but the Lady still manages to pull off a uniquely Gaga performance.
Itap refreshing to see a pop star less concerned with the boredom of material excess and an U.S. Weekly-documented lifestyle and more committed to an existence saturated in high fashion and counter culture. Lady Gaga may be single-handedly saving the future of popular music, one Andy Warhol reference at a time.
Bree Davies plays bass in , writes about her obsessions with Iggy Pop and Lil’ Wayne in and repeatedly fakes her own death at . She is also a self-proclaimed addict.
Tina Hagerling is a Denver-based freelance photographer and web designer. See more of her work .
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