Mother monster visited her little Ottawa monsters on March 6 in a spectacle of brilliant lights, wild costumes, changing sets and dance music known as Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball tour.
With a message of being an individual and fearlessly embracing one’s true self, Lady Gaga posed, danced and writhed her way around the stage while playing her top hits and a few songs showcasing her vocal talent for the packed Scotiabank Place arena.
When the old-fashioned blue velvet curtain rose, she was waiting at the top of a staircase on a set made to look like a New York City alley with scaffolds and a green convertible from the ‘70s.
Gaga got the cameras flashing as she sang and posed in rapid succession to “Dance in the Dark” and “Glitter & Grease” in a purple rhinestoned jacket with huge shoulders and a purple pleather leopard-print leotard.
The crowd really started moving when she sang “Just Dance” while playing a conveniently-placed keyboard under the hood of the convertible, followed by “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich.”
Three of her outfits broke, Gaga said, and her microphone malfunctioned when she tried to talk to the crowd.
But that wasn’t going to stop the show, she promised.
“At least you know I don’t fucking lip-synch,” she said.
The Monster Ball is all about freedom, freedom to be an individual and freedom to be proud of who she is, Gaga said.
“[It’s] a place to go. A place where all the freaks are outside,” she told her little monsters. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
After making the audience dance hard with “Telephone,” Gaga slowed the show down for a few songs, rising from under the stage on a piano that lit on fire while she played “You and I” from her upcoming album, Born This Way.
Her voice was strong and sounded heartfelt, but she couldn’t resist adding a bit of showmanship by propping her stiletto-clad foot up onto the piano.
She even hopped up on top of the instrument and banged on the keys while balanced on her heels.
Lady Gaga’s performance felt real when she sat at her piano, crying and thanking a fan who told her to never give up playing music because she gives hope to so many outsiders.
“I won’t ever give up,” she said. “I don’t want to set a bad example.”
She picked up the dance party again for another hour, with people in the audience from the floor to the rafters dancing and waving their arms to “Bad Romance” and “Born This Way” as she closed the show.
Through more than 10 costumes, at least seven different sets, one giant fame monster puppet and an array of fiery, bloody-looking props, Lady Gaga continuously kept her audience entertained as her spectacle intended.
But the big production may have distracted some fans from participating in the dance party atmosphere of the Monster Ball.
She sometimes had to tell the crowd to put down their cameras and cell phones to dance.
It almost seemed like they weren’t sure what to do: participate in the ball or document the visually-rich experience.
However, some of Gaga’s fans got into the spectacle of the Ball, dressed up in outfits inspired by Lady Gaga’s own fanciful fashions.
One teenage boy wore a clear shower curtain cut to look like the singer’s clear nun’s habit dress.
Among all the hair bows made of hair, lightening-shaped eye makeup, blonde wigs and Coke-can curlers, one girl stood out in a cut-out bodysuit covered in gold Mardi Gras beads, fishnet stockings and an upside-down paper crown.
Ana Matronic of opening band the Scissor Sisters said dressing up in wild Gaga styles was important to the Monster Ball experience.
“Life is a ball and it’s always better when you’re dressed up,” she said.
The Scissor Sisters got the audience dancing during their six-song set, especially when they played their best-known hit, “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.”
“If you haven’t heard of us, you’re either not gay or not British,” Matronic said. “You’re the lovely grey area. You’re Canadian.”
In a set that used aerobics-inspired dancing, upbeat dance music and tight black pleather bondage wear to get the crowd excited, singers Matronic and Jake Shears strutted across the stage, capturing the crowd’s attention with songs like “Night Work” and “Filthy/Gorgeous.”
Shears got the crowd cheering with a slow striptease, taking off his S&M cop costume piece by piece with each song until he was left in only a plastic thong.