The 23-year-old pop phenomenon played the first night of her self-styled “electro opera” in Manchester on Thursday.
The tour, which travels around the UK and Ireland for the next couple of weeks, is dubbed The Monster Ball. But there’s nothing to be frightened of – except tinnitus.
It was a hugely ambitious, terrifyingly loud show, spread over four acts and held together by a flimsy “narrative” about Gaga and her dancer friends trying to get to a party.
Impressively, the entire spectacle was put together in just four weeks. The singer told fans at the MEN arena: “We were doing another show in the United States… but I got very bored, so I threw it away.”
In fact, the production was so last-minute that the star was still on stage adding the finishing touches just half an hour before the doors opened.
Inevitably, then, the first night didn’t run entirely smoothly.
Lighting cues were missed, the sound mix wasn’t properly balanced and the show over-ran by 30 minutes, leaving some of the audience stranded in a cold and snowy Manchester.
But nearly all 23,000 of them stayed on to the bitter end – because, make no mistake, this was a sight to behold.
SET LIST
ACT 1: City
Intro
Dance in the Dark
Glitter and Grease
Just Dance
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich
Vanity
The Fame
ACT 2: Subway
LoveGame
Boys Boys Boys
Money Honey
Telephone
Brown Eyes
Speechless
So Happy I Could Die
ACT 3: Forest
Monster
Teeth
Alejandro
Pokerface
ACT 4: Monster Ball
Paparazzi
Bad Romance
Gaga is foolish in my personal opinion