November 29th, 2009
One Little Monster Went To The Ball…
Last night was unbelievable. It seems like it was all a dream. I woke up this morning and held the concert ticket in my hands again, and it all came rushing back to me.
“My name is Lady GaGa.“
I will forever associate those five small words with a night that was absolutely magical. When I close my eyes, I can still envision every moment of it.
In case my intro was a wee bit too cryptic, for those out of the loop, last night I attended the second show of Lady GaGa’s Monster Ball tour at Toronto’s Air Canada Center. I had high expectations based on the gushing of others who’d seen her in concert before. But man, oh man, I had no idea what we were in for. It was beyond my imagination. Absolutely awe-inspiring from start to close. (Minus the two warm up bands. Wasn’t a fan of either. Flamboyant male nudity with much frolicking and “screaming” disguised as singing and almost-inaudible mumbling classified as rap are not my thing.i I think my Dad was scarred for life after those two played.ii My poor dad, though. He just wanted to be watching the hockey game. I’d like to think that when Lady GaGa came on, she gave his beloved Maple Leafs a run for their money though. Because from the moment the countdown to performance time started through to the end, and even afterward on the streets, the crowd (and the city alike) was completely mesmerized by her. Her music was blasting from street corners, people were singing Bad Romance at the top of their lunges while dancing down the street to the subway, and the Air Canada Center was so alive with excitement. The experience is almost beyond words.
Apologies in advance that my photos aren’t the greatest. My camera isn’t the best (it’s old, and it was really cheap) and I was a bit far away so most of my photos are of the screen since I couldn’t zoom in enough to get her on the stage. But the photos have sentimental value, so that’s all that matters to me. If you’re interested in seeing some clearer/closer up photos from last night, there’s a few uploaded on GaGa Daily.
The countdown to show time. People were chanting so loudly, you wouldn’t have even heard an explosion if it were right next to you.
She opened with Dance in the Dark, one of her new songs from The Fame Monster. She danced behind a sheer curtain which beamed these glowing grid like shapes across it. Almost like geometrical lightning.
She came out atop a glowing cube glittering head to toe in a sequined body suit to sing LoveGame. This was when she really stole my heart. Not that the opening song wasn’t amazing, because it was, but for me personally, this was when my expectations were shattered. She’s truly a remarkable performer.
Closeups during LoveGame.
She had some really talented dancers as well. This is a handful of them during Just Dance.
I suppose now would be a good time to pop in a set list, since after those first three and Alejandro (which she did fourth), I lost track of the order.
Set Listiii
Dance In The Dark
Just Dance
Love Game
Alejandro
Monster
So Happy I Could Die
Teeth
Speechless (acoustic)
Poker Face (acoustic)
Fashion
The Fame
Money Honey
Beautiful Dirty Rich
Boys Boys Boys
Paper Gangsta
Poker Face
Paparazzi
Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)
Bad Romance
This shot is from Monster during which she wore a glowing cocoon-like hat, and this alien-like skeletal shell thing over her body. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. She had everyone dancing around making monster claws. It was awesome.
Teeth was one of my favourite songs of the night.iv It was a fantastic set. You can’t tell, but almost the entire stadium glowed red. Throughout the concert, the screens in the background of her set would play little videos. During this song, she had these really creepy tree silhouettes (seen above and in the two pictures below as well) and then a video close-up of a wolf gnashing its teeth. Very evocative.
The image of her barring her teeth (not just during this number, but throughout the night) will forever be ingrained in my head. She has no fear.
The highlight of the night for me was when she came out and jammed away on her piano. It was truly inspiring. The girl can play like nobody’s business. She sang Speechless (which she cried through — so touching!v ) and a bit of Poker Face on piano (she sang the full version later in the concert). I captured most of it on video which you can watch above and below. Together, they’re about 13 minutes. If nothing else though, skip to about 5:05 in the video below just to watch her burst into a little jazz improv. solo at the end of Poker Face, and then again around 4:10 where she does some crazy balancing while still playing piano and singing. Amazing.
After that, I captured a few little clips of songs here and there with my remaining video life. For the interested, I’ve temporarily put a few on YouTube (because I can only upload 2 videos a month at Flickr, so they’ll be a work in progress). So for the time being, here they are: Boys, Boys, Boys; and Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say).
Clip from Paparazzi.
She closed out the concert with Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) while standing inside a multi-part rotating sphere.
And last but not least, the finale with the song that started it all, Bad Romance. I have the very last seconds of the concert caught on video below.
All in all, and as cliched as it sounds, it was a night to remember. And remember I will. You can only begin to imagine how dedicated Lady GaGa is to her craft watching her from afar on television, or reading about her in interviews. I have a lot of respect for her as a person and as a musician. She’s a true shining star oozing with talent, and on top of that, she stays 100% true to who she is. And I love her for it. ♥ And just when I didn’t think my love for her could grow, last night, that GaGa shaped place in my heart grew two sizes. Two great, big sizes. Two sizes so big, it would put the Grinch to shame.
♪ Can’t read my, can’t read my, no you can’t read my poker face… ♪
P.S. Does anyone know where I could upload my concert videos? YouTube removed a few of them, and Flickr only seems to upload the first 1:30 of each one. :( Suggestions would be most welcome!
- Perhaps that was a little harsh. But I really didn’t like the opening acts. Though Kid Cudi did have some amusing video-game style backdrops on the video monitor. That was kind of neat, so I’ll give him that. (»)
- I went with my aunt, Mom and Dad. My dad’s company owns one of the boxes in the stadium, and we were lucky enough to get to go. Naturally, if I had my choice, I would have preferred to go with my friends, but it was either going with the fam or not going at all. I think I made the obvious choice. :P I still had a really awesome time though. They enjoy her music, and are pretty cool parents (and my aunt’s really awesome too), so I had a blast. (»)
- I nabbed this from The Toronto Sun. (»)
- I wish I’d gotten bits of it on video, but my camera only holds up to 20 minutes of video, and I wanted to save my limited time to record her piano performance. (»)
- Speechless is the song she wrote for her Dad. (»)
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EEEEE!! :D ♥ I’m so so glad I have you to appreciate my gushing! Because I’ve gushed all night and all day today, and I think my family is getting really sick of it. XD
I tried to keep my flailing to a minimum for the sake of the videos, but when I wasn’t recording, I was singing at the top of my lunges. Hee.
The set was so so awesome. I don’t have a picture of it (none turned out), but at one point, she even had this dentist chair time thing. And then for Paparazzi (you can sort of see it in the video, but not very well), the lighting equipment was lowered down and she climbed up on top of it while it moved. I couldn’t 100% tell, but it looked like it had sewing machines and other like… “turn of the century type” machines all on top of it. It was pretty spiffin’. Teeth was my favourite set though. The wolf video playing with it was really cool. I wish I could have gotten better pictures of the videos she had playing on the screens. She had a whole bunch of them, and whenever she changed costumes, they played. There were lots of really, really neat ones. I’m hoping they’ll turn up on YouTube.
I was surprised, actually, at how much she played. Her part of the show was almost 2 hours! I was only a bit bummed she didn’t do I Like It Rough though. I like that song a lot. :P I didn’t expect it though since it’s not really ‘popular’. And aside from Telephone, she did everything from the new album. (I’m assuming she didn’t do that one since Beyoncé wasn’t readily available to pop in at her leisure. :P)
Anythewho, now I’ve rambled even MORE, I will conclude with just this: When she comes to you again, you HAVE to go!
(reply to this comment)
Your gushing will never go unappreciated by me because we’re exactly the same! LOL I haven’t seen my similarly obsessed friend in a while so I have no one to gush with too so forgive me if you become my gush buddy online. :D
I’ve been checking out GaGaDaily and they’ve posted some vids. They’ll probably post the rest of the performances but if not, there’s still YouTube. Well, hopefully, there’ll be videos on YouTube. She always has this weird things on set but I have to say the giant cube thing was just wow! A-mazing! With all those props and costume changes, she really knows how to put on a good show!
I’m jealous of your show reaching 2 hours because when she had her concert here it was just a little more than an hour. She didn’t sing I Like It Rough too which sucked because I like that song too! And I had to LOL at you mentioning Beyoncé and that she “wasn’t readily available to pop in at her leisure.” Hehe. It’s only one song anyway so that’s understandable unless they’re probably doing some joint concert then maybe she can just pop in whenever. :P
I’M DEFINITELY GOING! If she does come back here. And I’m sure I have some friends to drag along with me if ever because after Bad Romance’s music video got released a week ago, they couldn’t get enough of it! Haha. I believe the rest of our gushing should be on e-mail instead. This epic commenting is probably starting to freak out a lot of people! XD
(Michi’s last blog post: We Heart It)
(reply to this comment)
Haha, you’re probably right. ;) (Though our epic comments are still the greatest thing of all time. :P) I’m going to bed soonish, so I’ll e-mail you in the morning. ♥