GAGA OOH LA LA...

It's good to live expensive

Seeing the one and only Lady Gaga Live was a very highly anticipated DGAF event of the year. We managed to get score some very inexpensive tickets on eBay a month before the show at the Nokia Theater, and we felt even luckier as we saw tickets to up to hundreds, and even thousands of dollars as the date approached. Neither of us had been to a large-scale pop show before, and we had no idea what we were in for, especially as it was Lady Gaga, who'd proved to be nothing short of a show-stopping spectacle herself. Not only was she a genuine musician and performer, but it there was so much more to her "image" than just her "look". Lady Gaga is an actual multi-talented and multi-dimensional artist who doesn't feel the need to be safe or sterile to win over fans. But she still acknowledges she's a pop singer in an artificial genre: "We're plastic but we still have fun!"


We are the crowd, we're comin' out

We had to dress up of course. When we arrived at a parking lot near the Nokia Theater, we took a next to someone's Hummer with various Lady Gaga motifs drawn on the windows. It was cute. Here's a word to the wise: there is nowhere really fast or inexpensive to eat directly around the Nokia Theatre, and getting the cheapest parking lot possible means you'll only have to walk literally a minute or two from the venue... why pay twice as much because you don't wanna walk for 60 more seconds?

The opening act was Semi-Precious Weapons, who were pretty DGAF. I thought the singer was a fierce tall supermodel woman, and it wasn't until halfway into the set when I realized it was in fact, a fierce man in stilettos!!! Even his voice sounded androgynous, and he rocked everyone in the Nokia Theater like the glamazon that he is. They were raw, energetic, and knew how to put on a show. We're not surprised that Lady Gaga would choose such a DGAF opening act. And awesome that she'd keep it diverse.

We were looking foward to Kid Cudi but to our dismay he never quite materialized. We found out later that the was either kicked off or dropped out of the tour.

But we got over it quickly as we were transported into flashy futuristic darkness... and Lady Gaga emerged out of smoke and a screen of lazers during the glorious "Dance in the Dark", wearing a costume with flashing lights on it. Fucking intense. Wow. It was over the top without trying too hard... but that could be used to describe her entire show.

There were costume changes, avant-garde videos playing during songs, a set that could only be described as abstract... it was theatrical without being cheesy, it was eye-catching without being tacky. Lady Gaga not only invites you to her party, but welcomes you to her world. And yes, she really does sing live! She performed most of the songs from "Fame Monster", which I definitely got more into after seeing them live. "So Happy I Could Die" was a highlight for me. There was a medley of "Money Honey", "Beautiful Dirty Rich", and "The Fame", much to my delight.

Hell, the remix of "Fancy Footwork" by Crookers even played during one of the videos shown during breaks between songs. Could Lady Gaga get any cooler?

She also does understand subtlety, which you would not expect. There were songs like "Alejandro" where she would be the only one on stage, and then of course there's the songs she plays on the piano. She put on an Elton John-like feathery costume and sang a moving rendition "Speechless" and then the magically mind-boggling ragtime acoustic piano version of "Poker Face". Her stage banter seemed unrehearsed and genuine. It may have been rehearsed, but the way Lady Gaga delivered it felt personal.

"Boys Boys Boys" was a total riot, and "Paparazzi" was as mesmerizing and haunting as I've ever heard. You have to see this to believe this, I can't even describe what went on in her performance. Totally captivating. She ended with "Eh Eh [Nothing Else I Can Say]" as she came out of the stage in that giant metal orbit ball, then went into the dance version of the all-conquering "Poker Face", which got the whole theater dancing. The encore, which was the unstoppable "Bad Romance", was the most victorious, anthemic finale that could not be topped.

Believe the hype because Lady Gaga has lived up to it and left a trail DGAF for all of us to follow. It's up to you to catch up and catch her live.

Well, we couldn't finish this story without mentioning something stupid that happened. We thought we were safe until we got back to Shimosh's car and she realized she'd lost her keys.. luckily someone had left them with the attendant.

(I'm going to spare you from a whole bunch of Lady Gaga song title puns right now...)