Despite the hullabaloo with the protests and stuff, of course the Kikay Barkada trooped to the spankin’ brand new Mall Of Asia Arena. It was huge! I just felt special, being part of history as yesterday’s Lady Gaga: The Born This Way Ball concert was the first ever show performed there. We de-virginized the arena.
When we got to the mosh pit (thanks to Smart Social Media, especially Abbie Real and Ana Morada! #SmartLadyGaga) we were greeted by a huge something covered by a silky blue curtain. By the time it started and the curtain fell, we in the audience ooh-ed and aah-ed…
What was revealed behind the curtain was some sort of medieval castle. The first third of the show was mostly pomp and spectacle. Lots of costumes and effects, a veritable assault on the senses! After the grand entrance on a faux horse, Gaga and her entourage were birthed from a giant vajayjay-ish balloon.
From the start she got the audience in a frenzy. The first time she was here we watched her concert and it was bare, spare, with maybe four dancers. This time around they’ve got a castle that opens up to reveal multiple sets, a whole horde of dancers, blink-and-you-miss-it costume changes, the works!
The music was familiar, but the images and scenes were all surreal and dreamlike, sometimes nightmare-ish, but always provocative.
Not to mention this creepy hologram of Gaga that played her nemesis in the drama of some sort of alien battle between this hologram and Gaga’s forces.
The first big moment was when she sang Bad Romance. Everyone was doing the claw dance, and got everyone jumping up and down.
She was wise to space the songs from the first album, knowing that they’re the crowd pleasers, and interspersed them between the lesser known newer songs from the Born This Way album.
Just like the first concert, she was indefatigable, singing live and belting out songs as if her life depended on it. That’s what I like about her, strip off the drama and weirdness, there’s a true singer underneath.
I don’t know if it’s a shtick, but she always comes off as a vulnerable superstar. She’d say stuff like if she suddenly starts crying, it’s only because she’s been traveling for so long and it was taking its toll.
Then after a show of emotion, she turns things around and comes out as a motorcycle.
She was literally part of the motorcycle, and somehow she can maneuver from there. It looked so freaky but amazing at the same time.
It was at this point that she had her emotional moment. She addressed the protests and she simply brushed it off and championed her fight to represent the disenfranchised, in the memory of the many kids who took their lives because they were bullied because they were gay or for some other thing.
She said all that’s important to her is for people to accept each other no matter who they are, what they are. I don’t know if it’s scripted or planned, but it works for me. I saw people actually wiping away tears during that part of the show.
Of course after that, in true Gaga fashion, she starts spreading her legs just to mix things up.
Not to mention being turned into ground meat in a giant meat grinder, to protest how women are treated like meat.
Your head would spin with the number of costume and set changes. The show seemed to have three acts. The spectacular first act, the tender and emotional second act, and the frenetic final act, where the songs and dances reach fever pitch. She went through all her hits (with the exception of Lovegame and Eh Eh).
For her encore, she sang Edge Of Glory and Marry The Night. You’d be left panting after the show being taken for quite a ride. I thoroughly enjoyed it, much more than the first time she was here. As for the controversy, I’d choose love and acceptance over intolerance and judgment any day.
