A much-anticipated silence before an eruption of white-hot energy overcame the anxious 19,000 Lady Gaga fans crammed in the San Jose’s HP Pavilion. And with tears streaming and throat-clenching screams flying towards the stage, the best two and half hours of my life began.
A jet black horse surrounded by darkly, and barely, dressed men entered the pavilion out of a 3-D life-sized medieval castle. However planned this entrance was, this was not the expected entrance of the Queen of Pop. This entrance though did not come until an hour and twenty minutes into the scheduled showtime. This grueling time spent waiting, occupied by listening to DJ Madeon, was finally relieved at approximately 8:50 p.m. when Lady Gaga made her medieval entrance into the HP Pavilion.
One of the first spoken lines out of many on the eve of Jan. 17 remained frozen in time for the following two and a half hours: “Tonight, I will be everything you love. And I will be everything you hate.” And with this, Lady Gaga kicked off her San Jose showing of the Born This Way Ball 2012-2013.
Throughout the night, this saying rang true. Not necessarily that she became everything the audience hated, but that through her performance, she displayed every emotion, every thought and every wild imaginative fantasy possible to give such a rounded and unique show that I was completely overtaken, mind and body, with the experience.
True to Gaga style, the night was filled with wild theatrics, unearthly plot lines and rather vulgar dancing and talking. Quite the opposite of her entrance and set up as a medieval show plot, as soon as the real show began, it was apparent that a medieval theme was highly irrelevant.
Her first song was “Government Hooker,” a fan favorite and an obvious crowd pleaser off of her newest album Born This Way. Garbed in an alien-looking suit with a mask/hat with an almost S&M feel to it, Gaga started to promote the real theme so to say of the concert.
After the show-starter and during her first, of many, costume changes, a floating, color-changing cage with a holographic face of Gaga appeared in the middle of the stage, pronouncing that Gaga is an alien fugitive and must be killed. Gaga and her alien gang supposedly landed on G.O.A.T. (Government Owned Alien Territory), AKA, Earth and must be found.
This might be the only downside to the concert. And even then, it is a very small downside. The alien theme was very far-out such as I’m sure Gaga intended it to be, but with the energy level of the concert and the hectic schedule of the songs, the story-line proved to be a little foggy and hard to keep throughout the show.
From then on, Gaga started to do all of her crowd’s favorites including “Bloody Mary” and “Judas.” A memorable and extremely mentionable moment was her entrance and performance of “Born This Way.” After yet another costume change, an inflatable lower half of a female body was moved onto the center of the stage. Gaga appeared on the top half of the body, acting in quite the theatrics and after a few short well-choreographed lines, proceeds to birth herself in extreme anatomical correctness.
From here, a whole mess of intricate and exciting songs followed off of her newest album including “Americano,” “Electric Chapel,” (which consisted of an 80s glam laser light show) “Hair” and “Heavy Metal Lover” (in which Gaga came out as a motorcycle).
Aside from all of the theatrics and acting, Gaga showed her true self much of the time. Taking short breaks between two to three songs, she had almost casual conversations with the audience. A pop-star known for her connections with her fans and warm heart, she did not disappoint her adoring fans.
Fans threw clothes and jean jackets adorned with studs and Gaga-isms which she put on and wore throughout the show, thanking the fans for the clothes to wear. Her reply when people tell her that she’s weird: “I don’t give a f***.” Then she asked different dancers on stage if they gave a f***, including Black Jesus, and finally, after she finished asking her dancers, she spotted a die-hard in the audience: a crowd favorite of picture-taking and gawking both before and after the show. Gaga noticed the drag queen in full Marie Antoinette attire and gained even more favor with the crowd as she told her that she was beautiful and unique.
Around mid-show, hits of “The Fame” were widely appreciated by the audience. Gaga performed “Alejandro,” “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance,” “LoveGame,” “Poker Face” and “Telephone.” Nearing the end of her show, Gaga also pulled out a piano decked out in medieval stone to play “The Queen” and a very emotional performance of “You and I.”
Ending with “Scheiße,” I assume to end the show with a vulgar and theatrical bang, Gaga brought all the dancers out to do a very well-choreographed dance with many strobe lights to finalize her show. But the fans were far from ready to end the two and a half hour show there. With continuous cheering and screaming for more than five minutes after the final song, Gaga came back out for an encore of “Edge of Glory,” performed a capella on her electric keyboard. Even after this, the fans were relentless. After another five minutes of frenzied chanting for the night not to end, Gaga came out for a double encore of “Marry the Night,” also done in a capella.
Sadly, this was her final song and the lights were turned on, revealing the looming medieval castle in broad light: an eerie sign that the concert was completely done. I have never been more saddened to finally sit down before in my life than I was sitting down to collect my belongings before heading out the overly-crowded doors of the Pavilion. Hectic, insane, wild, and weird, Gaga’s San Jose Born This Way Ball was filled with emotion, power, laughter and love. I have never seen an artist so connected to her fans and so in-tune with their desires and emotions than Gaga is with her Little Monsters.
I would absolutely recommend going to a Gaga concert at least once in your life, even if you don’t fully appreciate her music, simply for the performance aspect (let’s face it, she gives one hell of a show) and also, for the sheer love she gives to every person in the room. Even when the acting is over and the theatrics are done, there are paws up throughout the stadium to reassure Mother Monster that we stand true to her last line of the night: “Don’t you ever f***ing forget me!”
