Ready for Those Flashing Lights: My Time at the Monster Ball, Part 1
The older I get, the more important true theatricality is to me when I see a stage production. If I am going to invest my hard earned money on a show, it had better be worth the ticket price. I'm too old now to be instantly smitten with bubbly adolescent glee over pop singers, thank heavens (except for everything Trek cast related, but Trek is special snowflake always.) And I'm too young to be so set in my music tastes that I reject anything new offhand. So I veer between fangirl squeeing over new artists and crankily telling them to get off my lawn.
I have been dragged to live shows where the performances and bad singing barely held my attention (Avril, I am looking at you), and have also seen sets that blew my mind and were a transformative experience for me (Alison Sudol, sigh. A true goddess; I still get girlcrushy shivers when I think of how amazing her concert was. And Depeche Mode rocked out harder than kids half their age, proving age is truly but a number.) Age of the singer has nothing to do with it; genre of music has nothing to do with it. It is all about presentation and enthusiasm and talent, and that spark all true performers have that cannot be faked. That is what I am searching for when I choose to attend a live concert.
Lady Gaga is an interesting phenomenon for me. The first time I heard "Just Dance" I hated it, absolutely despised the thing. Partly because my tastes at the time had veered to indie acoustical chicks and far away from pop; partly because I completely misinterpreted the lyrics (I thought it was encouraging the awful situation of girls getting so plastered at clubs that they lose all sense of reason and put themselves in harm's way.) But the more I heard it the more it grew on me, and Nyu explained to me that is actually about letting go and enjoying life despite the obstacles thrown in your path, which I can appreciate. Then I liked "Pokerface", the next single I heard. And I slowly fell in love with Gaga's wacky fashion sense and her always interesting music videos and the surprising amount of poise she has in interviews. I don't know, somewhere along the way I came to respect her as a legitimate artist and not just a flash in the pan shock poptartlet.
So well over a year ago, on the day the tickets for the Monster Ball in SLC were available for purchase, a friend and I made sure we scored seats. We knew Gaga could sing; we had heard YouTube vids of her performing sans studio magic. We knew she loved over the top extravaganzas; any music video of hers will tell you that. In short, we hoped it would be a good show, and worth our time and money and patience to attend.
Cut to almost a year later, March 19, and there we were, surrounded by little monsters young and old! Dressed to the nines in their adorbs monster costumes, half naked despite the weather being freezing cold. Along with many of them were befuddled parents that I could not help but look at in adoration; when your teenybopper son is wearing a dress and glittery tights and eyeliner in a very conservative state, and you are still willing to be seen out in public with him, you earn 1000 bonus parent points. There were also a lot of people our age dressed like us (by which I mean not dressed up at all), and even people the same age as the parent chaperones but obviously there for their own sakes. It was nice mix of people.
We all got in our seats, enjoyed the warm up act of the Scissor Sisters (who I ALSO LOVE, OMG, could not believe she got them to be the opening act), and waited for the crazy to commence.
And were not disappointed in the slightest.
The setup for the Scissor Sisters. During their set Ana told us that when little monsters grow up they turn into Scissor Sisters, lol. I loved seeing her live, I girlcrushed and totally wanted her outfit and her confidence. And Jake stripped down to pretty much nothing by the end, lol.
During the intermission after Scissor Sisters performed, you could text to the a number and get messages posted to the screens in almost real time. The kids in front of us did it and listed their names; when their message went up they freaked out, lol. Very cute.
Granted, the show starts off kind of slow. Gaga's Monster Ball is not merely a hodgepodge of bizarro sets and costumes; no, that would be too easy. There is a storyline too: their car broke down on the way to the Monster Ball, and they have to get on the subway, then travel through a tripped out central park, then are attacked by the fame monster, then magically make it safely to the ball. So the sets and things reflected this storyline.
I had my camera in my purse, because I ALWAYS have it in my purse, just in case, and during one of her sets Gaga told us that she knew the arena people would not like it, but that she gave us permission to take "As many F****** PICTURES AS YOU WANT." The crowd roared in approval. I think she realized people already were, she might as well go along with it. All the kiddies around me were, the people on the floor were. I had taken some covert shots before her announcement (YES, BAD THEATRE ETIQUETTE, PART OF ME IS STILL ASHAMED), but after her giving the green light I snapped away like a mad person, lol.
I am dividing my photos up into themes of sorts: The intermission screen video montages; set 1, set 2, set 3, and blurred closeups. Considering how my camera HATES low lighting, I am impressed any turned out at all. I could not get super close or it blurred everything, but here are the best of the bunch. We were in the lowest balcony, close to the middle.
(If you take these images and post them elsewhere, some credit would be nice, kthankx!)
VIDEO MONTAGES
To open the show and in between sets, a screen covered the stage and brief video montages were shown. After the Fame Monster puppet and hearing her sing acoustic (which I'll get to in good time), these were my FAVE THING about the whole concert. They were like pieces of mini art. Of course, they WERE shot like a German Expressionist film, much like the Alejandro music vid was, and I am addicted to that style so I am horribly biased, but still, it was lovely. I really hope they show the vids in the HBO special that is airing next month so you can see the full effect. Because of my shutter speed some of the video bits bled into each other like a double exposure, and I actually really like the effect. Yay serendipity!
Ugh, I hate smoking. But it was a big part of the expressionist style to include it, and I liked the way they transitioned from the smoking Gaga to the fake Metropolis-like set, so I sighed and gave it a pass.
SET 1
The opening set did not quite live up to all my hopes; I thought it looked like what a local theatre production of Rent might look like; a bit bare bones, and, dare I say it, a little tacky. Tacky? Gaga? Hmmm. But the car opened up to reveal a piano, which Gaga got up on and played, and the dancing was brilliant from the beginning, so I tried to ignore the set and look at what was beautiful on stage.
Now we journey from the broken down car to the Subway. Costume change to Nun outfit and creepy masks!
Gaga disappeared for a bit, then came out of floor rockin' the keyboards. Then her backup dancers helped her disrobe and more intense choreography ensued.
Okay, that was the end of the first set, and that's where I'm ending this post as well. In my next post I'll move on to set two: Central Park and forest of doom!