JAZZ HANDS: “Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour” goes behind the scenes of the pop star’s Madison Square Garden show. (Terry Richardson)
Does Lady Gaga make you gag?
If you’re not a big fan of Gaga, or even if you think she’s Madonna lite, this HBO concert film will make you a true believer — or a believer, at any rate.
The girl from New York City who went to private schools, then studied theater at NYU and was still an outsider, has become the ultimate outsider and now everybody wants in. And that’s the message of this wacky, tough, vulnerable and talented woman — who has no problem displaying all of that and everything else that would make most normal people cringe.
Filmed at her show at Madison Square Garden on February 21st, the two-hour special switches between the concert and black-and-white footage of her getting to the show, changing between sets and her off-stage remarks.
What’s shocking and surprising about Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga to you) is that when she released her first album in 2008, she was banging around New York doing small gigs here and there.
By November 2009, when her second album came out, she was a superstar and, in two short years, produced a concert that would make Madonna’s shows look like run-of-the-mill dinner theater.
Forget the usual pyrotechnics of today’s pop concerts. By the end of this show, Gaga has fire shooting out of her boobs and her crotch — and, somehow, by then it’s not even surprising. It’s just terrific.
The thing that separates Gaga from every other performer you’ve seen is that she’s so excited to be where she is and so grateful that she has managed (so far) not to isolate herself from her fans while she’s onstage.
Her concert — she swears mid-performance that it doesn’t have a minute of lip-synching — begins when she invites all her fans to join her at the “Monster Ball.” The concert’s unbelievable dance numbers feature men wearing giant cups on the outside of their skin-tightie-whities while she parades around in fantastical costumes that range from a bikini to a giant fake-feather gown bigger than anything Marie Antoinette could have dreamed up.
What’s great about this concert film, however, is when she’s off-stage — wiping away tears when she sees her name on the marquee, being the rebellious woman who refuses to conform.
Warning: There’s lots of nasty language, simulated sex and violence. So, no, this isn’t family entertainment — unless you come from the Manson family.