Theatrical Lady Gaga comes far, fast
House of Blues, Boston, March 30, 2009
Reviewed by Jeffrey B. Remz
Madonna's still kicking around, but now that she's off to Malawi, she has a lot of competition from that young Manhattan upstart Lady Gaga.
The ghost of Madonna is written all around Lady G from the sexiness and sensuality to talking about getting it on to the dancing to the quality of the songs to the attitude and spunk to appealing to a gay audience (among males anyway).
There is certainly a spectacle about Lady Gaga, aka as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, a former New York University student only a few short years ago before she started writin for folks like the Pussycat Dolls, Fergie and Britney Spears. The show started with Gaga behind a big white sheet with her on the front holding a lit disco stick. Gaga was stuck in a big pose atop a black, spider sort of device that opened and closed during the opening Papa Razzi. The slowed down song was catchy as most of Gaga's songs were. She wore a black and white jacket and shirt outfit, which when she turned around revealed her buns quite clearly. There was no problem to dancing to this or just about anything she played during her 70-minute set. The closing line of the song may be telling as well, "We're plastic, but we still have fun."
That may sum up Lady Gaga. The 23 year old is fun, entertaining, but ultimately not all that deep.
Lovegame proved catchy with three dancing males doing their thing around her here and throughout the evening.
One aspect that didn't make a ton of sense were films between several segments of the show including the opening "Haus of Gaga presents Who killed Candy Warhol?" Another was titled "The Brain" and a third "The Face." They were head scratchers.
Neither did some of Gaga's between song patter. She was not distant as one might have expected given the theatricality of the performance, sometimes donning sunglasses, but always throwing them away during the song. In introducing the (way too) long new song Future Love, with a plastic figure of a man on stage near her, Gaga said, "People say some terrible things about me. Most of it is true. They say I'm pretentious, and I pretentious. They say I'm disgusting, and I am disgusting. They say all you need is love and art." Sounds like a non-sequiter, although seemingly partially true. She seems to make a big deal out of love and obviously is an Artist.
The biggest downer was that Lady Gaga often used tapes in her songs. At least, she didn't try hiding it. She engaged in numerous dance routines with the mic held away from her mouth and her voice coming on in the background. She is a very good dancer, something that added an even higher level of energy to the show, which had enough from the songs themselves. What would have worked far better is having a back-up singer or two to take over those lines. It made you wonder all the more what was real and what was on tape throughout the show.
That was exacerbated by having a DJ also in place of band though DJ Space Cowboy did play guitar on one song, but there didn't seem to be much of a difference between what he was playing and the recorded version of the songs.
While there were negatives, Lady Gaga, who could certainly have played longer, closed smartly with her hit Just Dance before encoring with Boys Boys Boys and her current hit Poker Face. When finished, Gaga and her dancers just stood at the front of the stage, stuck in pose while the crowd cheered. After a few minutes, they simply walked off without any sense of emotion.
Given that she has grown so quickly so fast in having one of the top selling CDs in the U.S. with "The Fame," Lady Gaga deserves tremendous credit for developing her concept and being able to mainly deliver on it.
Cinema Bizarre, an androgynous looking glam/pop German band opened the evening with the one song heard catchy, but with vocals too far buried in the mix.
Chester French, ostensibly a duo with several backing performers is originally from the area here, but migrated to Los Angeles. While the songs may have some catchiness, the group failed to convince. One got the sense that this is all staged. Lead singer D.A. Wallach also doesn't sing all that well. Adequate maybe, but he seemed like a poseur.
And in an evening where everything was staged and little probably given to chance, White Tie Affair preceded the headliner with a calculated set. The Chicago band has catchy songs, but nothing that you haven't heard before especially if you've listened to Fall Out Boy at all. Clearly, this felt like Fall Out Boy Jr. Go for the real deal.
