March 29, 2011 - 8:22pm
Middling enthusiasm meets Lady Gaga in Detroit
BY ALLIE GHAMAN
Love, revenge and bad romance aside, the crowd didn't even want to be friends with Lady Gaga last night at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
"pretty genius, big huge man banging on the car window outside the arena, trying to sell me scalped tickets to my own show. yoouuu skalliwag," Lady Gaga tweeted prior to her show. This unwelcoming introduction to the city continued into the event.
There was the obligatory scattering of parent/guardian-strapped pre-teens and a handful of delightfully enthusiastic AARP-aged fans, but the majority of the audience centered around 25 and bored.
One felt sorry for opening act Jason Derulo who, despite his one-hit-wonder status, delivered surprisingly rich vocals and impressive dancing for the whole of his set. His performance space was very limited, due to Lady Gaga's elaborate set and lights, but with near-minimalist props and costumes he pulled off an impressive show. During his final number, predictably "Whatcha Say," he tried and failed to tear off the wifebeater he was wearing, which hung limply around his hips for the rest of the song. But it was with self-possession and dignity that he finished his set and tossed the shirt into the crowd.
Following Derulo's set, there was an oppressively long intermission, well over a half hour. However, this time became the heyday for a small group of Gaga impersonators, who were approached by other fans for picture-taking. While blonde wigs, overlarge sunglasses and sequined tunics were practically uniform for the under-30 female audience, there were a few stand-out costumes that approached the theatricality of Lady Gaga's own wardrobe.
Notably, a young woman some rows ahead of me had the very double of the white lace and pearls outfit that Gaga wore at the VMA's last year, complete with the bizarre rabbit mask. And former Daily Photo Editor Mike Hulsebus texted that a woman in his section was wearing a good replica of Gaga's infamous bubble minidress.
When her set did begin, Lady Gaga immediately delivered all the spectacle, lights and buzz that one would expect. The lighting in particular was bombastic, starting with a pulsating Cartesian plane projected onto a transparent screen that separated the performance area from the audience during her first number. Between songs, there were performance-art-like videos projected onto the stage. The first, representing Lady Gaga as a statue, seemed a little too desperate to add some shock value to the show and featured unexpected projectile vomiting by an actress onto the stationary Gaga. Another one, showing Gaga wearing a variety of S&M bondage masks, was poorly received by the audience. (I heard "What the f—?" exclaimed more than a few times around me.) However, if they were aggressively avant garde, the videos were also beautifully shot and added to the bizarre allure of Lady Gaga's persona.
She began her set with the sad but sugary sweet "Dance in the Dark" from her new album, "The Fame Monster" before quickly rolling into older number, "Just Dance."
Perhaps sensing the half-attention and middling enthusiasm, Lady Gaga's attitude in addressing the crowd was that of a dominatrix, as she repeatedly screamed violently, "Dance!" and "Jump!" However, these commands were little heeded.
Her interactions with the audience were unapologetically sexual, spurting out lines like "take your cocks out," among other comments.
A large theme of the show was the embrace of the LGBTQ community. Gaga herself joked suggestively about her big "talent," hinting at rumors that she is a hermaphrodite. There were many homoerotic moments between her backup dancers and Gaga gave frequent shoutouts to LGBTQ members of the audience. (She is, herself, bisexual.)
Of course, the costumes at the show were full of the high-budget insanity that one has come to expect from Lady Gaga. They did, however, lean more towards her image from "The Fame" era, showing more skin and being a little more down to earth than, say, the VMA's outfit or her Kermit the frog coat. The best getup was a gold metal-like leotard that looked like a cross between Princess Leia's slave bikini and a samurai. During "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)," performed inside the giant gyroscope from the "Bad Romance" video, Gaga had another winning outfit that featured a mirror-encrusted jacket that gave her a hunchback.
She covered a full gamut of the hits from both of her records, including both an acoustic and a full-track version of "Pokerface." The best was definitely saved for last: her new hit "Bad Romance" finally brought out a bit of spirit in the audience, who danced along to the moves seen in the YouTube music video (which, as of this morning, is at nearly 75 million views.)
But as soon as the music ended, audience members began to rush for the doors, ignoring the final video of Lady Gaga receiving a tattoo. For all the grandeur and cabaret of performance, Gaga brought "the fame" but failed to produce any monsters.
