REVIEW: LADY GAGA THE MONSTER BALL (TORONTO)

Toronto's Air Canada Centre was chosen asthe second stop-off on Lady Gaga's self-headlined The Monster Ball tour. It was her main objective to give fans an expensive-looking show at an affordable price considering that she was originally to co-headline the Fame Kills tour with rapper Kanye West. As we are aware, those plans were kiboshed as he opted to take a mental rest leaving Lady Gaga to her own devices. Headlining an arena tour for an artist who has been in the game just over a year is almost unheard of, but she has accomplished just that already. Above this, she sold out completely here in Toronto, leaving no doubts to how popular she has gotten in this short amount of time.

Lady Gaga drilled home a few very important points repeatedly to the audience this evening at what she calls her "pop-electro opera": 1) She hates money. In fact she claims to be "broke", having invested most of her earnings into her own videos and shows. 2) She is very grateful to Canadian fans as we made her debut album The Fame and single Just Dance number one before any other market. 3) She is obsessed with becoming a better artist every day because she has "the best fucking fans". 4) If you don't like her show, you can "get the fuck out". Very poignant, indeed.

Finally arriving on stage at 10:30 PM after two opening acts Semi Precious Weapons and Kid Cudi (admittedly mismatched) warmed up the crowd, Lady Gaga arrived in-persona and full of her signature bravado. Surprisingly, the band was nowhere to be seen and there seemed to be much dependence on backing tracks, except for slow numbers where she played the piano; she came armed with a tight-knit team of dancers. The show was very simply laid out with much visual focus being placed on three LED screens on-stage where abstract vignettes were projected onto between songs. The first half of the show focussed almost exclusively on new material from her The Fame Monster disc and despite having been released only Tuesday, most of the audience already knew how to sing along to the tracks.

To view more pics from The Monster Ball, click here.

Opening number Dance in the Dark was performed behind a grid screen, which started the show on a bit of a distant note and this I felt, plagued parts of The Monster Ball. Lady Gaga performs much of the show too far away from the audience perhaps. This may be a result of the stage's design, as it is intended to make the concert look as if it is a work of art within in a frame. I will not take anything away from her though as truly she gave it her all tonight, frequently making efforts to connect with her audience asking "Canada, how are you doing?". She went on also to perform hits Just Dance, Love Game and Monster to the enthused audience which was primarily female, although there were a good number of male fans and families in attendance too. Above this, her singing was all live and she was able to do so while dancing through most of her show.

Lady Gaga slowed down the pace a bit, putting her piano prowess on display for the audience with an all-out rendition of new track Speechless, followed by her signature acoustic version of massive hit Poker Face. It was explained that her father is undergoing some health problems and a few weeks ago she was contemplating putting aside her music career. Grateful and touched by the support of her fans, she was moved to tears, noting that her father was actually in attendance this evening. It was a vulnerable moment which gave us a true sense of the character behind that theatrical facade we see often with her. She pointed out too that there were still remnants of glass in her piano from her bottle-smashing performance on last week's American Music Awards.

Other highlights tonight included a fun performance of Boys Boys Boys which elicited a lot of excitement from the audience, as did Alejandro, where the audience saw Lady Gaga engaged in a simulated ménage à trois on stage. The evening would not have been complete however, without witnessing a performance of latest single Bad Romance. She entered the stage in a metallic orbit before commanding the stage with that now-famous dance featured in its music video which appears to be one part Bollywood, one part Monster Mash.

Despite my admiration of her charisma and craftsmanship, this show was not without its faults. It is very clear that this concert was produced on a limited budget as props like lighting had doubled as a crane used to transport Lady Gaga. Madonna noted this also after watching her performance recently, in a Rolling Stone interview. In all honesty, some songs performed tonight could have been eliminated completely like Fashion and Paper Gangsta, plus a second helping of Poker Face (featuring Kid Cudi). They are filler and the audience would have walked away feeling just as content had they been omitted. There were also many odd gaps of dead silence after the video vignettes ended and this is a flow issue which the team behind the show need to iron out. Oddly enough too, she did not perform confirmed next single Telephone this evening. Surely a condensed version could have been put together in Beyoncé's absence?

The plus side of all of this is that Lady Gaga has much more to strive for next time around and this is reassuring because I for one worry at times that her sudden success will lead to just as sudden a plateau with little opportunities for growth. In all, I enjoyed The Monster Ball very much, but it could have been that much better with a bit more meticulous attention to flow. Grade: B+

Watch these clips I posted from the show tonight of Bad Romance and Monster (audio content owned by Interscope/Universal Music):

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