Lady Gaga Show/Review Boston's House of Blues 5/4/09, by Francesca Maxime
Move over, Star Trek. Forget about Wolverine. She's other-planet chemical gases ice cold cool. Lady GaGa''s truly the future of Pop music.
From her Jetson-like costumes, to her new song "Future Man" (where she sings to an illuminated clear acrylic mannequin), to her robotic/erotic dance moves, Lady GaGa is on warp speed to becoming the next and best blonde Pop Diva, alongside veterans Gwen, Madonna, Fergie, Xtina, and Britney.
There's not much I knew about the first-time Grammy nominee (for best dance song "Let's Dance.)" But there's not much you need to know, either, other than 1) her voice evokes Judy Garland and her offspring Liza Minelli 2) She can bang out self-created tunes on the piano with two hands, and, one foot 3) Every single track on her album makes you want to move - in a good, non-squirmy way, and 4) She's got a great butt.
The 23 year-old started the set with some of her best known tunes, emerging from what appeared to be a cluster of rocks but ended up turning into dancing Bobby-Brown-like-"My-Prerogative"-days- clad male dancers. Themes of money, fame, the paparazzi, also bore heavily on her various tunes... as she thanked Boston so much for having her, and was impressed by the House of Blues' crowd's ability to sing along to GaGa songs. Gaga stayed away from the political - no Malawian kids here - except for one comment: support for legalizing gay marriage. (So I guess she and Miss California are best friends? Notsomuch...).
GaGa, BTW, is Italian, and frankly, as a half-breed myself, its easy to see then why she so easily wants to connect fame, the paparazzi, the music, the show-woman-ship, and the experience of lurching into the future with all her fans. She's inclusive. She really sang to the audience, and with the audience. Magnetic in her silver suit, no-one could take their eyes off her.
During an acoustic version of Poker Face where she solo'd at the piano, she belted out tunes high and low, singing the chorus over and over, in different pitches, ramping up and down the keyboard with strong chords. Alas, when she walked away, we thought, perhaps, that might have been it. But not one to disappoint, she re-emerged for one last costume change and encore and gave everyone what they wanted most: as she said, "You want me to shut up and play Poker Face." And, as they say, the crowd went wild.
I haven't really felt this excited about an artist since Alycia Keys. GaGa, for all her crazy antics and boldness, her fashion-extremes and platinum hair-bows, is still a little innocent, perhaps: still, a little naive. If nothing else, she's thoroughly enjoying her initial moment in the spotlight-blinding sun and all. And if we're lucky, she'll shuttle back and forth between that starry galaxy far away she obviously so adores, and keep coming back to earth to share shows with us, she knows we love.
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