Concert Review: Ford Center fans in Oklahoma City go Gaga

Lady Gaga performs at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, July 20, 2010. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman

The Lady Gaga concert Tuesday night involved more show than any television could handle.

Hours before Gaga began singing funky disco songs about freedom, love and dancing, hundreds of patrons lined up in front of the Ford Center to get closer to their “mother monster,” a maternal nickname fans reserve for Lady Gaga.

The front doors of the venue were swarmed by what resembled an explosion of Lady Gaga music videos and merchandise booths. Fans pinned Diet Coke cans in their hair, wore telephones as hats and wrapped themselves in yellow caution tape like they were some sort of a dangerous mummy.

Several visitors of the National Association of Free Will Baptists Conference, who congregated inside the Cox Convention Center this week, gawked at the carnival of weird, which begged for a joke along the lines of, “What do you get when you mix religion and Lady Gaga?”

The punch line is, of course, a show and that’s what Gaga brings with her.

Headlines let you know Lady Gaga is good at upsetting Jerry Seinfeld, wearing skimpy outfits to baseball games and doing whatever she wants to do. She’s great at all that, but she’s even better at performing.

Opening act like Semi Precious Weapons had patrons chanting “Gaga” well before her set. It was like watching a huge gang of babies demanding nourishment, and Lady Gaga knew what the crowd wanted.

She began her concert hidden behind a silhouetted screen. Her shadow alone managed to get the crowd roaring by striking a single pose while singing the show’s opening track “Dance in the Dark.” The pop star emerged onto the stage, which was bathed with neon lights in an urban city landscape. She was garbed in an oversized studded purple jacket that was straight out of “Purple Rain.” It could have fit five Prince-sized human beings.

After the song, a series of skits began. The plot involved a journey to the Monster Ball, a magical place that neatly summarized the concert’s theme of being free to do whatever you want and be whoever you want. In one skit, Gaga lifted the hood of a glowing neon car and began playing a keyboard. This move would only have made sense in a “Looney Tunes” episode and a Lady Gaga concert.

Anyone suggesting Gaga isn’t talented should find something else to critique. She can play piano even when it’s on fire, effortlessly change her wardrobe several times and command an audience of 18,000 to make claw-like hand gestures. Backing Gaga was an arsenal of musicians including a harpist, drummer, tambourine player and several more instrumentalists. There could have been more musicians backing Gaga but most of them were usually difficult to see and were hidden behind metal enclosures and various stage settings.

But this was a Lady Gaga show, and she’s the one in the spotlight.

Gaga did attempt to share the love when she called an audience member named Crystal on a cell phone and invited her to get closer to the stage, but the call was interrupted by a sudden urge to contact Beyoncé for a “Telephone” duet.

Lady Gaga spent the first several songs of the evening turning the Ford Center into a dance party, but slowed the show down for two ballads in the middle of her set.

Between the songs “Speechless” and “You and I,” Gaga touched on her relationship with men who drink too much and credited them for the songs she writes. Throughout the concert’s entirety, she would directly address her lesbian and gay fans in serious and joking manners. Perhaps this is why protesters outside the Ford Center carried signs mocking Lady Gaga. However, her message couldn’t be more harmless and poignant, which was to be yourself, don’t let the man get you down and remember to let Lady Gaga show you how to have fun.

Ending the set were Gaga’s most popular tracks “Alejandro,” “Poker Face” and “Paparazzi.” This was the only moment in the night when Gaga’s ego was dwarfed. As she closed the set, the stage transformed from a decaying Central Park scene into a literal “Fame Monster.”

Luckily, the stage-sized squid creature was more interested in tearing Gaga’s clothes off than metaphorically swallowing her. This was a dangerous move for the fish because a majority of her costumes would poke your eye out if they were hanging in departments stores.

Gaga’s encore was a passionate rendition of “Bad Romance” which concluded with Gaga wearing underwear with the ability to belch fire.

If you don’t like the show by now, then it’s probably time to change the channel.

But remember thousands of Oklahomans know exactly who they want to see.

-Poppe

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