The opening salvo of Lady Gaga’s Chromatica Ball is one almighty flex. After dabbling in pared-back soft-rock on 2016’s Joanne, and cementing her status as a credible actor via A Star Is Born and House of Gucci, this delayed, 20-date stadium tour – in support of 2020’s synth-pop opus Chromatica – is her chance to make a claim for pop’s crown once again. It certainly feels like it’s on her mind when the grinding synth riff of opener Bad Romance kicks in, only to be followed by a pulverising Just Dance – sent skywards by a roared “Stockholm put your fucking hands up” – which in turn bleeds into Poker Face. As unequivocal statements of intent go, unleashing three of the 21st century’s defining anthems in quick succession is pretty bold.
But this being Lady Gaga, such a rapid-fire blitzkrieg of bangers seems to serve an artistic purpose, too. Housed initially in a surprisingly austere, monochrome set – dubbed the “museum of brutality”, but with a whiff of “multi-storey car park” – she performs Bad Romance trapped inside a modernist dress-shaped tomb with just her face visible. With each song an outer layer is removed, but she remains rooted to the spot, spinning round while bathed in red light as her dancers strut front of stage. Set in among the show’s somewhat muddled narrative of rebirth and salvation, with its five defined acts separated by elongated video interludes that occasionally disturb the show’s momentum, it reads like a comment on the suffocation of early, overwhelming fame, with the following act dubbed The Treatment.
