Show: Lady Gaga, Monster Ball Tour

The rain that fell over Stockholm yesterday was a problem for many people. For me and for everyone else waiting in the huge line outside Globen to see Lady Gaga, it was part of the show. By the time I got there, 30 minutes before the start, people who had camped outside to get a good view of the stage were already in. Judging by the hundreds of plastic bags, flasks and rests of food around the entrance to the ground area, they waited a long time.

I went to a line for getting into the place. No need to rush, I had a reserved seat by the 7th row. It had a great view of the stage, few meters away from it.

The opening band was Semi precious weapons. Not really my cup of tea but I could understand why they were chosen as opening band. The vocalist was a man dressed as a glamorous woman, calling everyone motherfuckers and screaming. He even said " I wanna have sex with everyone of you here, Stockholm". No, thanks!

They finally went away and about half an hour later everything got dark and the screaming crowd, now much more numerous, got the message: She was ready.

Curtains up, the show had started. The song, I had never heard before, was not one of her radio hits. Lady Gaga was at the top of some stairs, in the dark, only the shape of her body visible. I thought that entrance was quite so so. I was expecting something more triumphal.

She eventually came down to the center of the large stage, with her sparkly but simple outfit, very close to the audience, which by the way was very eclectic: men, women, homos, heteros, transvestites and children. Anyway. After the cold start, she managed to heat it up with "Just dance", making even us who had seats, stand up and do as the song was telling us to. People were enjoying that moment, responding to her screams, "Stand up Stockholm!".

The stage was also a mood heater, looking really advanced, full of lights, dancers, metallic structures and even a car. They changed the scenario at least 5 times and they were all really good and elaborated. One of the most impressive ones was a huge ugly fish, which she told us was the monster that wanted to get her (she sang "paparazzi" in that moment...). It was only one of the many stories she told, to guide us through the psychedelic idea of the show: her way to the monster ball, the best party in the world, where people were free to be what they wanted to be. She said also that people told her she would never get there, that she was not pretty, tall or skinny enough and that she simply looked at them and replied "I am a star!". The audience going crazy after she said that. I could understand why Lady Gaga is such a Diva for people who feel they don't fit.

What did fit was her clothes. She changed them (if we can call some clothes) many times, mostly during the end of the songs, going backstage while singing. By the way, there was no band with her. A DJ did most of the work, which I thought was quite good because the songs sounded the same as in the CD: recorded background, recorded backing vocals, just the lead voice erased for her to fill in live. She did it ok although many times we couldn't listen to her voice in the middle of all the other noises.

The show lasted exactly 2 hours and had no pauses. She thanked us for "buying the ticket to see my show" and finished with another un-famous song. I thought the whole thing had been nice but was quite let down by the fact she didn't sing the only song I really like: Bad Romance. I still had hopes though.

Everything went dark and people started to scream "Encore! Encore!" and me thinking "Bad Romance pleaaaase!". Then the curtains went up just a little bit, still everything dark, I saw it because I was really close to the stage. Lady Gaga then came walking to the catwalk surrounded by the crowd, some of them, also able to see her for being next to the stage, yelling. The first sound that came out of her mouth, straight from the darkness of the Globen was a powerful "Oooooo ooooo ooo...."...I immediately went "Yaaaaaaaaaaay!"... my scream fast swallowed by everyone elses yays, they all waiting for this song to close the night with a golden key, the last song to go home happy. Well, I believe we did.