She didn’t say goodbye.
That was the lament I heard from a co-worker Wednesday morning while discussing the Lady Gaga show the night before.
“She just put her hat down and left,” he added, sounding slightly heartbroken. “And she didn’t call us Little Monsters once and I was waiting for that.”
It seems Gaga, a fierce advocate for the LGBTQTS+ community, was sending a message to her fans, also known as “Little Monsters,” that some of their recent behaviour had disappointed her. In the past several years, and as recently as this July, Gaga had to publically appeal to her fans to stop their online bullying of everyone from Adele to Ed Sheeran.
Gaga also made it crystal clear that this is the Joanne World Tour, so while she thrilled the crowd with some past hits, including “Born this Way” and “Bad Romance,” much of the focus was on songs and hits from her latest album Joanne, which illustrates yet another side to the multi-talented artist and offers a toned-down version of Gaga.
Named after her dad’s sister Joanne, who died in 1974, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (a.k.a. Lady Gaga) told the crowd, “I named my record after my father’s sister because what I realized is for all of us, there is grief passed on from generation to generation, from our parents, from our grandparents. Things that happened to them that were passed on to you.”
Gaga chose Vancouver to kick off her kick-ass world tour, which includes over-the-top effects, multiple costume changes, gorgeous back-up dancers and a stage that at times spread from one end of Rogers Arena to the other thanks to video screens that sometimes transformed into bridges that lowered from the ceiling. Those make-shift bridges allowed the tiny rock star and her dancers to dominate the huge room, and the thousands who gathered to worship her loudly showed their approval.
Maybe it was opening night nerves, but Gaga, famous for her ongoing banter with the crowd, was surprisingly quiet. The show also included lengthy stretches during costume changes when the crowd seemed confused about what to do. Was there enough time for a bathroom break? Enough time to line up at the bar? And yes, as my seatmate proved, there was enough time to hit the bar.
That same crowd went wild when Gaga spotted a Pride flag in the audience and had it brought to the stage. “Needless to say, I have a lot to say about this issue,” Gaga told the screaming crowd, many here to celebrate Pride Week in Vancouver. “But the most important thing that I have to say about it is that everybody’s got to love each other.”
And love each other they did, at least in Vancouver. What surprised me the most at the show was the diversity of the crowd. I know, diversity at a Lady Gaga concert? But in this case it was the many, many older fans in their 50s, 60s and even their 70s. And while some were dressed to kill, others looked like they stepped straight out of a Sears’ catalogue circa 1980s. But there they were, happily intermingled with boys rocking heels, boas and sparkles and girls in rainbow platforms, pigtails and more sparkles. And they all got along just fine, which I know must have made Lady Gaga very proud.
The 60-date Joanne World Tour hits Edmonton Aug. 3. Let’s just hope cowboy and oil patch country is just as welcoming to all of those Little Monsters.
@sthomas10
