When I think of Lady Gaga, one of the first words that comes to mind is ‘powerhouse’. No matter what she does, she always throws in 100 percent and her recent halftime show at the Super Bowl in Houston, Texas was certainly no exception.
The spectacular begins with opening songs ‘God Bless America’ and ‘This Land Is Your Land’, an interesting and potentially sneaky combination, as well as what looks like Gaga standing on top of the stadium below hundreds of red, white and blue stars. Her American pride is shining without a doubt, as she reminds anyone who might need to be reminded right now of the American pledge of allegiance: “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” A powerful start. From that point on, though, it’s safe to say that Gaga really lets her music do the talking.
One minute into her performance, Gaga has already leapt ‘off the stadium’ and dropped down from the sky. She kicks off her medley of well-known hits with ‘Poker Face’ accompanied by some aggressive shoulder movements which are made all the better by the epic shoulder pads on her bejewelled bodysuit. Yas.
Her talent knows no ends. She sings and dances (and quite frankly OWNS it) like an acrobatic queen whilst in the air. When she’s finally allowed to touch the ground on a permanent basis, she’s lifted onto a giant stage with a mass of dancers who make ‘Born This Way’ an even more awesome performance. I can’t help but think that it’s the perfect song to be performed across America and the world right now:
“No matter gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track baby, I was born to survive / No matter black, white or beige, chola or orient made / I’m on the right track baby, I was born to be brave.”
I barely have time to think about how lightning-fast and smooth the connections between songs are before another one starts. Inside a giant half-star, Gaga sings ‘Telephone’ into a futuristic handset before strutting across a platform and showing the world how crazy-beautiful it looks when your fans are LITERALLY lighting up (thanks to some groovy colour-changing, radio-activated lights given out at the front). The light show continues as she dons
a gold blazer and grabs herself a keytar for a rock-infused ‘Just Dance’.
‘Million Reasons’ is next, a relative newbie from the album ‘Joanne’, which Gaga starts her tour for in August. It’s captivating. “We’re here to make you feel good – y’wanna feel good with us?” she asks, before casually taking the opportunity on the world stage to shout-out to her parents. Soon after, the stage erupts with a mass of dancers in white ready to smash ‘Bad Romance’, the last song of the show. Gaga takes but a few seconds to join them, also in white but with some slay-worthy silver hot pants. It’s then that all the lucky people with the lights start moving in sync and fireworks start blasting. Climbing up a ramp with her dancing pals, Lady Gaga finishes her routine with a yell of “SUPER BOWL 51!”. Mic? She drops it. Football? She catches it, whilst leaping off a stage. Halftime show? She smashes it. A true artist and remarkable live.
Catch Gaga later this year on the following dates (I’m tempted):
9 October – London, O2 Arena
15 October – Birmingham, Barclaycard Arena
17 October – Manchester, Manchester Arena
Check out the full performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txXwg712zw4