{"id":10031712,"date":"2022-08-20T04:53:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T08:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/?p=10031712"},"modified":"2022-08-23T05:21:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T09:21:42","slug":"live-review-lady-gaga-unveils-a-museum-of-brutality-at-fenway-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/2022\/08\/20\/live-review-lady-gaga-unveils-a-museum-of-brutality-at-fenway-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Review: Lady Gaga unveils a ‘museum of brutality’ at Fenway Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leave it to Lady Gaga<\/a><\/strong> to barely move a muscle during a performance of \u201cJust Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her feet remained firmly planted in one spot Friday night (August 19) at Boston’s Fenway Park as she vogued her way through her anthemic breakout hit, all while an invisible pedestal rotated her 360 degrees. What, did you expect some bedazzled keytar action? Maybe that approach worked for every show from 2008 through Gaga’s glitzy Las Vegas residency, but The Chromatica Ball is different beast altogether. Gaga even dubbed the tour a traveling \u201cMuseum of Brutality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And her static delivery was the first artifact on display. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lady Gaga arrived preserved in stone: Wedged into a piece of avant-garde fashion that folded her arms and legs inside a statuesque boulder. Gaga\u2019s robust pipes could shatter that sucker into cinderblocks if she willed it, but she remained immobile, even as \u201cBad Romance\u201d blared to open the show. Slowly, her sarcophagus splintered into pieces, breaking down as Gaga vocally bulldozed through her holy trinity of early smashes: \u201cBad Romance,\u201d \u201cJust Dance,\u201d and \u201cPoker Face.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come the final notes of the latter, she\u2019d successfully pried her way to freedom. But it was too late; once the music halted, her neck jerked to the side, and her limbs fell slack like an unplugged android, as if to say “I’m already out of juice.” Sure, even those sudden, jagged movements are rehearsed, but that doesn’t make her metaphor any less honest. That fashionable embrace of stone isn\u2019t just another Gaga-level-gaudy ensemble. It\u2019s a weighty symbol of the physical pain, stiffness, and spasms that have tormented her life for years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Lady Gaga sashayed through similar mini-acts at Fenway, she preserved pieces of her past that most artists might prefer to sweep under their Grammy cabinet. In 2013, the Born This Way Ball collapsed overnight when Gaga broke her hip from overuse (her show scheduled for TD Garden was among the casualties). In 2017, she persevered through two sold-out Boston shows<\/a>, but cancelled the majority of her European dates when her fibromyalgia flared up unexpectedly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that track record, it\u2019s not surprising that The Chromatica Ball could be filed under “exhibitionist body horror.” While fleshing out memories of her physical limitations last night, she plunged one barbed monster claw into an open wound and spilled her guts across a brutalist stage. The vibrant jewel tones of pink and green that colored Chromatica<\/em>\u2019s rollout don\u2019t exist here. Video screens projected the bleak texture of cement walls onto Gaga\u2019s surroundings, constructing a factory-like workshop where she could hammer out the hells of her past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould you pull me out of this alive?\u201d she cried during \u201cAlice\u201d while splayed across a slate resembling an operating table. Fake blood dribbled down her chest and stomach, smeared between the cutouts of a tattered crimson gown. She rocked and writhed with a wince that sent a clear message: This wriggling isn\u2019t sexy, it\u2019s excruciating. As the first track of Chromatica<\/em>, \u201cAlice\u201d posed a vague, danceable cry for liberation. In Gaga\u2019s museum, it shifted to a plea of desperation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like “Alice,” most of the relics in Gaga\u2019s museum took form as excerpts from Chromatica<\/em>. \u201cThis is my dance floor \/ I fought for,\u201d she exclaimed with pride on \u201cFree Woman,\u201d a nod to her own mental and physical endurance in the pop industry. Other artifacts are less subtle, like the hook in \u201cBabylon\u201d that demands listeners \u201cbattle for [their] life,\u201d as Gaga claims she did when recording the album. (In other news, the song\u2019s enigmatic line \u201cbodies moving like a sculpture\u201d finally makes an iota of sense, given Gaga\u2019s opening look).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her program swiveled between the intensity of grief and relief for two frenetic hours. For every mind-numbing moment of pain \u2014 like when Gaga snapped into a monotone trance to perform \u201c911,\u201d a vulnerable account of her experience with anti-psychotic medication \u2014 there was an equally potent outburst of pleasure. After \u201cReplay\u201d dredged up the lasting trauma of sexual abuse, \u201cStupid Love\u201d and \u201cRain On Me\u201d scrubbed away the damage with sugary pop. The final crescendo of \u201cShallow\u201d provided one-song-fits-all catharsis, and rabid A Star Is Born<\/em> fans were also treated to the film\u2019s second-place (but stadium-ready) ballad \u201cAlways Remember Us This Way.\u201d \u201cBorn This Way,\u201d \u201cFun Tonight,\u201d \u201cThe Edge of Glory\u201d and the Chromatica<\/em> deep cut \u201c1000 Doves\u201d rounded out the subset of stripped-down piano songs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was not that long ago that my Joanne World Tour stopped very near here<\/a>,” Gaga recalled while perched at her custom piano bench, which resembled a knot of tree roots. “I left it alllll <\/em>here at this park, at Fenway. I made it through Fenway. You don’t know this, but you got me through that show.” The fact that she subsequently cancelled the rest of the Joanne tour due to “severe pain”<\/a> remained unspoken, but understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet for all the times that Gaga wrestled with her physical and mental well-being last night, her finale acknowledged there\u2019s one body part that has yet to betray her: Her hands, often crumpled into menacing claws, now reaching out for a chance at healing. She closed the show by launching into \u201cHold My Hand,\u201d her original contribution to the Top Gun: Maverick <\/em>soundtrack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy\u2019d you take so long to tell me you need me? \/ I see that you’re bleeding \/ You don’t need to show me again,” she bellowed in the pre-chorus, clutching the mic stand with a taloned glove seemingly straight from Tim Burton’s imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After everything Fenway witnessed last night — and hopefully, now understands — Boston could lovingly tell her the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured photo of Lady Gaga at the MetLife Stadium (New Jersey) by Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leave it to Lady Gaga to barely move a muscle during a performance of \u201cJust Dance.\u201d Her feet remained firmly planted in one spot Friday night (August 19) at Boston’s Fenway Park as she vogued her way through her anthemic breakout hit, all while an invisible pedestal rotated her 360 degrees. What, did you expect some bedazzled keytar action? Maybe that approach worked for every show from 2008 through Gaga’s glitzy Las Vegas residency, but The Chromatica Ball is different beast altogether. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4108,"featured_media":10031713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,91],"tags":[27457,1995,26409,16753,27482],"class_list":["post-10031712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-reviews","tag-chromatica","tag-fenway-park","tag-header","tag-lady-gaga","tag-the-chromatica-ball"],"yoast_head":"\nLive Review: Lady Gaga unveils a 'museum of brutality' at Fenway Park<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gaga's return to the Boston ballpark for The Chromatica Ball could be filed under 'exhibitionist body horror'.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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