Fallen from space onto the earth stage

The show ends a little after eleven, but when does it start? In the ICE from Berlin to Düsseldorf, where you see the first monsters, so the Gaga fans? Or in the incredibly crowded subway, which trundles north from the city center around seven o'clock in the evening and without taking in any new guests, in which Polish and Spanish gagaists try out the close physical contact of later?</p>The Rhine metropolis "Dusseldorf", as it is written on the tour merchandise shirts, marks the beginning of a tour that the world has been waiting for for a long time.

Fallen from space onto the earth stage

The show ends a little after eleven, but when does it start? In the ICE from Berlin to Düsseldorf, where you see the first monsters, so the Gaga fans? Or in the incredibly crowded subway, which trundles north from the city center around seven o'clock in the evening and without taking in any new guests, in which Polish and Spanish gagaists try out the close physical contact of later?

The Rhine metropolis "Dusseldorf", as it is written on the tour merchandise shirts, marks the beginning of a tour that the world has been waiting for for a long time. The "Chromatica Ball", the tour for the Chromatica record, is two years late due to Covid. The "Chromatica Ball" will end in September after seventeen stops in the USA. The lady last performed in Germany in 2018, Düsseldorf is her only appearance in this country.

Rarely has a concert been awaited with so much excitement, you can feel it. One has probably forgotten all that: the sheer madness of the masses, the march of 46,000, pouring out of buses and trains and peacefully circling a football stadium, and then in a functional fast-food nirvana around giant Krakauer, pork buns, hot dogs and cheese pretzels queuing, and beer from mugs with a handle.

That alone is amazing when you haven't been to such a gigantic concert for years. And then that moment when you walk into the stadium itself, with these tiny beings on the opposite side, beings like yourself. The pop queen takes her time. The official start is 7.30 p.m., shortly after nine the lights go out for “Bad Romance” and then the stage comes on. "Rah-ah-ah-ah Roma, roma-ma / Gaga, ooh-la-la" to the pounding beat. The piece is from 2009 and goes into "The Fame". "Just dance!" calls Gaga and then plays "Ppppppokerface". Music from the happy noughties, music that even three-year-olds can love. Then she gets into her latest album with the title track. Its name: Chromatica. An alien planet.

First impression: Lady Gaga's presence has something Bauhaus-like, strict, her dress at the very beginning makes her look like a living tangram game. And then there is the complexity of large-scale production. You have to see the artist with your eyes, it's so big, but the screens behind the two-story stage are huge and razor sharp, a veritable leporello of canvas stretching at staggered angles across the north side of the arena. On them you essentially follow what is happening on the stage.

Gaga was scanned in advance and made into an avatar, who is now haunting the screens. The visual component of “Chromatica Ball”, the official title of the show, is a cooperation with the British fashion photographer Nick Knight and shows us alien-like things, X-rayed brains, black and white plants, a concrete city and in it a brutalism gaga, which is strictly followed here blond hair gelled at the back and in patent leather, sometimes almost without make-up and as if refined. The costumes are sculptural, the shoulder pads resemble artillery shells.

Performatively, one first experiences the standards of stadium rock: hands in the air, flashing bracelets around the wrists, several guitarists with trapezoidal instruments on stage booms, twirling dancers and, very impressively, many flamethrowers. It's amazing, but the fireballs emanating from near the stage and rising from a central island in the middle of the stadium, dozens of meters away, can be felt immediately. You don't want to see the gas bill.

No, it's not just any concert. Lady Gaga tweeted the day before: "There was a time I thought I would never be on stage again. I was so sad I couldn't dream of anything but a painful nightmare. I overcame it with love, support, faith, truth, courage, talent and dedication. I am so grateful. See you in BABYLON.”

And so it was. The sold-out tour kick-off in Düsseldorf marks the return of a performer who can rightly be called the greatest pop star alive and perhaps the last. Lady Gaga, who is 36 years old, was born Stefani Germanotta in New York. She started writing songs at an early age and had her breakthrough in 2008. Thirteen Grammys and an Oscar for best song in a movie go to her credit. The interruption of concert operations from 2020 has filled them well. She appeared in the 2021 Ridley Scott film House of Gucci.

The year's box office hit, "Top Gun," features its theme song, and Gaga sang at Joe Biden's inauguration. It doesn't get more mainstream, you could say. But here at Fortuna Düsseldorf's home stadium, Lady Gaga is one thing above all: Mother Monster. The abject and alien-like play a far greater role in her demeanor than, say, Beyoncé (with whom she recorded the hit "Telephone") or Ariana Grande (duets with Gaga on the recent hit single, "Rain on Me").

Where Beyoncé and other pop queens also have a large following among LGBTIQ people - Gaga, whose outfits often reach into the grotesque and are sometimes carried around in a kind of alien egg, embodies an attitude to life that has nothing to do with imitating earthly divas, but with being in to live in a world whose conditions were created by others for others. Lady Gaga, like her hardest fans, the Little Monsters, fell from space onto the earth stage. The videos for the individual tracks on "Chromatica" can also be read in the same way.

The Alien Queen can be very decisive here on earth: "Put your hands up!" she calls out to the audience more often. "Take me to wonderland!" And then the stomping begins, as the pop queen commands. Unfortunately, if it is composed of too many tracks, the sound becomes unclear, muddy, too loud, which is typical for a stadium. Gaga's forte isn't turning the arena into a club, which she can't do with so many seats, nor is her off-screen presence on stage. No, her strength is her voice, a mezzo-soprano, full-bodied and warm, reaching into the furthest corners of the stadium. Around 10 p.m. she puts on a gold dress and sings the anthem "Free Woman". You can sing along, but the highlight of the concert is yet to come.

On winding paths, you can't see it, Gaga gets to the fire-breathing central island. There stands, illuminated by an orange and a blue beam of light, her piano, reminiscent of the Alien creator HR Giger, and accompanies the great, yes, greatest promise of pop: "My mama told me when I was young, 'We are all born superstars' “. Sixty thousand cell phone screens are now witnessing an ancient ritual, the ritual of self-affirmation in the midst of adversity. The evil Corona dream? Over. crises? Just believe in yourself! group delusion? Long live the individual! "Ooh, there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this way. I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way."

The dance hit from 2011 is performed acoustically, apart from the three million watts or whatever comes out of the spaceship-like loudspeaker colossuses. Gaga will be accompanied only by herself during this portion of her concert, which fits the message.

She also plays "Edge of Glory" on the piano. She also wears an organic looking hat with dots ending in feelers, a bit like the diva Plavalaguna in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. So Lady Gaga is back, still the same. "I put this record out," she says, "and then the whole world started to drift apart... I missed you guys so much." Is it possible, do you think, that it's finally over with that, with the drifting apart? Will pop make things right again, all the crises and hardships of our time? In any case, it's not Lady Gaga's fault, she gives everything tonight. Plus three encores.