EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY - AUGUST 11: (Exclusive Coverage) Lady Gaga performs onstage during The Chromatica Ball Tour at Met Life Stadium on August 11, 2022 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)Getty Images for Live Nation
With only a few days to go before Lady Gaga’s concert in Hershey, the few remaining tickets were to see Lady Gaga in Hershey were going for some lofty prices. And after seeing her live show, I can understand why someone might want to spend over $400 to see her.
The Chromatica Ball Tour came to Hershey on Aug. 28, and the Hersheypark Stadium was packed with Little Monsters ready to let their freak flags fly. And Lady Gaga, as the reigning queen of weird among pop culture’s most acclaimed and adored singers, did not disappoint them.
And while the show was a true spectacle in every way, it was also because I could feel a sense of community. That’s something that is said about a lot of musicians and bands, but it was something I hadn’t felt before in any tour or artist on this massive scale.
The show began long before the pop star hit the stage, with a wildly costumed audience filing into the stadium in everything from leather and fishnets, platform shoes and face paint, to glitter-coated beards and face masks made of feathers, to crowns, sequins and spandex. Full-on drag was on display, but so were colorful wigs, cowboy hats and t-shirts that read “I’m A Senior Monster” among otherwise casually-clothed folks in the all-ages crowd.
There was no opening act for Gaga, and her set began around 8:30 with a video opening where a 40-foot projection of Lady Gaga freed herself from a Hannibal Lecter-style face mask adorned in sequins.
The show was divided into five acts, with each introduced via video interlude, and nearly the entire backdrop of the show were used as projection screens, and would alternate between displaying brutalist architecture and evocative and surreal imagery.
The prelude began with a crackling energy as Lady Gaga emerged gradually from an almost coffin-like standing structure, singing back-to-back hits of “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance” and “Poker Face.” Only her face was visible at first, then her arms broke free to pose and gesticulate, before she was fully unleashed.
Throughout the night, Lady Gaga shifted from stylized movement and choreography one moment, to belting out songs about love and sex and acceptance, and then to candid emotional conversations with the crowd, and then back again to stomping, flexing and posing amidst pop anthems.
There were several moments when she was singing while prone, such as when she was lifted on a slab into the air during “Alice,” freeing herself and lurching off of it like Frankenstein’s monster, or when she would be lifted by her backup dancers mid-song.
And she deftly went from pop anthem to slow and melancholy tune and back again, whether it be strolling through the audience to reach the second stage clad as a golden icon during “Babylon,” or presenting a solemn rendition of “Born This Way” from there, accompanying herself on piano, before being rejoined by the full band and dancers.
“I just walked through this crowd,” Lady Gaga said before going into “Born This Way,” while dedicating the number to the LGBTQ+ population of Pennsylvania. “I can see and I can feel a lot of people who know exactly who they are. Some of you may not know yet, but you’re going to find out.”
She also paused the song after one line to reiterate the lyrics, saying, “Did you hear what I said? You were made perfect.”
There were more costumes, set pieces and homages than can be shared. A full black leather getup for “911″ with strobing red and black lights; black tape over an opaque body suit where her nipples would be during “Replay”; telling the Hershey crowd tonight was the “real candy shop” before “Sour Candy”; massive fire jets, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Kiss played at the Hersheypark Stadium, during “Telephone.”
But it was the intimate moments I found the most affecting. And there was plenty to be emotional about, as it wasn’t long ago that Lady Gaga thought she may not ever tour again - setting aside the COVID-19 pandemic, her struggles with fibromyalgia had caused her in recent years to cancel shows.
“We’ve had a crazy few years, haven’t we?” she asked, after doing a solo rendition of the Academy Award winning song “Shallows” from “A Star Is Born.” “This was a very hard, painful, scary time. But I think we also saw a lot of bravery. I hope things don’t have to be bad for us to see kindness.”
She also spent a few moments shouting out her east coast roots in general, and particularly the state of Pennsylvania - a state full of people, she said, that don’t always see eye to eye, but always love one another regardless. There was even a tear that rolled down her cheek at one point.
“I don’t know why I’m so emotional,” she said, still seated at the piano after “Edge of Glory.” And hey, maybe she does that for all the shows on her tour. She is an Academy Award nominated actor, after all. But I like to think it was truly just for this crowd.
True to the five-act structure, Lady Gaga closed the show with a curtain call of her backing band and dancers, linking arms and taking bows. From striking poses with extra-long, articulated skeleton-like fingers one moment, to hugging her dancers the next, and right back to striking poses, hopping over small pits of flame to make her final exit - those final moments concluded a show that spanned the epic and avant-garde to the humble and heartfelt.
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