Lady Gaga At Citi Field, Monday, August 28th, 2017, Reviewed
If you bought a ticket to see an 8pm “Wicked” on Broadway and by 930pm the musical hadn’t begun and nobody had told you why, you’d be well within your rights to be furiously angry. If you had tickets to a 6pm movie and two hours later it still hadn’t begun you’d have a riot. It has a trickle down effect, cars, and subways, trains and babysitters, work and later plans are all shot to hell, not to mention the insane annoyance of having to sit around for two hours at the whim of people there to serve you. The Lady Gaga “Joanne” tour reached Citi Field last night with an 830pm start where she didn’t get on stage till 1010pm. Perhaps her adoring Little Monsters will accept this, the vast majority of her fans are being screwed over. What makes things worse is Gaga proceeding to tell us to respect other people while having disrespected 30,000 people who had paid $100 for nosebleed seats. What is even worse than that is her incessant (seven of them) costume changes: for every 15 minutes of music we get five minutes of vamping by the band as Gaga changes her outfit.
I arrived at Citi Field around 730pm and I have never seen a more perfect audience, a gender fluid collection of people gay, lesbian, fabulous, trans, hets, kids, adults, young and old. And all just jumping and dancing. I realized I’d be sitting on my hands for awhile, but I checked the previous shows and she’d been hitting the stage no later than nine o’clock except for one night when she arrived at 915 and apologized. No opening acts, anywhere. I figured I’d be out by 11 and when the lights dimmed at 830 visions of an on time start thrilled the fans. What we got was a 45 minute house music set by DJ White Shadow, he produced Born This Way and Artpop, and while I love house enough to enjoy it on many levels except one: the one where I haven’t been warned. It isn’t difficult: email your damn ticketmaster customers and write
Dj Shadow – 830
Lady Gaga – 1015
I could have gone to a 7pm show on Broadway and still made it in time. Saturday at Jones Beach, Edgar Winter, Alice Cooper , and Deep Purple, managed to be precise and punctual. On Thursday, I saw eight reggaeton artists in the time it took Gaga to reach the stage.
That hour break between a DJ we didn’t want to hear spinning house beats and Gaga presence dear suctioned the air out of the field, there were small kids falling asleep and drag queens slipping out of five inch heels and rubbing their tootsies, people tweeting “where is Gaga?”. Where was Stefani? It’s the stalled subway train syndrome, keep people updated and they will be patient. Look at it this way: 30,000 people lost two hours each, that’s 60,000 hours, 2500 days, 357 weeks, an entire year wasted without reason.
The audience flipped once she hit the stage but I was tired and in a lousy mood and when she left the stage fifteen minutes later for her first costume change, I was tired and in a lousy mood and I was not amused. She sounded great, the first four songs were excellent, hard rocking, state of the artpop: “Diamond Heart,” A-Yo,” “Poker Face,” and “Perfect Illusion,” -very well, even though her guitar strumming during “A-Yo” was stupid. The problem in this section wasn’t music, certainly not her powerful voice, it was her “As I stand before you tonight…” speechifying. Are you joking me? Every time she starts in on her self-evident Colors Of Benetton crap I tune out. Maybe West Virginia need to hear about LGBTQIA, why would New York City need it? Shut up and change your outfit, you pompous, self-righteous, egotistical, hypocrite. However much I might enjoy Gaga when she gets down to business, there is far more where she drives me to distracted boredom, she hectors us like Bono does: you’ve got my money, you’ve kept me waiting for hours forcing me to leave before the end, if you love me so much do what I’m paying you to do.
I’ve seen Gaga maybe six times, the last time with Tony Bennett at his 90th birthday party gig, the best time headlining Jingle Ball, what those performances had in common was time constraints that forced her hand: she had to tighten up. In her “Cheek To Cheek” 2015 performance at Radio City with Tony she had no problem showing up on time, she was very good but she was maybe better last night, but I didn’t enjoy it. I’m not a fan ever since that godawful Thanksgiving Special in 2011, after that she became the playdough of pop. A miniset on piano was good, but not that good, by the time she was back on the mainstage it was 1130 and I was done for the night.
Here is a quick rundown of Gaga’s albums:
The Fame – A
The Fame Monster – A+
Born This Way – B+
Artpop – B
Cheek To Cheek – B
Joanne – B+
So, I am not a hater of her recorded work. Unlike many people, I prefer her on the rockier songs, on the ballads she is too harsh, it goes down like sharded glass and she overpowers you. On stage, I would like her a lot more if I wasn’t half dead before she ever got on stage:
The Fame Ball Tour (2009) – B+
The Monster Ball Tour (2009–2011) – B
Born This Way Ball (2012–2013) – C+
ArtRave: The Artpop Ball (2014) – C+
Cheek to Cheek Tour (with Tony Bennett) (2014–2015) – B
Joanne World Tour (2017) – C+
And I am being kind, guessing how I’d feel if I wasn’t dead from exhaustion.
That was as deeply depressing a night as I have ever spent at a concert. Stuff like “Poker Face” and “Telephone” were so good, the stage alive with dancers and colors, movement and sound and so what? The show was one long unforced error. She can take a ride on this disco stick.
Grade: C+
19 Comments
Couldn’t have said it better. The whole night was a nightmare. My husband and I were at this concert last night too. Trying to get into Citifield was the other problem. We were told doors open at 5:30 and then someone else said 6:30. They didn’t open til close to 7PM. The concert didn’t start til about 10:10PM. Never again seeing Lady’s GAGA or going to Citifield
What time was the show over?
midnight
Citifield is not the issue. We live in Queens and this summer alone my husband and I attended at least 8 other events at the stadium and we’ve never had any problems. On line and through security in 10 min or less each and every time. I don’t know what happened last night but we share the same sentiments, Rhonda!
Gaga pretends to love and respect her fans, yet she DISRESPECTS them by having a starting time on the ticket of 7:30 pm, but doesn’t come on until 9:10 here in Toronto, Canada. No opening act, or anything. We got there at 7:10, and she came on just after 9. For what……….to sell more beer and merchandise………..???? DISRESPECTFUL, and borders on dishonest. If we go to an NFL game, or a Broadway play, do they pull this kind of stunt??? No.
Paul in Toronto
was told that the hour delay was due to the US OPEN still being played. They had to keep CITI FIELD quiet until the tennis matches were over.
the Open ended at 1108pm yesterday
how could that be when there was a dj on stage for 45 minutes blasting mostly trash!!
You totally expressed my frustration last night! Never again!
Iman Lababedi echoes my sentiments exactly.
Her lateness and non apology was a total buzzkill for the rest of the show. In addition to that, having seats on the side totally hindered what was going on inside the tented area.
Our whole section could not see a damn thing. So on top of being late the staging was terrible. On her behalf she definitely has a set of pipes that no one could argue are good. But on a Monday night when most of us have to work on Tuesday, showing up at 10:10 just leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. I go to a lot of concerts but I will not be returning to her’s.
She ROCKED, spreading love for LGBTQ in the epicenter of civil rights is absolutely justified and gave the entire stadium a feeling of unity and love. You have no idea what she had going on that day what Citi field did to fuck up so and get people into the stadium late. She ROCKED and I couldn’t have been happier I Wish I could have went again tonight ??
I was there yesterday, Tuesday, 29th.
Best Performance eher seen. It was raining, nobody cared about that. Least Lady Gaga did.
Brillant, fantastique.
Couldn’t Agree More. Pouring Rain and All it was an Amazing Performance.
You said it all. We left at 11:40 to catch the LIRR. She has no respect for her fans. She had a hard time breathing. Maybe she should stop her nicotine addiction!
My tickets from Vivid Seats showed the concert was to start at 7:30. I would have been fine with other performances going on before her but there was only the Techno DJ…No explanation, just sitting and waiting. I live upstate NY and it takes about two hours to get home, which I was fine with if the show started on time. I ended up leaving early and I still got home around 2:00am. So dissapointing… This was my First Gaga concert and I was so excited to see her in my favorite place, the home of my beloved METS! By the way, anyone who has gone to a Mets Game at Citi Field knows this stadium is freaking awesome. It was sad to see how the Gaga fans trashed the bathrooms…toilet paper and sanitary holders ripped off the walls. Dont know what was going on but there was 2 sets of feet in one stall! I have to say the Yankee fans have more respect for our stadium then these Gaga fans.
You hit the nail squarely on the head….
Thank you for being so accurate and forthcoming.
It was disgraceful exhibition of being made to kowtow to a self proclaimed diva.
Her performance became of no significance. When she finally arrived on stage after almost 2 hours, and giving us 10+ additional minutes of countdown (so 30k people could scamper to the toilet together) the absurdity of it all washed over me and family.
She stole 2 hours of our lives and then demanded we cheer every inane word from her mouth.
I am suing her for intentional infliction of mental distress plus the added $100.00 for $7.25 hot dogs and $9.50 sausages
and $6.00 sodas that became a necessity for the family to sustain life during the interminable, inexcusable, unacceptable delay.
Thanks so much for writing this article. I saw her on Monday, August 28th as well and was extremely unhappy with this experience. So unhappy that I will never go to a Lady Gaga concert again. This was my first Gaga concert and I was actually very excited to see her. After 2.5 hours of waiting (my friend and I showed up at 7:30 pm), I was over her. What made it so insulting was that she didn’t even apologize or at least address the reason for her tardiness. No respect whatsoever for the fans who showed up that night to see her.
What I found incredulous was that almost everyone in the stadium jumped to their feet when she finally got on stage, forgetting the fact that she kept us all waiting for hours!! Imagine if your doctor or dentist kept you waiting that long. Are people so dense that they can’t see she treated them like they are nothing to her?
even the rolling stones don’t keep their audiences waiting for over 2 hours. and by the way, Stefani, you said you can’t remember your life before you became famous. what happened to all the bullying incidents when you were in high school? the problem with gaga is too much overproduction on many of hers songs. however, when she sits down at the piano and just sings, she’s absolutely brilliant. would I see her again? no.