Lady Gaga doesn’t do anything halfway. Neither do her diehard fans and they were out in full force Thursday for the first of the global pop star’s three sold-out shows at the Bell Centre on the tail end of her Mayhem Ball Tour.
“All my friends call me Sarah Gaga,” said Sarah Côté-Doyon, 39, sporting a red dress and wide-brimmed red hat topped with conical adornments in tribute to the singer’s outfit in her Abracadabra video, off her new album.
Côté-Doyon has been a devotee “depuis Day One,” she said. “It’s the personality, the voice.”
“The fashion, and the gays — her support of gay people,” added friend Gabriel Derome, 33, sporting a Metallica T-shirt, leather jacket, black tuque, headset, fishnets and platform boots, a nod to Lady Gaga’s attire at the end of her new show.
“Her openness,” chimed in Maude Bergeron, 38. “She’s a performer. She sings well, dances well, she’s so fun to watch.”
They had each seen Lady Gaga several times, but it was going to be a first for Maude Côté-Doyon, 42.
“It’s because of my sister, who has been crazy about her for so long,” Maude said. “Now, I’m getting on board.”
Derome found a similarly clad admirer in Hazel Gilmore, 9, who had come up for the concert from New York with her parents.
“I love how she’s so open and she doesn’t really care about what anybody thinks,” Gilmore said of her idol. “She’s very supportive, no matter who or what anybody is, and she just puts herself out there.”
Her mother, Stephanie Gilmore, 39, says she, too, has been a fan “since Day One.” She cited Gaga’s “artistry, her commitment to her craft and the music” as key to the appeal. “She’s the best. There’s no one else out there like her. She writes and sings her own songs. She’s one of the greatest voices of our generation.”
It was Gilmore’s third time seeing Lady Gaga on the current tour.
“I cried,” she said, recalling the artist’s New York appearance. “It was very emotional.”
Chloe Teague, 23, and Bella and Gina Cullen, 25 and 21 respectively, had flown in from London for the concert after already seeing Lady Gaga in the U.K. They were joined by Montrealer Anna Martin, 25, and new friend June Kan, 19, who is from Toronto and met the others in a group chat on X.
All wearing homemade Lady Gaga outfits from the show, the women said the camaraderie was half the fun.
“She’s like our mom and we’re her kids,” Teague said of Lady Gaga. “It’s not just about seeing her, it’s us being together, the dressing up and the community. It’s so amazing. I can’t explain it. It’s a feeling.”
“I can’t talk about it, I’m going to cry,” Kan said. “I love her so much.”
Justin MacDonald Jones, 28, cut a striking profile in his cyborg, weblike Lady Gaga face covering he ordered online.
“Honestly, it’s just the message of positivity she presents to the world, and the resilience she instills in her fans and everyone across the world. A lot of people need that.”
He was visiting from Toronto with Matthew Ariss, 51.
“It takes a strong person to get where she is,” Ariss said. “And her message is very clear: you are who you are, and that’s all that matters.”
That message was on full display when Lady Gaga took the stage a little more than an hour later for a world-class performance. Backed by a live band and a crew of more than two dozen dancers, the singer led her audience through a two-hour whirlwind of hits from throughout her nearly two-decade career.
Split into four acts and featuring multiple costume and set changes, the theatrical mega-production was a spectacle through and through. Upon arrival, fans were given LED-lit wristbands by Montreal company Pixmob. Used by Lady Gaga on the entire tour, the lights flashed in co-ordinated waves of colour — activated according to seat section —throughout the night.
Lady Gaga came back with a bang last year with her critically acclaimed Mayhem album, a return to form pulsating with a vital energy that carried over into Thursday’s performance.
Early career favourites — Poker Face, Paparazzi, Alejandro, Just Dance, Born This Way (dedicated to “the queer community”) and a rousing Bad Romance — abounded, as did tunes from the new album. Abracadabra set a triumphant tone early on, and it never let up.
“Welcome to the opera house. Montreal, this is your f—king house,” Lady Gaga shouted a short while later, from the end of a long catwalk that brought her into the middle of the crowd and which she used generously throughout the evening.
Her voice was arresting and powerful, her energy unrelenting. Lady Gaga is the real deal. And that, ultimately, is what her fans respond to.
She belted out Die With a Smile late in the show, alone at the piano in the middle of the arena, as the crowd sang along to every word.
“You having a good time tonight?” she asked, at song’s end. “I love you so much. … Thank you for including me in your beautiful community tonight. Thank you. This is wonderful.”
Lady Gaga’s legions of adoring fans clearly felt the same.
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