REVIEW: Lady Gaga's Melbourne Born This Way Ball Concert - New Song 'Princess Die' Debuted!

28 June 2012

I was lucky enough to catch Lady Gaga's Born This Way Ball last night in Melbourne, and let me tell you now, I am going to run out of positive adjectives to describe how good it was.

I am one of the few Take 40 team members who hasn't seen Gaga in all her glory before, and she lived up to everything I had imagined. Her performance was vibrant, engaging, and despite being a well-oiled production, was perfectly tailored to the Melbourne crowd.

From the moment Lady Gaga took to the stage (on top of a giant animatronic horse) she had the audience completely captivated, and lifted the roof off Rod Laver Arena.

Even if you weren't familiar with her music (where have you been?), everyone there was seduced with her performance, and if you came for her hits you got them, with Gaga belting out Just Dance, Poker Face, Judas, You & I , Bad Romance and Telephone just to name a few.

The pint sized singer performed for over two hours, and this is not an exaggeration, almost every song came with an entirely new high fashion elaborate costume, integrated seamlessly into the tremendous gothic castle backdrop!



A big highlight of the night came when Lady Gaga decided to perform a brand new song to the audience, that's right, a complete world exclusive in the form of the slow-tempo ballad Princess Die.

The song itself was quite melancholy (and p.s was performed from a keyboard on a motorbike), but showcased a vulnerability and raw vocal quality that stood apart from the rest of her show stopping set. It was amazing.

Watch her performance of Princess Die here.

Lady Gaga spent a lot of time talking and joking with the audience last night, which made her all the more loveable, and at one stage was thrown a blow-up doll complete with blonde hair.

"Is that supposed to be me?" she joked, before playing with the doll's mouth. "That's a pretty small hole... just saying." So cheeky!

She finished with an encore of Edge Of Glory, begun with a completely stripped-back arrangement, which demonstrated her breathtaking vocal abilities. She's got a flawless belt!

The last song in the encore was unsurprisingly, her smash anthem Marry The Night, and mother monster showed off her maternal skills by plucking, in her words "a little peanut who's been dancing the whole time" from the audience, and leading her by the hand around the stage.

The young girl was pretty overwhelmed, but gave a few of the hottest dance moves a crack which was super cute!

After Lady Gaga's Born This Way Ball was banned in Indonesia for being Satan loving, I was curious to see how offensive the production was.

While I completely understand how her onstage antics would not resonate with a strictly Muslim community (there was a prosthetic vagina on stage for instance), I saw no devil worshipping last night, only love of music and love of her fans.

Lady Gaga, my mind is officially blown. Australia will always welcome you with open arms... maybe you should just move here? Just sayin'.

I give her Melbourne Born This Way Ball 10 monster claws out of 10.



Check out some of the highlights of Lady Gaga's Sydney show last year below!