On Tuesday night I went to see Lady Gaga at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. WHAT AN AMAZING CONCERT! In fact, it was so amazing that I already purchased tickets to her show in Oakland next spring!
I left work around lunchtime, went home to do my makeup, ate a quick lunch, and headed up to San Jose to meet Megan. She let me into her apartment and then she went to finish up class for the day. I hung out with Moose (her roommate’s dachshund) for awhile until Megan returned. Then we were off to the mall so Megan could get something to wear. We grabbed burritos at Chipotle on our way out of the mall, gobbled those down once we arrived back at her place, got dressed, drank some beers, and we were off! We grabbed the train at the light rail station next to her apartment complex.
On the train we met a bunch of other people who were also headed to the concert (which was cool, because we thought we were running a bit late). No one could agree what stop we should get off at in order to have the shortest walk to the Pavilion. These two very fabulous gay boys decked out in leather and giant sunglasses, whose names we later learned were Adrian and Santi, offered to split a cab with us. “You girls are NOT walking there in those HEELS!” they said. We happily shared a cab with them, which worked out to be only about $2/each. My feet were definitely thankful.
We arrived at the Pavilion, had another beer in some random parking lot, then ventured inside. We were greeted by people holding clipboards asking if we wanted to register to win a phone call from Lady Gaga. Megan and I politely refused; we were much more interested in finding a bathroom and then finding our seats. The people watching was pretty fantastic, and I was asked by several groups of people if they could take a photo with me (apparently my outfit was just that good). We also (conveniently) arrived just in time to miss the opening act.
It was a very theatrical show. There weren’t as many costume changes as I was expecting, but there were still quite a few. The show actually had a plot that moved along based on the songs. Bits of it were very reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz and Cinderella….with some allusions to Peter Pan (specifically Tinkerbell) as well. Oh, and that phone call that Megan and I declined to sign up for? Lady Gaga called the winner DURING THE SHOW (boy was I kicking myself!!!) and invited her down closer to the stage. Then she said, “Oh hold on, I’m getting another call” and segued perfectly into “Telephone”. She played the piano for a few songs in the middle (including “Speechless”) and they lit the lid of the grand piano on fire. “Paparazzi” turned out to be a very beautiful song live, as it occurred near the very end of the show and I’m pretty sure symbolized Lady Gaga facing her personal demons/obstacles, because she had to defeat this monster thing that looked a lot like an anglerfish.
They saved “Bad Romance” for the end and it was awesome. Lady Gaga and all of her dancers held hands and bowed at the end…it reminded me very much of a curtain call at the end of a play. All in all she was absolutely amazing live!
Here are some crappy videos I took at the show…I promise they don’t do her any justice:
