TORONTO - Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour touched down at the Air Canada Centre for a sold-out show on Saturday night but there was nothing remotely frightening about it.
It was only the second night of the electro-pop-dance diva's highly anticipated North American tour, which launched Friday night in Montreal, although her camp has been refusing to provide press tickets or allow photographers for the first three dates of the tour - including Ottawa on Sunday night - perhaps in an attempt to let her find her footing as an arena headliner.
They needn't have been so protective as Lady Gaga came across as a confident, colourful, and campy performer.
Maybe you recall, she was originally going to tour with Kanye West but the roadtrip was abruptly cancelled soon after it was announced?
It's hard to believe it was just a short six months ago, that the 23-year-old New Yorker was playing a club show at Kool Haus. At the time, she didn't even have a band and the biggest prop on stage was a scooter.
Since then, she's released a follow-up to her 2008 blockbuster debut, The Fame, which has spawned such hits as Just Dance, Love Game, Poker Face, and Paparazzi, with The Fame Monster which features eight new songs including the breakout single, Bad Romance.
On Saturday night, Gaga's success was evident with slick-looking videos, lights, elaborate costumes, dancers, and yes, a band, even if her stage was sometimes left dark as she left to make numerous changes.
The Lady herself first apeared behind a green laser lit video screen in a futuristic silver jewelled jumpsuit, with matching eye makeup, singing the new song Dance In The Dark from The Fame Monster, while dancers dressed in white balaclavas and white jumpsuits moved around her.
But it wasn't until she strapped on a portable silver jewelled keyboard for the next song, Just Dance, while inside a white cube, from which she emerged from the top, and the video screen came up, that the show really came alive.
"How ya doing Toronto?" she said. "What's up little monsters?
"Don't you all look amazing," she added later. "Has anybody passed out yet? Don't pass out. It distracts me. It makes me nervous. Are you drunk? Are you with your mom?"
After a brief video intermission, Lady Gaga returned with an even more elaborate off-white costume that was a cross betweent the Alien ecto-skeleton, and a human one.
"I love it when you put your claws up for me" said Lady Gaga as she launched into crowd favourite, Love Game, which includes the now famous line "I want to take a ride on your disco stick."
"Welcome to the Monster Ball," she said afterwards. "How you guys doing tonight? I've missed you all so much. Did you miss me? Whenever I'm away from Canada for too long, I feel ...."
The last word of that sentence was intelligible as she motioned towards her crotch.
Yes, Lady Gaga is a sexually-charged performer with a major nod to Madonna, to whom she is most often compared, and physically resembles in a live setting.
As she got out of her ecto-skeleton outfit, she grabbed her breasts and stripped down to a silver bodysuit for another Fame Monster song, Alejandro, which saw her being carried by her crotch by one of her male dancers and lowered onto another male dancer.
Later in the show, she declared: "Everytime you scream my name, I get a teeny, tiny, mini-orgasm."
And she made a point of spreading her legs while stradling a white dentist chair during Paper Gangsta.
More eye-catching costumes game in the form of a black feathered jacket for the new song Monster, with dance moves reminscent of Michael Jackson, and, and a gold Cleopatra-like crown and matching body suit for Fashion and The Fame.
She also wore bondage-inspired black leather gear for Boys Boys Boys and donned multiple blond braid extensions, a la Rapunzel, for Paparazzi.
But the emotional high point was when Lady Gaga went to her piano and belted out another new song, Speechless, which she wrote for her father who underwent heart surgery recently and was in the audience on Saturday night.
"About a month ago, I thought I was going to have to quit music because of my Dad but now I don't have to," said Gaga with tears streaming down her face.
"C'mon sing along with me. I don't know if I'm going to get all the words out. 'cause you guys are so amazing. I'm just going to sit here and cry for the rest of the show."
Lady Gaga stayed at the piano for Poker Face, claiming she was still finding bits of whiskey bottles she had smashed on the keys during her recent American Music Awards performance, and balanced on her piano stool while standing up, shaking her behind and holding one leg in the air.
Opener Kid Cudi even joined her mid-song to perform his hit, Make Her Say, which samples Poker Face, and the song was repeated again later in the show with full band accompaniment.
But everyone seemed to be waiting for the show closer, Bad Romance, and Gaga didn't disappoint in an '80s-inspired white power suit with exaggerated high shoulders and highwaisted pants.
WHAT LADY GAGA PLAYED:
SET LIST
Dance In The Dark
Just Dance
Love Game
Alejandro
Monster
So Happy I Could Die
Teeth
Speechless
Poker Face (on piano)
Fashion
The Fame
Money Honey
Beautiful Dirty Rich
Boys Boys Boys
Paper Gangsta
Poker Face (with band)
Paparazzi
Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)
Bad Romance
