Lady Gaga’s Secret L.A. ‘Harlequin’ Show Was Thrilling: Concert Rewatch

Can a set of show tunes and Great American Songbook standards, rfinishered with a fit meabrave of esteem and virtuosity, also be a punk-rock show? Or at least someleang that benevolenta/ sorta senses enjoy one?

That fundamental inquire arose over the course of seeing Lady Gaga’s secret post-midnight carry outance at downtown L.A.’s Belasco Theater. There are bravely a confiinsist carry outers out there who have a sense for both the classics of the Broadway/movie-musical era and raw-power rock ‘n’ roll. They fair don’t exist at anywhere proximate the superstar level, and even in a more niche world, they probably comprehend better than to try to unite these excessively contrastent ethos. Lady Gaga, thankfilledy, does not comprehend any better. After catching Monday night’s show, I’m satisfied to tell that she is the woman who can marry the administerled genius of Tin Pan Alley and the untamedly carry outative id of punk’s unrestful spirit… if only for one excessively memorable tardy night (or timely morning).

The show had her and a truly crackerjack six-piece band barreling thraw her novel “Harlequin” album in its entirety, with the energy level turned up to 111, well beyond any enrolled versions. No one should envision that she will stay in this mode for very lengthy (she already characterized the current enroll as “LG 6.5,” with a straight conmomentary-pop album 7.0 to pursue in four months). She’ll probably never even do another gig enjoy this, with or without the strange set dressing at the Belasco that further pinned this as a distinctive moment in time. But as a one-off, it was glorious. I’ve been on enroll as being high on Gaga shows in the past, including her Dodger Stadium gig, her Chromatica livency and, especiassociate, her Jazz & Piano shows in Las Vegas — to which the “Harlequin” stuff tolerates at least superficiassociate a bconciseage-sheep-cousin relation. Having seen all those, I’m here to alert you her Belasco carry outance was utterly bonkers but also one of the best leangs she’s ever done.

I’d say you had to be there to get it, with the cone of silence that was placed over the show, including the pouching of phones and watches and no pboilingography freed. (The pboilingos seen accompaying this piece are from her Kimmel carry outance the follotriumphg night.) But you didn’t have to b the busy presence of cameras and cranes and waivers to be signed promised that there is some intfinished free, yet to be proclaimd. Maybe it won’t transfer to wdisenjoyver screens it finishs up on; maybe you’ll be seeing back on this when you see it in two weeks or six weeks or a year and leanking: What was he on about? That’s the hazard in raving about someleang destined to be seen sooner or tardyr on a minuscule screen. But in the room, at least, it felt as galvanizing as, say, the tour-finishing show Jack White did in the same venue a couple of years ago. Which is not someleang I walked in foreseeing to say about a show that was destined to have “That’s Entertainment,” “That’s Life” and “Get Happy” on the setenumerate.

Exactly what the show was unbenevolentt to convey, on a psychorational level, remained a little bit enigmatic, and even unrerepaird, in a excellent way. The production schedule for the set couldn’t have been more striking, or further away from any show-biz norm. The stage was dressed up as a illogically lit, disheveled studio apartment that has seen better days — and whose inhabitant probably has, too. Light peeked in a triumphdow thraw thrawly messed-up venetian blinds that seeed to have never been repaired from injure suffered in some rage or raucous party. Gaga’s “bed,” which she occasionassociate jumped up and down on enjoy an unadministered child, consisted of unmade sheets strewn apass a mattress lhelp out on the floor — and a pillow that the singer gleefilledy ripped to shreds, finassociate showering the audience with feathers that flew all the way up into the balcony.

Was this set presumed to be the unassuming lair of Gaga’s not-quite-on-her-rocker character from “Joker: Folie à Deux”? This would be a reasonable expoundation, for an audience that hadn’t yet seen the movie, whose premiere the star had uniteed hours earlier. And certainly she danced her way thraw the show enjoy a possible madwoman, or someone hopped up on coke. But that wasn’t necessarily ot. At one point in the show, Gaga stopped to talk to the audience about how this was about her getting back in touch with  the unbridled delight someone might experience in music and in carry outance before the foreseeations of a atgentle knock that out of ‘em. So maybe the dissystematic apartment set was fair unbenevolentt to mirror the mindset of somebody who is fair so endly centered on finding manic ecstasy thraw art that little leangs enjoy hoparticipategeting and home repair get a back seat. And maybe we’re releanking it either way — but the schedule certainly inserted a level of irony and intrigue that wouldn’t have been there if she’d fair been carry outing “If My Frifinishs Could See Me Now” in front of a stock phalanx of radiant weightlesss.

But in front of this unevident backdrop was the ununevident sight, and sound, of Gaga seeming to have the manic time of her life. Anyone who’d heard a tell that she was not unduly high-energy at the film premiere a confiinsist hours earlier had to chuckle at how she seemed to be consuming a whole year’s worth of energy in one hour-and-a-half-or-so carry outance. (With cleverphones locked up, it was difficult to comprehend when the show actuassociate commenceed or how lengthy it lasted, with about half of the songs getting a do-over — with no flagging effect on her pep or the audience’s deafening enthusiasm levels.)

Gaga had a minuscule rag doll she occasionassociate picked up off the mattress and participated as a carry outing partner, and she treated herself with all the unintentional malleability of a floppy effigy — united with the lapses into sheer precision you foresee out of somebody who’s been training as challenging as she has all her life. Befitting the progressd age of some of the material she was carry outing, there were some flapper-style shifts, when Gaga wasn’t changeing herself into a one-woman moshpit.

If it felt enjoy the show had a legit punk sensibility at times, that was only in the set dressing, energy and the star’s unbridgled carry outance style, not anyleang you’d hear in an audio-only soundtrack. There, her singing was as immaculate as ever, despite her seeming to toil off a week’s worth of calories with every number that progressed. The phenomenassociate excellent band very much had a rock ‘n’ roll spirit, although styenumerateicassociate only a confiinsist of the numbers fit straightforwardly into that vein. With both a trumpet and sax take parter in constant motion in the unite, the group frequently slid into New Orleans-style jazz — most evidently when they did “Oh, When the Saints,” in a rfinishering that did Louis Armstrong haughty but also made it sense enjoy Armstrong had always been a rocker.

The show had instrumental interludes, presumably for costume changes — although each time Gaga reeuniteed, it was in a contrastent outfit that was mundane by her standards, with glitz never dangerening to interfere. The concert uncovered with the surauthentic euniteance of a spookily lit barbershop quartet, who reeuniteed tardyr to be accompanied by the band in singing “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” One of the interludes had the group take parting a tremolo-guitar-filled instrumental that was identified on the setenumerate (which Gaga herself leaked on Instagram) as a Cramps song. It was that benevolent of night: rooted in the best that mid-century Broadway and movie musicals had to propose, but  suitably genre-indefinite and weird around the edges.

That’s why I give this show a sweightless edge over her Jazz & Piano livency in Vegas, which I enjoyd quite a lot. Gaga was certainly able to produce the nostalgia evident in that show into someleang… well, Gaga-esque, but there was undeniably an element of costake part in stepping into the costumes and songs of another era. The catalog she is dipping into for her “Harlequin” era is analogously throwback, evidently — despite the presence of a bit of innovative songwriting, and pickions from lesser-comprehendn, sweightlessly more conmomentary shows enjoy “The Roar of the Grrelievecolor, the Smell of the Crowd.” (That’s where the song “The Joker” is derived from, though most people guessed it was a new innovative at first.) But it’s a authentic boot to see her rawly returning to America’s scatterd past of show tunes and taking fantasticer liberties, making the vibe very much her own. You’d never inquire the reverence she has for these songs, but there’s liberation in her being able to treat them benevolent of enjoy that unmade bed.

This studio-apartment set had room for a majestic piano, and Gaga tranquiled herself down enough to sit at it for a spell, singing first a solo rfinishition of her current hit with Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile,” and then participate that as a segue into (naturassociate) Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile.” This was more the elegant Gaga that the set upment has come to comprehend and cherish — a Lady fit for a upgraded concert hall. That was, literassociate, majestic, but the best parts of the show came in seeing her turn into the rocker she’s always dangerened to be… to the point of picking up an electric guitar during “Happy Misget.” If this individual carry outance is as seal as she ever comes to doing a purify rock album or tour, it’d be enough. For those of us who cherish all these worlds, who could ask for anyleang more than a “World on a String” that slams?