Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Ball at the O2 Arena, London review: A sublimely dark carnival of fame monsters

A spectacle though it was, when a game-faced Tate McCrae flicked her limbs in a sandpit at the VMAs earlier this month, the online cat litter jokes left the grandeur smelling faintly of Whiskers. Lady Gaga, ever a few moves ahead on the pop culture chessboard, staged a similar feat at last night’s Mayhem Ball at London’s O2 Arena, but avoided embarrassment by leaning into the campy absurdity, the grotesque, to typically Gaga-gian effect: writhing around in cremated remains and stroking skeleton heads while serving full-on, wide-eyed Joan Crawford-meets-Alyssa Edwards mock horror. 

The macabre was a lingering presence throughout last night’s 31-song odyssey, heavy on songs from Gaga’s sixth studio album Mayhem, laced with deceptively deep storytelling around self-sabotage and shadow selves. For devotees of Gaga’s Fame Monster apex, an era deserving of a double album rather than a nine-song EP, this was a long-awaited religious experience: the tense, pummelling ‘Disease’, ‘Abracadabra’, ‘Garden of Eden’ and ‘Perfect Celebrity’, all hellspawn of the scarily good ‘Bad Romance’, came thick and fast in the show’s first third, alongside blood cousins ‘Judas’, ‘LoveGame’ and epic opener ‘Bloody Mary’, a Born This Way album track resurrected in 2022 by Netflix’s Wednesday and TikTok, once again performed atop a breathtaking 25-foot Tudor red gown as per Coachella. (That her next look was a simple black corset and fishnets, and that she kills encore ‘How Bad Do U Want Me’ in a black beanie and no make-up, proves her instinct for balance.)

‘Paparazzi’, ‘Poker Face’, and ‘Alejandro’ – the former my favourite Gaga song, but the icy arpeggio stab of the latter the sound that truly made me realise what her music means to me, immediately transporting me to a different time and place – were, again, served up within the set’s first 12 songs. The show could have ended at this point, and it would have been as high-octane a concert as any I’ve experienced.

At this juncture, the dancers looked exhausted and Gaga’s heavy breathing into the mic threatened to disrupt things. From here, the energy understandably, if not mercifully dipped (at least until a gruesome take on ‘Bad Romance’, initially performed from a hospital stretcher; a perfect finale). ‘Telephone’ and/or ‘Perfect Illusion’, though, were sorely missed in the show’s final third, which arrived with ‘Born This Way’, delivered with the same clearly expressed, urgent engagement with the LGBTQ community as 14 years ago. It would be no understatement to say this woman has saved the lives of some of the people in the room last night, from head-banging 60-somethings to teenagers who weren’t even born when she first came out.

My last time seeing Gaga live was at G-A-Y at Heaven in 2008, all drawn-on lightning bolts and sellotaped disco sticks. She gave 110% then as well. There’s probably no entertainer out there as committed. Vocally, she’s an underrated powerhouse: it was a treat to hear her take on Bruno Mars’s parts on the all-conquering ‘Die with a Smile’, now the third bestselling song of all time, and it was only released last year, and her ever-so-slightly recasted ‘Shallow’, featuring a softer, gentler vocal, which saw her gliding through dry ice on a rowboat: very Phantom of the Opera.

Seriously – why has it taken until a show this supernaturally good for us realise Lady Gaga is to Halloween what Mariah Carey is to Christmas?

Lady Gaga – The Mayhem Tour at the O2 Arena setlist 

‘Bloody Mary’
‘Abracadabra’
‘Judas’
‘Aura’
‘Scheiße’
‘Garden of Eden’
‘Poker Face’
‘Perfect Celebrity’
‘Disease’
‘Paparazzi’
‘LoveGame’ 
‘Alejandro’
‘The Beast’
‘Killah’
‘Zombieboy’
‘Love Drug’
‘Applause’
‘Just Dance’
‘Shadow of a Man’
‘Kill For Love’
‘Summerboy’
‘Born This Way’ 
‘Million Reasons’
‘Shallow’
‘Die With A Smile’
‘Speechless’
‘The Edge of Glory’
‘Vanish Into You’
‘Bad Romance’
‘How Bad Do U Want Me’