two nights ago, i attended lady gaga's artRAVE in the glasgow sse hydro with one of my friends. here's my artRAVE experience.
as anyone who knows me in any capacity will know, i am a big lady gaga fan. I have been since around 2009 when i'd listen to Paparazzi and Christmas tree over and over and over again because those were the only songs of hers I knew. before she came along, i wasn't really that interested in popular music and hadn't followed anybody closely for years, but she got me back into pop culture and once acted as the soundtrack to my life. an adolescent life filled with tragedy (fooled me again, honest eyes), melodrama (bad romance) and euphoria (disco heaven). nowadays i no longer need her as a crutch but i still love (most of) her stuff so naturally i had to attend artRAVE, the fourth 'ball' she's toured. i was interested to see how it compared with the other two i'd seen (the monster ball and the born this way ball).
BUT FIRST ;; lets start with the outfit !!!
my other outfits to the balls have been pretty understated so i wanted to try and make a bit more of an effort this time. i promised myself that i'd never try and 'replicate' any of her looks but i did wear a distinctly gaga-esque costume this time around. although i don't actually recall a time where she wore a flower bra. anyway, here it is:
it was actually super simple to make. all you need is an old bra and hella cheap flower hairclips. i got all of mine from tiger in the st. james centre in edinburgh for £1 each. it worked out so well because i was sure i was going to have to utilize my terrible sewing skills for this costume but i could clip the orchid-style ones to the top and sides of the bra. the roses all had pins in the backs of them so i just pinned them and voilà !! 1 flower bra !!
i really didn't know what to wear on my bottom half, if i could do it again i'd probably have got more flowers and made a 'garden panty' with some black elastic pants but i left it too late. i ended up wearing just a plain black skirt with a frill around the bottom because i thought it looked a bit mermaid-y. and then my friend let me borrow her holographic skull glasses to cOmPlEtE dA lOoK.
anyway, we'd bought early entry tickets which i was a little bit trepidatious about at the time bc of the price and i'm a skint bitch. but i cannot express how glad i was that we bit the bullet and bought them. we arrived about 3.30pm, the earliest time you could 'register' for your wristband. there were two queues already, one for GA standing which was pretty long and a slightly smaller one for early entry. it looked like people had respected the 3.30pm rule and hadn't queued for early entry thaaat much earlier than the rest. i was worried about turning up and there being the biggggest queue for early entry so STILL not getting a decent spot despite the package. but we joined the queue and got our wristbands. gradually the queue got bigger but we were certainly in the first quarter i'd say. oh yeah btw don't be a twat like me - if you're wearing no clothes, TAKE A BLOODY JACKET. i was like 'yeah man i don't need no jacket the promise of gaga will warm me up' a sentiment i held onto until my lips went blue. i thought we'd be queuing inside!!! but we definitely weren't.
queue was taken into the foyer about an hour later where we got our lil merch bag thing, another perk of the early entry tickets. included an artRAVE tote bag, an artRAVE picture book ( hardback also swanky swanky ), a laminate and a bubble gun which was my favourite thing of all. it even has 'artRAVE' on the side of it.
another hour and we were in the aud!!! this bit pissed us right off, everyone was moving s o slowly and congregating around the catwalks etc. we wanted main stage ( slightly to the right ) so we had to lightly jog avoiding people all the while. we got the perfect spot imo, second/third row in front of the main stage. she was literally DIRECTLY in front of us for about 70% of the show, close enough to make eye contact. GA were admitted 10 or so minutes later and so didn't stand much of a chance of getting as close to the main stage as we were aiming for so i was thankful that we got the package. but i had some other friends who were GA and they still got a pretty good view of the stage, catwalks and the piano plateau.
i wasn't going to go into this for fear of a proper long post but i gotta talk about the support. the support was some goon called 'breedlove' and lady starlight, both friends of gaga's from new york. i saw lady starlight open for her before at the born this way ball - she did some weird performance art that involved masks. ok so i can appreciate that stuff sometimes but it was just the wrong crowd for that type of performance. sadly there was the same issue here. she played a sort of dj set where she mixed electronic music on the spot. i guess it was okay for like 10 minutes but then after that everyone got really bored and fidgety. again it wasn't like terrible stuff i think it was more just not suited to that particular crowd. and oh jesus i don't even know where to begin with breedlove. i think the word 'cretin' might partially cover it. he opened with a song that went 'i'll meet you at sex o'clock in the morning' over and over. the was accompanied by slow, calculated thrusting movements. oh and he also looked like he'd just walked off the set of jeremy kyle - jogging bottoms and a gold chain - rly?? i get what he was trying to go for but it didn't really suit the set or his image or anything. it might have been passable if he was dressed like more of an eccentric idk. the most excruciating part of it was he would stop singing at intervals and just STARE at the audience with his hand in his pocket in the creepiest way imaginable. it must feel weird to sing that kind of song and do those kind of moves and look out and see an audience made of a lot of very young girls. awful awful awful.
HOWEVER the show itself didn't disappoint in the slightest. as huge fans of the fame era aesthetic my friend and i found artRAVE to be a total return to form after the darker, space-y vibe of the previous ball. it still had a futuristic atmosphere but in a more pastel-y glitter-y way. i loved the nuances of the performance like the inflatable flowers that bloomed on the catwalk during 'Venus' and the marijuana-shaped confetti that rained down during 'Mary Jane Holland'. another highlight was a hilarious gratuitous prop she used during 'Donatella'. As she sang 'This purse can hold my black card and tiara' the dancers brought on a giant black amex with her picture on it out, danced with it for about a second, then took it off again. how we laughed...
the dancers were INCREDIBLE. so so so super sexy and there were points when i actually hadn't noticed gaga had returned to the stage because i was so distracted by them. one blonde female dancer in particular really stood out for me, she moved so sexily. i also absolutely loved the partynauseous interlude - you'd think any bit of the show without gaga in it would be a bit of a downer but no. their costumes were perfect too, and i loved some of the props they used. at the beginning they came out with big round pastel balloons, danced with them then threw them in the audience.
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| probably one of my favourite gaga looks ever... ( brooklynnightss.tumblr.com ) |
gaga herself performed so flawlessly. she came up out of the stage at the start of the show and was so close to us i totally lost my shit. she looked incredible the entire way through and her vocals were so en pointe, as were her piano skills. her wee talks in between each song were almost just right, there was less sycophantic cooing over the fanbase than i thought there would be so that's a plus. she spoke a lot about encouraging others to make their own art which i thought was really nice and heartening. she even wore a jimmy hat, tartan scarf and carried a bear playing the bagpipes around with her before fretting over whether she was being offensive or not. which was super cute and funny in a scottish context. it was very sweet of her to be worried. she played some songs that i didn't expect like judas and just dance. it was also the 5 year anniversary of bad romance so it was great to share that with her.
a GOOD TIME was had by ALL, especially by me and my friend. i loved every second of it!! she's coming back in november and omg the thought of not seeing her again is so horrible... anyway, i hope this post will be of some use to other fans attending artRAVE or at least help them get pumped for it!!! you're in for a hella great evening of entertainment!!!
