Lady Gaga's Mayhem Ball Live: Pop Theatre at Its Most Monstrous

From velvet-sin chaos to White Queen transcendence, Lady Gaga delivers a breathtaking operatic spectacle — a reminder that in a fading pop era, true artistry still roars.

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LIVE REVIEW: LADY GAGA

Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane | Tuesday, 9 December 2025

So you’ve read the news: Suncorp Stadium botches—well—everything about getting people into the venue tonight. In more than twenty years of global gig-going, this writer has never seen a fiasco quite like it. A glorious masterclass in mismanagement. A comedy of errors that isn't funny in the slightest. General admission fans should be compensated, full stop. Majority miss 98% of Act I, and not because Gaga runs a loose ship (she doesn’t), but because the stadium apparently suddenly can’t organise a queue if you draw it for them in chalk.

First comes the vague “something discovered during soundcheck” excuses which—let’s be honest—has absolutely nothing to do with Gaga’s famously disciplined production machine. Then, in an almost balletic display of incompetence, they apparently run out of armbands. As if they don’t know exactly how many bodies are walking through those gates?

LADY GAGA LIVE

By that point, everyone in GA would gladly skip the flashing LED wristband for—oh, I don’t know—actually catching the performance of ‘Abracadabra’. Instead, fans are treated to a distant, muffled version drifting out from the now-infamous Gate D.

And inside the stadium? A giant banner boasting about the “millions of people” the stadium has hosted over the years of its existence. After tonight, it reads less like a flex and more like an exhibit in a court case—one no reasonable jury would acquit.

For everyone who does make it inside by showtime, what unfolds is nothing short of insane. As Gaga-lore throughout the ages predicts, this isn’t merely a concert; it’s a concept show in the truest, most operatic sense.

The Mayhem Ball dives headfirst into duality, identity and internal conflict, framing the night as an ongoing battle between two versions of herself. On one side stands the chaotic, red-clad Mother Mayhem — the embodiment of inner demons, disorder and the beautiful violence of creation. Opposing her is the pure, white-lit White Queen — innocence, pop purity, discipline and devotion incarnate.

The show positions them not as good versus evil, but as two essential halves of the same artistic soul. Gaga makes it clear her power doesn’t come from choosing between them, but from holding both at once — a message steeped in gothic theatre, psychological drama and the queer-coded journey toward radical self-acceptance. LADY GAGA LIVE

And all of this plays out through a visual spectacle of songs, lights, choreography and myth-making unlike anything Brisbane has ever seen — a full-blown pop opera, carved neatly into acts.

Act I: Of Velvet and Vice

The curtain of night snaps open with a jolt of red — deep, decadent, hedonistic red — as Mother Mayhem makes her first strike. Gaga doesn’t enter so much as explode onto the stage, appearing atop a massive velvet-draped cupcake like a deity who’s grown bored of subtlety. It’s immediate, overwhelming, theatrical to the point of delirium — a sensory overload that announces, within seconds, that she isn’t easing Brisbane in gently. She’s here to rule.

And rule she does. She is utterly electrifying and giving it everything she has — it’s obvious from the first breath. Following an operatic intro and a teasing slice of ‘Bloody Mary’, ‘Abracadabra’ erupts with razor-edged precision, all sharp choreography and ritualistic swagger. Gaga moves with the confidence of someone who has engineered every millisecond of this moment — every lighting cue synced to the flick of a wrist, every stomp vibrating like a warning. “Dance or die,” she commands, a slogan fit for the T-shirts sold outside. All twenty-five of her dancers swirl around her in deep, almost evil crimson silhouettes, a coven of chaos ushering in the night’s first wave of mayhem. Behind them, the band can be glimpsed on elevated platforms, book-ended by gothic podiums. This act sure is a workout and a half.

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Visually, Act I is all velvet and sin — a stage transformed into a cabaret of shadows and temptation, dripping with old-world decadence and counterbalanced by new-world precision.

Gaga leans hard into her darker edges, hollering “Get your fucking paws up, Brisbane!” between almost every line. Brisbane obliges, thrusting their flashing wristbands skyward as they pulse and shift colour, contributing to an arena-wide spectacle of strobes, shadows and synchronised chaos.

She is playful, but she feels dangerous — smirking like someone who knows exactly how powerful she looks bathed in bloodlight.

Mother Mayhem arrives as a force: equal parts seduction and sermon. She’s the embodiment of every intrusive thought, every unfiltered impulse, every spark of chaos anyone here has ever dreamt up. Act I lays the foundation for the war to come, establishing the red queen’s reign with ruthless flair.

For the few thousand lucky enough to witness it from inside the stadium, it’s electrifying.

For the thousands still pouring through the gates as Act I closes with Gaga’s greatest song, ‘Poker Face’, their fever dream is only just beginning.

Act II: And She Fell Into A Gothic Dream

The red haze dissolves into a ghostly green glow — and with it, Mother Mayhem’s iron-fisted reign lifts. The darkness is still thick, alive and almost breathing. A gothic dreamstate descends, and with a swell of operatic strings, Gaga falls — quite literally — into the dream, awakening with blonde hair in what can only be described as a giant kitty litter box full of skeletons, like the world’s most glamorous yet spooky Halloween daycare tray. She immediately begins seductively dancing with one particular skeleton, still lying on her side, giving full “I’m dead but make it fashion” energy to ‘Disease’. The entire arena screams, unsure whether to laugh, swoon, or call a paleontologist.

Then comes ‘Paparazzi’, and honestly, Gaga on crutches with a cathedral-length veil trailing down the catwalk feels like a live-action meme blessed by the Vatican — and it leaves the stadium breathless. ‘LoveGame’ and ‘Alejandro’ follow back-to-back, turning the stadium into a queer aerobics class no one signed up for but everyone’s thrilled to attend. People who haven’t danced since 2014 suddenly remember every move like their lives depend on it.

The dancers have swapped their demonic reds for funereal blacks, drifting across the stage with such haunting fluidity you’d swear gravity doesn’t exist. The Mayhem Ball shifts seamlessly from an ancient satanic nightclub to something of a goth opera — the kind of transition only Gaga can make logical.

Act II is where the show fully becomes a haunting, but like… a sexy haunting. She’s no longer Mother Mayhem, but she’s not the White Queen yet either. She’s stuck deliciously in the in-between — where desire is dangerous and danger is tempting. But somewhere in that mist, the White Queen is about to rise.

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Act III: The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name

The dream doesn’t end so much as rearrange itself. The green glow dissipates, the skeletons sink back into whatever catacomb they crawled out of, and a wash of cold white light floods the stage. It may be cleansing after the lengthy darkness, but it sure isn’t comforting.

Gaga rises slowly from the floor and launches into a trio of Mayhem cuts that really ought to be singles in their own right. ‘Killah’, ‘Zombieboy’, and ‘The Dead Dance’ hit with such force and theatrical charm that they become instant highlights of the evening. Yes, the undertone is horror — but it’s Netflix horror: glossy, thrilling, more fun than frightening. Not a slight; if anything, it’s that subtle undercurrent of MJ theatricality that ties the whole sequence together, even when the songs themselves aren’t explicitly horror-based.

A far-too-short version of ‘Just Dance’ arrives and disappears like a drive-by nostalgia hit. Yet in those brief moments, something lands: after years of mental and physical pain, for those who followed her closely throughout the journey, it is genuinely moving to see Gaga having fun again.

By the end of the act, the atmosphere has shifted completely once more. The nightmare has softened, the theatrics have peeled back, and for the first time tonight, we catch the most deeply human version of Gaga so far.

Act IV: Every Chessboard Has Two Queens

This is the ascension act — where the White Queen emerges, the tone shifts from dark playfulness to triumphant clarity, and Gaga reclaims the stage with regal precision. We finally meet the deeply human version of Gaga: the one who succumbs to Brisbane hayfever and sneezes multiple times during the intro of a song. The crowd roars with affection as Gaga proves, beyond any doubt, that every note she’s singing is live — and that even queens have sinuses.

She sits at a piano at the end of the catwalk — glowing white, crystalline, unmistakably hers — and performs a run of monster hits. Her Bradley Cooper duet ‘Shallow’ rings out across the stadium like a communal confession. Her Bruno Mars duet follows, warm and shimmering. Then comes a tear-jerking ‘The Edge of Glory’, which she dedicates “to anyone who has had to say goodbye to someone.” There isn’t a dry eye in Suncorp. Even the security guards look misty.

At the piano, she finally addresses the crowd properly for the first time all night — guard down, emotions high, voice trembling in that unmistakable Gaga way where sincerity and theatricality fuse. You can almost feel 60,000 people leaning in.

Then, in a stroke of theatrical genius only Gaga would attempt, she pits the two queens — Mother Mayhem and the White Queen — against each other in a battle to the death. The visuals shred across the screens in a violent, cathartic montage: chaos versus clarity, blood-red versus pure white, impulse versus intention. It’s messy, breathtaking, and metaphorically about as subtle as a flaming sword — which is exactly why the stadium loses its collective mind.

By this point, Gaga is fully ascended. She stands dead-centre, fists clenched, chest heaving, staring out at the crowd like she’s finally ready to claim everything she’s fought through to reach this moment.

Every chessboard does indeed have two queens —and she controls them both.

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Finale: Eternal Aria of the Monster Heart

And then—because Gaga knows exactly what she’s doing—the final act arrives with all the subtlety of a meteor strike. The screens flicker, a heart monitor beeps ominously, and Gaga is wheeled out on a hospital bed, limp and lifeless like the world’s most glamorous patient zero.

The beeping quickens. Her fingers twitch. She sits up — dramatically, predictably, brilliantly — and with no surprise to anyone…

It’s ‘Bad Romance.’

Just ‘Bad Romance.’

But honestly… who fucking cares?

It is HUUUUGE.

The opening synth stabs hit and the stadium detonates like someone’s pressed a big red button marked SEND EVERYONE INTO ORBIT. Pyro erupts. Lasers slice the air. The wristbands explode into hectic whites and reds.

Gaga appears centre-stage — a vision of pop divinity forged in sheer lunacy and genius. She belts every note with the force of someone avenging every gay person who has ever screamed this song at 3am on a nightclub floor. The dancers return in perfect symmetrical formation, pounding the stage like an army marching into a final, righteous war.

The “RAH-RAH-AH-AH-AH” is deafening — an arena-wide exorcism. Tens of thousands scream it like a shared spiritual language. On the final chorus, Gaga raises her arms like she’s summoning lightning, and for a moment it feels entirely plausible she might actually take flight. The lights erupt, the crowd erupts, the entire city of Brisbane outside probably erupts.

It is maximalist.

It is ridiculous.

It is perfect.

And then suddenly—it’s over.

The pop opera closes not with subtlety, but with a finale only Gaga can deliver: a single song, staged with such overwhelming scale and conviction that nothing else could possibly follow it.

But somehow she does…

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With a sharp crack, the screens flicker back to life — and Gaga appears, not in armour or couture, but backstage, stripped of almost everything that made the night so operatic. Most of her costuming lies on the floor. Her wig is gone. Her makeup is half-removed. What’s left is the woman beneath the mythology, blinking, breathing, smiling with a softness we haven’t yet seen. It's pop posturing perfection.

She begins ‘How Bad Do U Want Me’. Her voice — raw, warm, unguarded — trails behind her as she walks through the backstage labyrinth, weaving past flight cases, cables, dressing rooms, and crew members who beam at her like proud family. The dancers greet her one by one with high fives, forehead touches, arm squeezes. The band reaches out as she passes, every exchange threaded with unmistakable affection. It’s deeply heartwarming — a glimpse into the ecosystem that lifts her, protects and believes in her.

By the time she ascends toward the underside of the catwalk, the crowd is roaring again — not in frenzy, but in recognition. This is Gaga beneath the spectacle; the monster heart beating beneath the armour.

She reaches the end of the catwalk just as the final chorus peaks, and with a euphoric burst, the entire stage company — all twenty-five dancers — joins her in one colossal, cathartic jump. It’s messy, joyful, ridiculous, perfect. A release of everything the show has held: the chaos, the beauty, the duality, the triumph.

Then they gather — a full cast farewell.Arms wrapped around each other, heads bowed, hearts still thundering. Lady Gaga stands in the centre, framed by her people, and together they bow as one. It is wonderful. It is human.It is the final spell of the Mayhem Ball.

What a phenomenal show. In a pop landscape currently drowning in the faux-sexy beige dregs of Sabrina Carpenter and her flavoured sugar-water contemporaries, Lady Gaga stands as a reigning force — one of the last true pop artists left. She carries the precision of Michael Jackson, the cultural, iconoclastic weight of Madonna, and the deeply human alien artistry of David Bowie, all while forging something unmistakably her own. For the old guy writing this review, she’s the artist he can still identify with: flawed, fearless, theatrical, vulnerable, defiant, magnificent and real.

And some things, thankfully, remain unchanged. She’s still screaming “get your paws up” literally hundreds of times, and she’s still the resolute flagbearer for her queer audience. Gaga dedicates every inch of the Mayhem Ball to the community that has stood beside her since the very beginning, and she promises her Australian fans she won’t let another eleven years pass before she returns.

Her fans, of course, are still showing up for her — wrapped in caution tape, with cans curled in their hair, cigarettes glued to sunglasses, dressed like inside jokes only she and they will ever fully understand.

One thing is certain: with Gaga, we’ll be dancing till we’re dead.

She is everything.