LIVE REVIEW: LADY GAGA THE MAYHEM BALL @ SUNCORP STADIUM 09/12/25

Words by Cecilia Pattison-Levi

If, and when, you got into the Lady Gaga concert – it was really a ‘Night At The Opera’. The set was like a copy of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. There was operatic music from Verdi. There were signs flashing up from fans about their love for Lady Gaga (aka Stefani Germanotta), which was a bit sycophantic, and half an hour before the show kicked off there was a video playing of Lady Gaga writing in a journal with a quill pen. Was she taking the piss? And why?

There was also the added Suncorp shitshow of organisation: hours left standing in the heat, delayed soundchecks, technical difficulties, delayed gate openings and serial pests. Fans were not allowed inside, the strange concert beginnings, the pretension to operatic status and the “lights” the audience were asked to wear, tracking your biometric data. Live Nation: Have we heard of the word consent?

The actual concert itself was all about spectacle, not music. Lady Gaga’s show was about fashion and an aesthetic: the focus entirely on poor red lighting, movement and dance. The music performance got left behind. It was an entertainment show, not a pop-rock concert.

The Mayhem Ball leaned hard into Lady Gaga’s Italian Gothic Catholic religiously inspired imagery. The show was creepy in its aesthetics for all sorts of reasons. I like creepy, especially theologically based creepy with that imagery of a “like a God without a prayer”, but that is how I felt at this concert, as the sentiment was pretty shallow.

The ornate, complex set was so small that it looked odd in Suncorp Stadium. I liked the look of the Teatro La Fenice. There were towers, veils, statues, a skull, detailed arches and shattered stained-glass projections where the DJ equipment was held; and dancers moved like devils through cages, graves and other death related imagery. We were in Dante’s seven levels of hell.

Lady Gaga’s concept around a medieval hell was sound. She launched The Mayhem Ball with a performance across five acts. There was an ambitious thirty-two song setlist, the narrative arc was a feud between the red and white queens (always two queens on a chess board) played out more like a full theatre production than a traditional pop show. The Lady in White and a Lady in Red (both played by Lady Gaga) were “duelling twins” (Junos) reciting a manifesto of sorts in perfect unison. They appear to be working towards reconciliation in death and decay as an artistic statement. You could tell Lady Gaga had her hand on every detail, from the lights to the costumes to the story behind each act, but unfortunately forgot about the performance of the music. The band were very good, but the backing tracks and digital enhancement were doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The red queen started Act I: ‘Of Velvet And Vice’ off by rising from the top of a towering stage structure, like a demented cake with a human on top, her silhouette framed by a burst of red light. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a comic book, instantly commanding the stadium as the song ‘Bloody Mary’ played, then the big pop singalong moment of ‘Abracadabra’ followed with ‘Judas’ from her latest album ‘Mayhem’. Then, shortened versions of ‘Aura’ and ‘Scheiße’ were blended together. Then, ‘Garden of Eden’ and the huge pop moment of ‘Poker Face’ was performed. The sound wrapped in an orchestral introduction of ‘Off With Her Head’ and ‘Abracadabra: remix’ into it.

Act II: ‘And She Fell Into A Gothic Dream’ was about the grave and death. This section of the performance was perfectly realised and executed. The song set started with ‘Perfect Celebrity’, then the brilliant ‘Disease’ was delivered before the crowd went off with ‘Paparazzi’. Then, the action moved to ‘LoveGame’ and then the huge moment of ‘Alejandro’. The warring queens fought each other in the grave during ‘The Beast’ for control of the night. It was a highlight, as the songs and story arc were complementary.

Then, Act III: ‘The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name’ started with flame cannons and a huge skull as she delivered ‘Killah’. Then the fabulous and fun ‘Zombieboy’, ‘The Dead Dance’ and ‘LoveDrug’. The disco blasts of ‘Applause’ and ‘Just Dance’ came next as the stadium bounced along. The shortened song ‘Wake Her Up!’ had elements of ‘Abracadabra (Cirkut Remix)’ mashed in. This act was very disjointed.

Lady Gaga tried to remind everyone that underneath everything – costumes, dancers, fire cannons – she is, first and always, a musician. And some songs in Act VI: ‘Every Chessboard Has Two Queens’ were delivered with piano in a solo format: ‘Die With A Smile’ complete with sneezing where she apologised and started the song again. And for the first time she was clearly singing the whole song. ‘Rain On Me’ and the fabulous version of a stripped back ‘The Edge Of Glory’ followed. Her short piano segment where she sang about loneliness, identity, heartbreak and survival with a rawness you can’t fake.

Act VI included the lovely ‘Shadow of a Man’, the deep cuts ‘Kill for Love’ and ‘Summerboy’ with Lady Gaga playing guitar. Then, the huge ‘Born This Way’, ‘Million Reasons’, ‘Shallow’ and ‘Vanish Into You’ followed.

The setlist stretched across her whole career from all albums, but one: ‘The Fame’, ‘The Fame Monster’, ‘Born This Way’, ‘Artpop’, ‘Joanne’, ‘A Star Is Born’ and her new album ‘Mayhem’. Interestingly, nothing from ‘Chromatica’ (that is my favourite album) made the grade.

Act V: ‘Eternal Aria Of The Monster Heart’ as a finale was delivered with the single song ‘Bad Romance’. The night had reached its pinnacle. Lady Gaga emerged in a white-and-red ensemble that was part futuristic armour, part gothic fantasy. She was wearing a dramatic wing-like headpiece arched above her and oversized monster-like fingers made every gesture feel larger than life. The costume, combined with her performance, transformed her into a surreal, almost otherworldly creature – part pop icon, part living sculpture. It was creepy and Wagnerian.

The concert was a nonstop parade of jaw‑dropping costumes, each one more theatrical than the last. From towering red velvet gowns that doubled as moving stages, to glittering metallic bodysuits that caught every spotlight, g-string outfits, she shifted effortlessly between personas – the Devil, Gothic Ice queen, futuristic warrior, haunted diva and intimate balladeer. Some outfits featured hidden cages, crutches, or intricate armour, while others shimmered with sequins, feathers and chains, creating a dizzying blend of fashion and performance art.

The encore was the Yazoo sampled ‘How Bad Do U Want Me’ and the last song ‘Free Woman’, that had its live debut in Brisbane.

The crowd left the stadium to ‘Government Hooker’. I found the show huge but in the end underwhelming. I just want to see her sing with a band… the rest is just fluff – interesting fluff but inconsequential. Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-generation artist and I would have loved to see the authentic her.