Lady Gaga Debuts Seven Songs on First Night of the Chromatica Ball
Lady Gaga kicked off her much-anticipated ‘Chromatica Ball’ tour in Düsseldorf, Germany, last night (July 17), giving a string of songs their live debut.
The singer premiered her new show at the Merkur Spiel-Arena to over 54,000 fans, performing a 20-song setlist that included first-time live performances of “Alice,” “Replay,” “Sour Candy,” “Babylon,” “Free Woman,” and “Enigma.”
She also performed a rendition of her Top Gun Maverick single “Hold My Hand” for the first time in the encore, also playing her 2009 hit “Monster” for the first time in eight years.
LETS TALK 🥹 I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND MISSED YOU THANK YOU FOR A SHOW I WILL NEVER FORGET IM A MONSTER FOR LIFE AND EVEN MONSTERS CAN HEAL https://t.co/ftMbMmDv6G
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) July 17, 2022
The tour comes in support of Gaga’s 2020 album Chromatica, which was scheduled to kick off in July 2020 but faced a string of delays due to Covid-19.
According to Setlist.fm, the singer also performed hits “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance,” and “Poker Face” in the prelude, while Act IV included A Star Is Born songs “Shallow’ and “Always Remember Us This Way.”
The Chromatica Ball tour continues in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 21, stopping off in Paris and Arnhem before arriving in London for two dates at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on July 29-30.
Gaga will kick off the North American leg of the tour in August, starting in Toronto and finishing up in Miami on September 17. Tickets for the UK dates are available to purchase here.
Posting to Twitter after the show, Gaga wrote: “I love you all so much and missed you thank you for a show I will never forget I’m a monster for life and even monsters can heal.”
Before the show, Gaga shared a video from backstage in which she spoke about its meaning and her nerves as she returns to the stage for her first tour since 2018.
“I want to allow you all to interpret this show in the way that you want to, but I will say that it really documents the many different stages and sides of grief and the manic energy of grief that I feel that I’ve experienced in my life,” she said. “I really want to thank you for sticking it out with me and loving me through all the different iterations of my artistry as well as me as a person.”
She continued: “I feel more clear today than I have in a long time and more pain free than I have in ages. And being free of pain on stage is a real healing experience because I’m able to dance and sing and enjoy the audience, enjoy the show, and really tell a story.
“I don’t know that I’ve been as speechless as I am today, knowing what we’re about to do,” she added. “But if you know people ask me all the time what ‘Chromatica’ was about and in ‘Babylon,’ I say battle fair life and when I made ‘Chromatica’ I was really battling from my life.”
She continued that the show was created “in the spirit of that battle to win yourself back,” adding “there’s no greater prize than you.”
“There’s no thing more important than your own heart and your own ability to heal, and we don’t heal on our own, I don’t think, but I think it’s possible to at some point have your own back. And having your own back takes a lot of strength and time.”
From Rolling Stone UK. Subscribe to the magazine in print and receive complimentary access to the digital edition.