Monster Ball, Raleigh NC

Last night, as an early birthday present, @tas33 took me to see Lady Gaga at the RBC Center in Raleigh. I wish I had some decent pictures of the show, but unfortunately the camera I had to take was not so useful (the picture to the right is not mine).

We arrived about 6:30 and lucked out by parking behind a group of women who were young enough to be fun, and old enough to have a cooler full of beer. They had been there since 10:00 AM hoping to get a glimpse of Lady Gaga, and to hang out. I am lousy with names, but if you four ladies are reading this, Dave and Theresa say "hi," and "thanks for the beer!" We hung out with them for about an hour, then went in to the show.

The opening act was Semi Precious Weapons, a bit of a mix of NYC punk and hair metal. The singer said they started playing with Gaga in 2006, and that first show had a mere twelve people. They put on a great show, and the music was enjoyable, though the RBC Center has some of the shittiest acoustics I have ever witnessed. ["Semi Precious Weapons" at blip.fm]

Lady Gaga did about two hours, and mostly easily recognizable songs, though I do have quite the ear for melodies. The aforementioned acoustics spoiled a lot of it. She talks to the audience a lot, and it was very hard to make out what she was saying. She definitely did all her own singing, save for a few looped bits in songs to recreate the album versions of things. She ended the show with Bad Romance, which blew the roof off the dump.

The sets and costumes were cool. The band got a little lost in things, like the heavy metal guitar player who would play these semi-solos over the songs, but it just came out garbled. At times the dancers were all over the place and things got a little incoherent. In all, however, it was a fun show. I'll have to post some crowd pictures later.