Lady FREAKING Gaga

It's Wednesday night (technically Thursday morning). Last night, Tuesday night, I went with Talia and Mikayla to see LADY GAGA in Antwerp. And holy cow, it was spectacular.

Here's the thing. When Lady Gaga first came out, I really didn't like her. She was too bizarre and I thought she was just going to be around for a while and then people would forget about her, or remember her as just being a disgusting artist with no real talent. And then she came out with hit after hit. And let's face it, you can't help but dance to her music.

And then, one day, I took a master class and met her college roommate.

Not a joke.

And I found out that Miss Stephanie Joanne Angelina Germanotta went to the New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, majoring in musical theatre. Wow. That changed my entire view of her. She was picked out of THOUSANDS of applicants to go to what is arguably the best arts school in the country. She has real talent, and a lot of it. She also plays piano like a mad beast. You can find videos of her on YouTube performing at showcases at NYU and they're incredible. I also found out that she really is pretty nutty in real life, so just in case you were wondering, it's not all an act.

Then, last night, I went to see her in concert. After school, Talia and I went over to Mikayla's house with all of our crazy clothes and makeup and went to work for about an hour getting ready to see Lady Gaga. It was quite a process. It involved hair, makeup, clothes, the whole nine yards. I even attempted to the famous hair bow of Lady Gaga, and I have to say, I pretty much succeeded. Talia and I wore false eyelashes, and we all did really heavy eye makeup. The red lipstick was also a definite. Of course, we had to eat dinner too, which was Kraft mac and cheese that Talia and Mikayla had from home. Yummmmm

Around 5:50pm we left the house, the FAHB driving. Antwerp, or Anvers, as it's called in the French part, was where we were going, and it was about an hour and fifteen minutes away. But we got lost once and had to turn around, and once we got close, the traffic was horrendous. We spent the car ride eating cold ish mac and cheese and Snickers bars, finishing makeup, and painting our nails red. I would tease my hair back up every so often too. For pictures of course. My comb kept disappearing though, and that really started to get on my nerves.

We ended up parking kind of far away and had to walk about ten minutes to actually get to the arena. We passed it on the way, and the crowd outside was ridiculous! I'm not sure when the doors opened, but our tickets said something about eight o'clock and we were late, so we were a bit nervous. But I think doors just opened at eight. Whatever. It doesn't matter. The point is that I was wearing heels and tights and I was cold walking there. But it wasn't too bad, because I had my new coat.

OH YAH side note: The coat that I ordered forever ago finally came. I'm not super freezing in Belgium anymore!! It's super cute and I love it and there's nothing like it anywhere I've been. The only thing about it was that I had to pay again when it got here because of stupid European taxes. There are some things about Europe... It just makes me angry. We already paid for shipping! But that doesn't matter cause there was a tax. Aghhhh.

Anyways, getting back to Gaga... We got in and I hid my camera in my pocket and we went inside. It was pretty much just like the Gund Arena back home (for those of you from Cleveland reading this) and there were posters on the walls for Disney On Ice that was coming soon. Which I smiled at. We then proceeded to climb a million flights of stairs. Talk about my workout for the day. We found our seats, which were all the way to the side at the top most row of seating. But, then we found that we were able to see backstage, and everything was good and happy :)

Mikayla and I jetted to the bathroom, we all took some pictures, and then we settled in for the start of the show at 9pm. The room went dark and everyone went nuts. And then we saw her, Lady Gaga, before anyone else! Basically, there was a huge curtain and screen covering the stage for everyone, but we were sitting at the side, so we could see between the curtain and the back wall, and we saw her!!! There was also a screen hanging from the ceiling that was showing closeups throughout the entire concert. She started off the show with "Dance in the Dark" and a crazy outfit, of course. Basically, the whole concept of the show was that we were all on a journey to go to the Monster Ball, sort of like the Wizard of Oz. After the first set of songs, she stopped to talk to her audience. She is completely insane. She just looked out over the sea of people and talked to us about being the way we were and not changing for anyone because "you were born this way". Quote of the night: "I don't want you to leave here loving me more. I want you to leave here loving yourselves more." So clearly, even though she's nuts and she spends a lot of the concerts in heels and leotards, she was giving a good message. Throughout the entire concert, she talked about how you can't let people get you down when you're different, because everyone has a superstar inside them and you should never change who you are for other people. It was inspiring, really. As much as it may have been rehearsed, she made it sound so sincere. She even tied an American flag bandana around her head that someone "had thrown on the stage".

At one point, she played a flaming piano. Seriously. That woman ROCKS the piano. She played "Speechless" and a new song, "You and I" on the flaming piano. It. Was. AWESOME. She continued the concert with the rest of her upbeat dance music and we all stood up and danced to Poker Face, except the FAHB, who just sat and watched, astounded at some points. He definitely enjoyed it though. His face when she said certain things, so priceless. She did the entire concert in English, which makes me wonder how many people truly understood what she was saying, but the FAHB at least understood things for the most part. She talked about Thanksgiving at one point, and Talia and I and Mikayla went wild, but nobody else really did. I don't think they understood.

She rocked out to "Teeth" and "Monster", and how he ate her heart. And, typical Lady Gaga, there was fake blood involved. Though she did not hang herself at this concert like at the MVAs. But that's a different story. Eventually, we followed the "glitter path" and we all made it to the Monster Ball. Of course, she closed the show with "Bad Romance". At which point I went over and pulled the FAHB by the wrist and made him stand up, though he didn't dance. He just kinda laughed at me as I danced. I did the dance with her and everything. It was such a fantastic closing. Couldn't have asked for anything more. By the end, my throat was hoarse from screaming and singing at the top of my lungs. It was soooooo so much fun. I had never seen anything like that show before in my life. First concert of my life. It was a super win. Regardless of what you think of her music, you cannot say she is not a magnificent performer. Her show is spectacular. It's high energy and fun and interesting and it may be over the top and just bizarre at times, but that's what keeps you guessing. I wouldn't have had it any other way. And I am not sure how I feel about this, but I can now honestly say that I am a Lady Gaga fan. For sure.

So leaving the concert... Well, it took a while. We walked back to the car and got in and it was about 11 30. Not too bad. But then it took a good hour to finally get going and we didn't get home til 1 30. We then spent the next 45 minutes taking pictures and deconstructing ourselves. I'm not sure if I got all the teasing out of my hair yet... We went to sleep around 2 30, and got up at 7 to get ready for school. We went through a normal day at school, and thank God it was a half day Wednesday. I got home, ate lunch, and then went up to my room to upload all the pictures to Facebook. Then I decided to nap, and somehow ended up sleeping for 8 hours. I woke up at 11 45pm and was amazed. I had slept through dinner and everything. So now it's past 1am, I'm awake, and I'm hungry. And blogging. Sweet. I'm going to go write more of my novel now. 5 days and 17 000 words. fjsdka;hgaklsfdj;sgha

Bonne nuit!