“It’s funny how songs really change what they mean to you over time,” Lady Gaga said in a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “Whether you’re a songwriter or a music listener.”

That sentiment was echoing through my head as I made my way up the multiple escalators and shuffled into my seat at the cavernous Madison Square Garden. Tonight, Gaga is performing one of the last of the 86 shows that comprised her Mayhem Ball. (The grand finale is here at the Garden on April 13). All told, Mayhem has been a blockbuster by all accounts. It stands as one of the highest grossing pop tours ever,  while Mayhem’s stop in Brazil last May also holds the distinction as the most attended-concert by a female artist in music history (2.5 million people showed). Sorry, Taylor. 

It’s also been the biggest tour of Gaga’s long career, a rare example of an artist with actual staying power. Perhaps that was why that aforementioned quote was ringing out to me as I took my seat and recalled the first time I ever heard of her. The year was 2009 and I was a production assistant in over my head working on the MTV Video Music Awards. Coming live from Radio City Music Hall a couple blocks away from here, it was a momentous show: Kanye interrupted Taylor, Beyonce did “Single Ladies,” Justin Bieber made one of his first mainstream appearances and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z premiered “Empire State of Mind.” Meanwhile, I had the esteemed job of manning the snack table for stage-hands. As I was making my way around backstage the night of the show, I happened upon a gothic set with a grand staircase, high arches and tall pillars: all seemingly made of marble. I ran into a friend backstage. “Can you show my Gaga’s set?” he exclaimed. We walked around it and I remember being more enthused by his enthusiasm than by the set itself, not fully understanding the once-in-generation superstardom that was about to engulf culture: music, meat dress and all.

As many who participate in “gay guy music video night” vividly know by now (when guys gather in someone’s apartment before going out and watch YouTube), that VMA night she performed “Papparazi,” and heralded herself the coming of not just any new pop star. Who else ends their performances dripping in blood as she did during her debut with a set a blistering rebuke of fame and fandom, this only a year into her stardom? (Even her debut album was called The Fame Monster, after all.) 

Back to the present at MSG, and as the show was about to begin, I surveyed the set (designed by Es Devlin and Jason Ardizzone-West.)  It was extravagant and gothic; like it was ripped out of a Mary Shelley novel. In fact, it could have even looked right at home on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, and one could see a direct line from those “Papparazi” performance-beginnings just over 15 years ago. Gaga, as she likes to tell you, is very proudly Italian American, and it’s obvious she transposes the theatrics of Italian opera aesthetics into her work. Aside from her inherent theatrics (as an Italian American myself, I know full well they’re very much apart of the culture),  the Mayhem Ball show is broken up into multiple, distinct acts, with the numbers (in roman numerals and names) projected onto the stage behind her with novelistic chapter titles like "Of Velvet and Vice” and  "The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name.” Need more operatic evidence? The finale is titled "Eternal Aria of the Monster Heart". In that same vein, fellow Italian-American superstar Frank Sinatra’s vocal stylings were known to be inspired by opera singers, with both using the antique form in a very modern and cutting edge way. Take that, Timothee Chalamet!

One would think that Gaga would start her Mayhem Ball with a track from Mayhem, which came out just over a year ago and subsequently became one of the best-selling of the year, taking home the Grammy for Best Pop Album to boot. But this is an artist who thrives on the subversive. Instead, the spectacle begins with her 2011 track "Mother Mary," and if you know the opening notes of that song, it continues with the show’s baroque theme. The audience rose to their feet: not exactly to dance, but to pay homage: fitting considering its overtly religious language, and especially so as she also sings “Judas” to open the proceedings. Amen.

When a young Stefani Germonatta was attending NYU, she studied musical theater, and as any cursory Gaga fan knows, she originally had aspirations of being an actress. The Mayhem Ball puts that passion on full display, and when trying to describe the show after it ended, the words that came were in the vein of "spectacle" rather than “concert.” The Ball tells a linear story: a classic battle between good and evil, which Gaga wrestles with the darkness and the light inside her: literally. In many scenes, she has a double come out: her same height (all 5’1’’one of her), with her counterpart’s face masked. The show is a full-circle expression of those much-discussed ups and downs of her career, as well as the tribulations she’s faced along the way. She’s even said that this is the first tour in many years she’s performed without pain from a 2013 injury. (The excruciating nature of it is on full display in the 2017 Netflix documentary Five Foot Two.)

In one Mayhem that’s become stuff of internet lore, she’s dead and buried, as she trashes around in a dirt-filled cemetery which wheeled out and propped up on stage, complete with choreography with a skeleton. What, you were expecting normalcy? Aide from physical pain, Gaga also tackles her anxiety head-on, at one point admitting that. “Tony Bennett, who I sang with for a long, long time, used to say to me, ‘You’re nervous because you care about the audience.’ And I do.”

At a certain point, I took stock of the sold-out crowd of 19,500 little monsters. One of the big questions I had leading up to the spectacle was: who exactly goes to a Lady Gaga concert? I was half-expecting it to be rave-like. Maybe there’s just shirtless men with painted chests. In reality, the best answer is: everybody. There were gaggles of gays to be sure (hello, “Born this Way”!) both young and old, but there were also young kids with parents, groups of girlfriends, older couples and college students. There was decidedly not one single demographic. It partly explains her incredible longevity: some artists lose their fanbase over the years so much so that the only people left to attend their latter tours are all the same age, reliving their (edge of?) glory days. Instead, Gaga’s kept her same fans while also corralling the younger generations; no doubt inspired by her fierce individuality. “I would like to know who here has been a fan of mine for almost 20 years?” she said from the stage at one point during a quiet moment where she sits at her piano towards the end of the 2 ½ hour show. “You’re so lucky if you make it, and then if you get to stay, for 20 years? Some of you have been fans of mine when it was not cool to be fans of mine. Which is so cool. So thank you for loving me and all of my iterations. “

Hearing Gaga’s iterations back-to-back is a lesson in creative flexibility, from ballads (Oscar-winning “Shallow” and most recent smash with Bruno Mars “Die With a Smile,”) to pop anthems (“Born this Way,” which she performs with white trail of her dress stretched 100 feet give or take as its lits with rainbow lights, along with ubiquitous powerhouses like “Applause” and “Just Dance.”) What was also interesting was what songs she gave plum spots to, like 2011’s “Hair,” performed on the piano towards the end of the night. “Whenever I was unsure of what to do next, I’d just change my hair,” she said to the Garden in her introduction. And after all of the heavy makeup and costume changes, between Gaga and her team of dancers, she ended the night in the most subversive way possible: by shedding it all and coming out sans makeup and in their street clothes. 

By the end of the non-concert, literal credits rolled behind her of the talent that it took to bring it all to life, including Gaga’s fiance Michael Polansky, listed as executive producer and creative director. The New Zealand-born Parris Goebel choreographed Mayhem in immense fashion, while fellow New Zealander Ben Dalgleish co-directed with Gaga.

As a wise woman once said, songs change over time. And Gaga knows full well the setting (and spectacle) contributes to those evolving perceptions. “So for those of you who have been in mine and each other’s lives for 20 years, may we come back in 20 years,” she said into the mic.  “And if I can’t fill the Garden or if I can’t fill a stadium, maybe we can fill a bar.”

‍