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“I’m so happy to be home, I’m so happy to be in New York!” Maya Hawke says into the microphone while facing a sold-out crowd at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. “Some of you I know, some of you I don’t but you are all my New York City family.” That family includes fans that have been queuing all day to catch Hawke’s homecoming show. Wearing a velvet coat and black mesh dress, she effortlessly glides into ‘Bloomed Into Blue,’ softly singing “As a babbling baby / they blessed her a bastard birth” while the crowd gently sways along.
Hawke’s trance-like voice booms through the venue as she dives into the next few songs. Each one has a similar melody and delivery as they flow into each other. At one point in the night, breaking up her slow ballads, she brings out a special guest. It’s not her father, Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke, who happens to be on the balcony cheering on Stranger Things star with the world’s biggest smile on his face, it’s singer-songwriter Jesse Harris. He begins to strum the opening chords of ‘Generous Heart,’ a Norah Jones-eque tune with the lyrics “I have nothing to say anymore / Love is nothing / I am yours” and has the crowd singing along.
“Is anyone in high school?” asks Hawke, and roughly a fourth of the crowd are cheering and raising their arms. “You guys know it sucks,” she says as she begins to introduce ‘Mermaid Bar’, a song she wrote about her adolescent experience. As the song plays, the pit becomes a sea of glimmering lights with everyone in the front row beaming their flashlights and blowing soap bubbles from the bottles they brought to the gig.
The energy of the night moves forward at a slow pace, but begins to pick up during Hawke’s most well-known tracks, ‘Thérèse’ and ‘Sweet Tooth’. Fans go wild singing both songs word for word, reciting lyrics “Bleeding, bringing in a new year’s mess” and “I’m grateful for everything you put me through / It’s the only reason I’m any good to talk to.”
She walks off stage and the booming chants of her name bring her, her band and Jesse Harris back for an encore. They play Hawke’s first-ever single ‘To Love A Boy’ and the room is screaming the song back to her. To wrap up the homecoming show, a cover of Florida Georgia Line’s ‘Dirt’ is sung after Hawke’s apology for deciding to end on “a song you may hate but we love to play.” Pink furry cowboy hat on, she has a blast on stage tearing it up before heading back into the city she calls home.
‘Backup Plan’
‘Bloomed Into Blue’
‘Hiatus’
‘Crazy Kid’
‘Luna Moth’
‘Into My Arms’ (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds cover)
‘Generous Heart'(with Jesse Harris)
‘By Myself’
‘Mermaid Bar’
‘Missing Out’
‘I Wanna Be Sedated'(Ramones cover)
‘South Elroy’
‘Thérèse’
‘Freezing’
‘Sweet Tooth’
‘Dirt’ (Florida Georgia Line cover)
When Lady Gaga steps onto the stage at The O2, towering above the crowd on the wide skirt of a deep red crinoline dress, it’s immediately obvious that this won’t be an ordinary Tuesday night. Known for never holding anything back, the theatrical pop visionary dives straight into world-building, transforming the arena into a surreal, camp horror setting. She faces off against another version of herself, surrounded at different moments by skeletons, witches and plague doctors.
“I must sing and build the walls to cradle my own space, and my own sound will grow the fortress of a home erased,” the two Gagas declare in unison before the grand entrance. What follows feels like a powerful reflection on the refuge and sense of belonging she has carved out with her music since her breakout moment with ‘Just Dance’ in 2008.
Aside from her newest release ‘Mayhem’, it’s the songs from her early records ‘The Fame’ (and its reissue ‘The Fame Monster’) and ‘Born This Way’ that take center stage. Although Gaga has reinvented herself many times over the years, it was those early projects and eras that built the groundwork for her artistic journey and gave her the freedom to experiment however she wished.
Lady Gaga credit: Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation
Her imagination and creative drive are fully on display tonight. One moment she’s sinking into the folds of her massive skirt, bursting out from a cage as ‘Abracadabra’ echoes around the venue. The next, she’s locked in a fierce duel with her chessboard “white queen” double during a striking performance of ‘Poker Face’. When she sings ‘Perfect Celebrity’, she moves into a sandpit, using it to show the complicated push and pull between love and resentment, gently holding and then violently gripping the skeleton lying beside her.
A breathtaking rendition of ‘Paparazzi’ keeps that feeling alive, as Gaga stumbles down the runway dressed in a white lace look partially covered with metal plates and crutches, like a knight stripped of its armor. The night is filled with imagery and layers of meaning, but she never loses sight of making it pure entertainment.
She also uses the moment to acknowledge the people who have supported her along the way. A triumphant ‘Born This Way’ becomes a tribute to the queer community. Gaga speaks from the heart, saying they have “inspired me for my whole career” and tells them, “You are so precious to me and to the world.” Sitting at the piano during the acoustic segment, she is clearly touched by the audience’s overwhelming love and takes a quiet moment to express her emotions.
Lady Gaga credit: Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation
“I feel very, very lucky to be here tonight,” she says, looking back at the first time she performed in the UK twenty years earlier. “I feel so humbled that, almost 20 years later, I’m still here.” After emotional versions of ‘Dance In The Dark’ and ‘The Edge Of Glory’, she asks the crowd, “If I come back 20 years from now – I’ll come back sooner – but will you come and see the show?”
There’s hardly a soul in the room who wouldn’t say yes, especially after a night this imaginative and flawlessly executed. Returning to full theatrical energy, Gaga leans into the absurd for ‘Bad Romance’, telling the crowd to “put your paws up” and showing off her hands with ridiculously long, sausage-like fingers, as if she’s stepped into a gothic version of a scene from Everything Everywhere All At Once.
As flames appear on top of the opera house behind her, she walks offstage and reemerges for the encore without makeup, wearing a plain black outfit and a beanie over the hair hidden beneath countless wigs throughout the show. It’s a quiet nod to the person behind all the spectacle, but still part of the performance. Like everything she’s done tonight, it’s executed with complete precision and heart.
