Review: Lady GaGa & Kelly Clarkson 5/4 @ HOB

The Boston stop for the T-Mobile and Grammys sponsored Grammy Celebration Tour included performances by Lady GaGa and Kelly Clarkson, and was hosted by season 4 American Idol contestant, Blake Lewis. The exclusive concert, which fans could only win tickets to, was an effort to bring together different types of music under one roof. While the two artists seem like complete polar opposites in terms of songs and performance, the two came together to perform two fantastic sets that were the audience thoroughly enjoyed.

With Blake Lewis starting off as the DJ and beat boxing his way through big radio hits, the crowd got warmed up as a giant white curtain covered the Grammy-decorated stage. As Lady GaGa’s image was projected onto the curtain, the crowd grew wild and excited. It is interesting to note that despite a huge mix of different types of people and fans, the crowd was extremely respectful of each other. There wasn’t any pushing or shoving, and there were no fights to break up. As Blake Lewis wrapped up his set and the lights dimmed, Lady GaGa’s intro video played.



Lady GaGa, famous for hits such as “Just Dance” and “Poker Face,” had just been in Boston a little over a month ago for her own tour, The Fame Ball. While she didn’t have as many of her props with her, she performed her full set from the tour. The crowd enthusiastically sang along to every song, causing Lady GaGa to break out of her strange persona and smile at the crowd during her acoustic set. She had all of her crazy costumes, and put on a fantastic hour-long set. As she finished with an encore of “Poker Face”, the crowd immediately began to shout for Kelly Clarkson.

As Lady GaGa’s props were moved off stage and Kelly Clarkson’s band’s equipment was rolled onto the stage, Blake Lewis returned to his DJ podium. He also threw free goodies from T-Mobile out into the crowd. While his own song didn’t get too much attention, he succeeded in keeping the crowd pumped for the show.

The lights dimmed for Kelly Clarkson to the beat of “Walk Away,” one of her many hits. As she moved into “Behind These Hazel Eyes” and new single “I Do Not Hook Up,” it was clear that the crowd was even more into Kelly Clarkson than they were for Lady GaGa, screaming the songs louder than Clarkson at many points. She put on a very different performance to Lady GaGa – showcasing her voice, and only her voice. Her band also gave the show a lot more energy. After complimenting Lady GaGa’s set and singing a bit of Poker Face, she began her one of many ramblings during the concert. Clarkson’s natural ability to interact with the crowd was fantastic, showing her personable character and funny personality.



One of her many classic moments was when she grabbed a phone from a fan in the front and spoke to the person on the other line, saying, “Hey, what’s up? This is Kelly Clarkson.” She then continued by telling the crowd, “I always feel like a douche saying, ‘This is Kelly Clarkson.’” As she wrapped up her main set with Grammy Award-winning “Since U Been Gone”, the crowd jumped up and down in unison and screamed every word.


As she quickly returned for the encore, she exclaimed, “I hate this whole encore thing – pretending to leave when it’s pretty obvious that I’m coming back.” After taking a request from her hardcore fans at the front and singing hidden track “Chivas” from her third album, she wrapped up the show with #1 hit “My Life Would Suck Without You.”

As a fan of both artists, this was a fantastic opportunity to see both artists in their element. While it would have been interesting to see the two artists collaborate, they both put on fantastic shows that are worthy of selling out venues on their own. I would definitely see both of them again next time they come out to Boston, and with the sounds of the crowd singing every one of their songs still ringing in my ears, I expect that will happen quite soon.

- Chris Cheong

Lady GaGa with Cinema Bizarre, Chester French, & The White Tie Affair, 3/30 @ HOB

Lady GaGa described her debut headlining tour as a “creative orgasm”. While I wouldn’t go that far, her show was indeed amazing. My expectations were high, and I knew she would pull off a creative and entertaining show. Her one-hour set was preluded by three bands who I had never heard of.

Cinema Bizarre, a strange German rock band had a 20-minute set full of generic songs and awkward audience participation attempts. However, the drag queen behind me was loving it. The band failed to excite the GaGa-crazy crowd and the set was changed for Chester French.

The band Chester French, made up of Harvard U. graduates, had an amusing style, with a lot of strange dancing and instrument use (he took out a triangle and a cowbell at one point). Their passion showed through their 30-minute set, and the lead singer even broke his tambourine at one point. Their single, ‘She Loves Everybody’ was pretty well received by the crowd.

By now, the crowd was getting angsty for the Lady. Three support acts is definitely way too much. An fight broke out between annoying little girls, uncomfortable mothers, and the angry drag queen as the stage was reassembled to accommodate The White Tie Affair.

The featured support slot belonged to The White Tie Affair, an emerging pop/rock band signed to Epic Records. Their fun set included glow-in-the-dark, vocoders, and covers of ‘Heartless’ and ‘Love Lockdown’ by Kanye West. They were entertaining and well received by the crowd as they tore through their 45-minute set. After they finished with their latest single, ‘Candle (Sick and Tired)’, a curtain fell with an image of a goddess-like Lady GaGa holding her disco stick.

The anticipation was huge at this point. Shouts of ‘GaGa! GaGa!’ resonated through the crowd. Around 10pm, the curtain fell and The Fame Ball began with a strange pop art video called ‘The Heart’. As the screens moved away, Lady GaGa was revealed, singing ‘Paparazzi’. The crowd shouted back every word as she quickly moved through her set of fun pop songs.

After two costume changes and a sing-a-long interlude hosted by DJ Space Cowboy, Lady GaGa emerged in what is one of the weirdest costumes I’ve ever seen – a bubble dress. However, it was during this set that Lady GaGa’s true talent was shown. She played ‘Poker Face’ and new song ‘Future Love’ on her bubble-filled piano, filling the venue with her unique voice. The passion she feels about her music really showed during this set.

As she closed up the set with #1 hit “Just Dance” and an encore of “Boys Boys Boys” and “Poker Face”, Lady GaGa put her all into the performances and went wild with the crowd. After giving the audience a confident stare, the show ended.

Lady GaGa put on one of the strangest and most creative shows that I have ever attended. It was a big party full of fun music and wild stage antics that made the crowd go crazy. While the show was a bit short, I enjoyed every second and have grown to respect her more as an artist. She is amazing at what she does, and I’m excited to see what she’ll come up with next.

-Chris Cheong
Photo Credit: Marian Hwang

2008 - The Music Year in Review

As 2008 comes to a close, we wrap up a particularly whacky year in music. There was much of the familiar—Britney Spears ruled the charts (and our hearts), Coldplay solidified their spots as worldwide rock superstars, and Radiohead made headlines with their seventh full-length release—and then there was the downright weird. Top album lists saw indie folk records saddled up cozily next to F*cked Up and just below TV on the Radio, whose sound is harder to figure out than Kanye's decision to trade in samples and puns for a whole album's worth of auto-tune singing over 808 beats. And to top it off, Lil Wayne is up for Album of the Year! Whoa, whoa, whoa.... Lois, this isn't my Batman cup.

So what does it all mean? If we learned one thing in COM 101, the world of communication is changing! There is more music out there than ever before and all of it is virtually just a click away; it seems like this musical sonic boom was more apparent than ever in 2008. Generation X is in the building—we know our way around the internet and, with so many choices, we will have it our way.

With so much competition and so much that's already been done before, artists have been forced to think outside the box, underground, through the wire, back inside the box and then some. The result: genre-mixing, label-bending sounds; innovation brought to us by an increasingly diverse and offbeat cast of characters.

The biggest story of the year has to be that of Lil Wayne, one of the hardest working and most eccentric acts out there. Love him or hate him, his rise to fame and acclaim has been nothing short of amazing. With every bizarre verse, he is making mainstream hip-hop interesting again by appealing to the masses without compromising his art. In all of his sizzurp-sipping glory, an unmatched ear for rhythm and a creative eye for hits make Lil Wayne the fascinatingly unpredictable megastar he was in '08.

Other popular artists have made careers out of crossover genre appeal—Linkin Park, Rihanna and Chris Brown come to mind—but it takes something extra to excel to the point of explosion in the ranks of Lil Wayne and other big time players. Coldplay reached new heights with rock hybrid Viva La Vida, and TV on the Radio made some noise with their indie rock/soul/electronic/rap/everything-else you-can-think-of album, Dear Science. And then there was Erykah Badu, with her neo-soul snapshot of a warring New Amerykuh that demands our minds and hands. Meanwhile, Lady GaGa rocked the pop world internationally with her dance/ disco/80s-influenced The Fame, which regularly features such delightfully trashy lyrics as "C-c-c-crazy, get your ass in my bed" and "Our hair is perfect / While we're all getting sh*twrecked."

For me, 2008 was a year of outstanding individuals who defied categories, a blending of styles, and many variations of what it means to live in these high times. 2009 will only see more cross-genre excitement and originality, which I am all for. Because I don't know what to say when people ask me what kind of music I like the same way I don't know what to put down when a form asks me to choose an ethnicity. And it's looking like I'm not the only one! God bless America.

- Jessy Bartlett