Lady Gaga in Concert - A Review

     Page Two Hundred Thirty-Nine.
     I recently attended Lady Gaga's concert at Quicken Loans Arena. I'd seen her before; it was about
3 years ago or so. Back then I remember thinking that she spoke with the audience a lot. I mean a lot-lot. And I do have a certain frame of reference here. Back in the day I saw tons 'o concerts.
     During my college days I went to many shows; I saw most of the big pop acts of the '80's. I attended few metal concerts but I also saw many shows which were outside the realm of pop. Just know that I went to copious amounts of big shows. I think I never saw anybody who was as chatty as Gaga was a few years ago.
     In 2011, '12, or whenever it was, I figured her talking was simply to kill time. She really didn't have a lot of hits yet, but was already selling out arenas. She got so big so fast that she needed to do something to keep people in their seats and singing hit after hit wasn't a possibility. So, talk, talk, talk was her padding I guessed.
     I'm telling you that a few days ago she did the exact same thing, 5-6-7 hits later. But, in the meantime, she didn't sing all her pop singles, so the show was about the same length. She clearly has confidence too, if she's willing to forgo singing all the hits just to chat when she's still relatively early into her career.
     When I think about acts like: The Cars, Prince or Aretha Franklin who barely said "Boo!" to the audience and compare them to Gaga who'd apparently be content to just sit and talk for 2 hours, it's kind of amazing that they're in the same profession at all. But the talking aside, she has a strong ability to entertain and connect with the audience. Isn't that's what it comes down to? She really is a good show-person. I give her concert a 9/10.