Lady Gaga brings signature over
Lady Gaga led the last dance at Roseland on Friday.
Before a sold-out house of 3,200 fans, the club-friendly star performed the first of seven shows, fated to be the final performances at a hall that has endured in the city for nearly 100 years.
Naturally, Gaga dressed for the occasion - in six different ways, no less.
At the start, she appeared in a hat adorned with blue roses, fashioned into thick horns. Beneath her weighty crown, Gaga's hair flowed Mermaid-long down a getup that made her look like a gargoyle trapeze artist.
Despite the whimsical couture, she opened with an extremely earnest take on 'Born This Way,' recast as an overwrought ballad, with her seated at the piano.
'I love the Roseland,' she shoe-horned into this song of self-acceptance.
Gaga didn't stay seated long. Her brief, and snappy, one-hour set favored metal-studded disco songs, fleshed out by a ham-fisted five-piece band. Along with 11 stately dancers, Gaga shuttled between several rose-covered risers, plus a second stage adorned with a fixture of her live shows: a replica of an F Train subway car.
It made an appropriately local backdrop for Roseland. While this long, narrow venue may be cursed with fractured acoustics and compromised sight lines, Gaga's sense of occasion gave the place a last gasp of life. She referenced the setting in outfits anointed with purple or red roses. She, likewise, festooned her portable keyboard with the ruby flower.
Appropriate to such a history-minded event, Gaga featured more old hits than new, from 'Just Dance' and 'Bad Romance' to 'You & I' and 'Poker Face' (also reconfigured as a ballad).
Her fresh songs, from 'Applause' to 'G.U.Y.,' don't vary much from the most familiar ones. However catchy they all may be, they're over-indebted to tacky dance and rock styles held over from the '80s. Think Laura Brannigan backed by Meatloaf.
The night also marked Gaga's birthday (her 28th), which she celebrated as her parents gazed at her from the balcony.
The brevity of the show couldn't help but give it a certain perfunctory feel. Certainly, it couldn't compete with that vomit stunt from her recent South By Southwest appearance.
Perhaps it did enough, though, by simply mirroring aspects of Roseland itself. They're both a bit gaudy, a tad focused on the past, yet each a part of the pop fabric.
jfarber@nydailynews.com
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