Wrapped in velvet, vice
The icon, the legend, the voice of a generation solidified herself among the greats in pop culture and performance artistry during Weekend 1 of Coachella. For multiple reasons, Gaga’s return to the main stage was perhaps the most anticipated. First, it marked her comeback since filling Beyoncé’s spot in 2017. With mere weeks to prepare, Gaga made a splash by deep-throating an octopus and filming portions of A Star Is Born.
Flash forward to 2025: her second round at Coachella served as a glimpse of the narrative her new tour, The Mayhem Ball, will take—being the first realized live performance of the new album. The stage concept was that of an opera house placed smack dab in the desert, complete with a full orchestra. With four simple words—“This is the manifesto”—Mayhem was unleashed by a monologue from Gaga, an intro tradition that’s been present in what fans call the “Holy Trinity”- three biblically heavy albums—The Fame Monster, Born This Way and now Mayhem.
Broken into six acts, the opera opened with Gaga singing “Bloody Mary,” a non-single from 2011’s Born This Way, made popular today by Gen Z. Her entrance was marked by a three-story red velvet dress, revealed to be an iron-clad cage with dancers screaming for mercy inside.
Act I was filled with glam chaos. The theme of horror and trauma assaulted the crowd with heavy beats and dark visuals, taking the audience through the duality of the inner soul—amid personal mayhem.
“Poker Face” soon followed on a life-sized chessboard in a battle against a Gaga imposter in white. The scene was reminiscent of Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2005 show during which models dueled in the same fashion. McQueen, a friend of Gaga, battled his own mayhem before his untimely suicide in 2010. The nod to the late McQueen was not lost on fans.
As the show progressed, Gaga’s dark-haired alter ego killed the blonde imposter—only for the real Gaga to be resurrected in Acts II and III. Here, we saw the lighter side of Gaga as she rose from a sand pit singing “Paparazzi,” dressed in a Thierry Mugler robotic-inspired look, complete with gold-plated crutches. Her new songs served more as accessories to her classic hit-heavy setlist, throwing the audience into a frenzy of classic Gaga fandom. Her performance of “The Beast” was timed so perfectly that at approximately 11:59 p.m., she sang the lyric signaling the monster’s transformation—a moment again not lost on fans.
Acts IV and V marked the return of Lady Mayhem, as chaos slowly overtook Gaga-the-Good once again. She brought out Killah collaborator Gesaffelstein, who blared a remix of “Abracadabra,” which dropped on streaming platforms during his set.
Act VI closed with “Bad Romance”—the tried-and-true anthem of all Little Monsters. In a bird-like costume by the French couture house Fecal Matter, Gaga, true to old-school form, wore her oversized monster claws, demanding adulation from her followers.
The operatic performance was a resurgence of old-school Gaga. The takeaway? Our biggest Killahs are ourselves. Through self-destruction—the poetic chaos—we find the strongest parts of who we are. Only through mayhem can we resurrect as our most authentic selves. This was high art.