The Monster Ball Tour: Difference between revisions

The Monster Ball

Tour by Lady Gaga
The official tour poster
Associated album	The Fame Monster
Start date	November 27, 2009
End date	April 18, 2010 (to date)
No. of shows	31 in North America 13 in Europe 9 in Oceania 2 in Japan 55 in Total
Lady Gaga concert chronology
The Fame Ball Tour (2009) The Monster Ball Tour (2009 - 2010)

The Monster Ball Tour is the second concert tour by American recording artist Lady Gaga to promote her second studio album, The Fame Monster. The tour was officially announced on October 15, 2009, after her joint concert tour with rapper Kanye West, titled Fame Kills, was suddenly canceled. Described by Gaga as "the first-ever 'pop electro opera'", The Monster Ball will begin four days after the release of The Fame Monster.^[1]

Initially, hip-hop artist Kanye West and Lady Gaga had plans to launch a joint tour together. Fame Kills: Starring Lady Gaga and Kanye West was confirmed in September 2009 as a concert tour that West and Gaga would co-headline.^[2] In the aftermath of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, West made a public statement that he would take a break from the music industry following the media and public reaction to his outburst during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for winning the VMA for Best Female Video. Nevertheless, the complete schedule for Fame Kills was released, with the tour set to begin on November 10, 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona.^[3] Shortly afterwards, the tour was officially canceled without any explanation.^[4] Gaga addressed the situation at Billboard's annual Women in Music luncheon where she cited creative differences as the reason for the tour's cancellation. In an interview she stated, "[Kanye] is going to take a break, but the good news is, I am not."^[5]

After ensuring the public that she would be embarking on a solo tour in lieu of the defunct Fame Kills tour, Gaga officially announced The Monster Ball Tour on October 15, 2009. The tour had originally been planned to debut in London in early 2010, but will now kick off on November 27, 2009 in Montreal, QC.^[1][6] Rapper Kid Cudi and singer Jason DeRulo were confirmed as the supporting act for the tour. While Kid Cudi is confirmed to be supporting Gaga from the beginning of the tour, DeRulo will join the tour beginning on December 28, 2009.^[1][7] The official poster for the tour features Gaga in her signature Versace 676 sunglasses and what she has dubbed "The Orbit", which she first wore on the October 3, 2009 edition of Saturday Night Live. The contraption was designed by Nasir Mazhar in collaboration with Gaga's own creative production company, Haus of Gaga.^[5][8].

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gaga explained that she wanted to put together an expensive looking, beautiful show which would be affordable by her fans.^[6] She explained that the tour is a "pop-electro opera" because the theatrics and the story elements interwoven in the tour are played like an opera. According to her the design of the show is innovative and forward in terms of creativeness. Gaga wanted to change the shape of the stage and designed one with Haus of Gaga that is "essentially a frame with forced perspective, and the frame is put inside the stage."^[6] Gaga explained,

"It's got kind of a triangular inset, like a diamond, and everywhere we're playing, the dimensions fit this box that I'm bringing, so it's this giant box that fits into every show. So no matter where I go, my fans get the same experience. So often you go into theaters and there's ambient light flying in from all sorts of places, and the audience is in different spots, and the stage is in different shapes and lengths and widths and depths, so this is a way for me to control all the light and all of the different elements of the show."^[6]

The theme of the show is evolution.^[9] According to Gaga, the songs on The Fame Monster represents the personal demons that she had faced. Hence while developing the record Gaga spoke about original sin and demons inside human beings. She said, "So we talked about growth, and that led us into this kind of scientific space, and we started talking about evolution and the evolution of humanity and how we begin as one thing, and we become another."^[6] This theme of monsters and evolution is supposed to play a part in the fashion for the tour, which according to Gaga is "another level from where we were with the Fame Ball. [...] It's going to be a truly artistic experience that is going to take the form of the greatest post-apocalyptic house party that you've ever been to." Although Gaga stated that she was inspired by the things her and Kanye were doing with the Fame Kills tour, she concluded, "...I made a decision based on integrity not to use any of the things that we had designed together." Later, she agreed that it was "the great lost tour".^[6] Emphasizing further on the theme of evolution, Gaga said:

"I begin as a cell and I grow and change throughout the show, [...] And it's also done in what now is becoming my aesthetic, which is, you know, it's part pop, part performance art, part fashion installation — so all of those things are present. [..] It's a story, it's me battling all my monsters along the way. I'm playing all the music from The Fame, all the music from The Fame Monster. And the stage that I designed with the Haus [of Gaga] is a giant cube that sits. Imagine you were to hollow out a TV and just break the fourth wall on a TV screen. It forces you to look at the center of the TV. It's my way of saying, 'My music is art.'"^[10]

• Kid Cudi^[7]
• Jason DeRulo^[7] (on select dates)
• Alphabeat United Kingdom

• Official website of Lady Gaga