Lady Gaga’s Creative Rebellion At SXSW
Welcome to Lady Gaga’s BBQ – Haus of Swine!
No joke – this was her stage set for her SXSW performance in Austin, Texas where 2,000 Little Monsters gathered in the Doritos #BoldStage for an unforgettable performance. Earlier this week we mentioned the vocalist behind the album “ARTPOP” would be not only be performing, but also delivering the keynote address. Let’s establish the real rawness behind Gaga’s pig roasting and vomit indulging concert last night. Dressed in plastic-bag fashion she also didn’t hold back discrediting the music industry during her keynote with John Norris of “Fuse.”
Gaga’s long time hairspray fire-setting friend Lady Starlight joined her as the opening act. Followed by a very hungry nonchalant chow down of ribs and sausage by a young woman.
Opening with “Aura,” Gaga became supper as she was spun-roasted with blonde dreads dangling inches above an illusion of burning coals. Vomit became a trending topic when she was joined by performance artist friend, Millie Brown. During the song “Swine,” Gaga’s butcher apron became splattered with varied colored vomit direct from Brown’s mouth. They both then hopped up on a mechanical bull inspired swine and continued the artistic upchuck. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen these two collaborate. I can remember when I attended Gaga’s Monster Ball Tour and an interlude video showcased a similar vomit centered piece featuring the duo.
Mother monster took the time to slow things down with the personal track “Dope,” and spoke to the crowd. ”It’s so much easier to be yourself than it is to be somebody else. Because then you have to pretend to be someone else and like things that you don’t like and do stuff that you don’t want to do.”
Before singing the song “Gypsy,” Gaga gazed into the fan’s eyes and said, “So I think we should take this one moment where we’re having this good time and we just do that thing where we put our phones away and just look at each other right now in this moment. Because when you leave the earth, nobody’s gonna give a fuck about what you tweeted. Nobody’s gonna care what picture you posted or what you caught. They’re not gonna care about how famous I was. They’re going to care about what you leave here on this earth, your footprint.”
The day after her performance Gaga cut the commercial pop music industry bulls**t and took the keynote opportunity to express her views on the way critics rip her apart and the future of not only her career, but other artists who just want to be themselves and create music. When referring to her latest album sales she commented, “I’m very proud…I’m held to such an insane standard and it’s almost like everybody forgets where the music business is now.” Also when discussing the pitted artist wars media outlets like to create she replied, “I don’t know what the f**k I have to do with Katy Perry. My music is so completely different and I couldn’t be more different.”
As an art geek, I will forever give Lady Gaga credit in her art, because the one’s who are bold enough to receive criticism of high levels and continue will be those who help our world evolve into something beautiful. From music to movies and every other kind of art form – if we keep repeating what other’s have done, how will we grow?