Lady Gaga’s riotous party descended on the German capital last week, delivering a double dose of unabashed Mayhem that echoes its own hedonistic spirit. The superstar’s ambitious eighth world tour is a masterpiece in camp theatrics, tearing up the pop rule book and cementing her legacy as the most fearless and OTT storyteller of our time. Bearing witness to a truly triumphant return to the top, here’s our take on a sublimely dark fever dream that set the city ablaze.

Produced by Gaga and Michael Polansky, The MAYHEM Ball features direction by Ben Dalgleish (Human Person), creative direction by Gaga, Polansky, Parris Goebel and Human Person, choreography by Goebel, and costumes styled by Hunter Clem, Gaga’s sister Natali Germanotta (Topo Studio), and HARDSTYLE. Production design is by Es Devlin, Es Devlin Studio, and Jason Ardizzone-West.

A theatre of chaos

Incorporating visual elements borrowed from 17th-century Venetian masquerades, the Uber Arena becomes a Colosseum-like opera house. Gaga emerges in a towering crimson gown (a nod to Thierry Mugler’s 1985 Lady Macbeth), with the velvet skirt parting to reveal her feral dancers. Over two and a half hours, gothic opera, fetish couture, and surrealist cinema collide in latex veils, chiaroscuro light, and a chessboard of black and red. She sings Perfect Celebrity to a skeleton in a giant sandpit, clunks down the runway on armoured crutches during Paparazzi, and dons a razor-sharp military tailcoat for Shadow of a Man. Logic takes a backseat in this riot of chaos and couture, and before Shallow, a hooded Gaga is grappled by dancers wearing sinister beaked masks before being ferried up the catwalk in a lantern-lit boat. 

A spiritual homecoming

Once the epicentre of decadence and danger, Berlin has always rewarded boldness and individuality. Returning to her freaky first principles with a visceral stare, unrelenting hunger, and the devastating focus of an apex predator, Gaga reignites a fire in the city’s collective loins with her very first words: “Category is… TANZ ODER STIRBT!” A few songs later, the metallic thrum of Scheiße reverberates through the arena, punctuated with German phrases that land like insider winks, affirming a rare, shared cultural intimacy. It feels like the homecoming of a pop polymath at the height of her powers — chaotic, triumphant, intoxicating, and essential.

The gospel of Gaga

A strong narrative runs through the entire show: Gaga’s battle with her inner demons and ‘Mistress of Mayhem’ alter-ego. Having spoken about her fibromyalgia that has prevented her from touring in the past, self-doubt, break-ups and mental health issues compounded her troubles. Now blissfully engaged, her struggles are portrayed through elaborate choreography, embracing duelling gothic personas throughout. For the encore she appears with her whole crew and without make-up for How Bad Do U Want Me, addressing a romantic partner whose idealised image she can never match in real life. The duality of finishing a sublimely flashy show in such a stripped‑down fashion is classic Gaga, who described authenticity in a recent New York Times interview as “a committee of one.”

A queer love letter

“This show is for you, for your freedom. You have inspired my entire career!” Gaga has always carved out sacred space for her queer fans, and the tour feels like a cathedral for outsiders. After Paparazzi, an effervescent white cape unfurls across the entire stage, illuminated by a projection of the rainbow flag. Later, she dedicates Marry the Night to an attending Lady Starlight — her earliest collaborator and co-conspirator — and, as she tearfully recalls, “the only person who believed in me.” It’s a beautiful moment, and the crowd roars in recognition of their friendship and lineage, two dreamers who built this empire from the New York underground. When she finally rises from the piano to perform the apocalyptic love song Vanish Into You, there’s a feeling of reclamation: you can be too much, too loud, too strange, and still be seen as beautiful. Especially here. Especially now.

The voice behind the armour

The ball unfurls like a night in the city’s nocturnal underbelly, its setlist untethered from chronology. Opening with the operatic Bloody Mary and morphing into frenetic renditions of Mayhem’s Abracadabra and  Born This Way’s Judas, green smoke pours down the stage for the dance-floor-ready Garden of Eden. The groove-tastic Killah and Chic-inspired disco-bop Zombieboy follow, while party-bangers Applause and Just Dance whip the crowd into a frenzy. Summerboy, in which Gaga jams on guitar while surrounded by a mass of gyrating bodies, is an unexpected hit, and the years fall away for the self-loving anthem Born This Way. Her slow ride in a gondola provides a soothing visual for an evocative solo version of Shallow, and the most potent moments arrive when she reaches the piano and lets her voice soar. For all the cosplay and pyrotechnics on show, the true luxury is Gaga’s voice, accompanied by a never-ending arsenal of hits. The stage ignites for her biggest of all, Bad Romance — a final flawless blaze.