Lady Gaga's Mind-Blowing Coachella Performance Has The Internet Collectively Agreeing That No Other Headliner Will Ever Top This, And My Paws Have Never Been Higher
This past weekend, Lady Gaga brought Mayhem to the desert by headlining night one of Coachella 2025. And after an incredible almost-two-hour gothic-inspired production, the reviews are in: considered her toll to the angels, PAID!!!
This year's Gagachella wasn't the first, although it sure felt like it. YOU SEE, she already headlined the festival back in 2017 (she was only the second woman to do so, after Björk headlined in 2002). But Gaga only had two weeks to plan for her first Coachella, after Beyoncé backed out after her pregnancy announcement.
While Gaga always puts on a good show, 2017 was never the Coachella of her dreams. "I have been wanting to go back and to do it right, and I am," she said on Instagram a few months ago. AND THAT SHE DID!
Creative directed in part with legendary choreographer Parris Goebel, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Lady Gaga's nearly two hour production in the desert was nothing short of her magnum opus.
Like come on, how Gaga was her GIANT DRESS FOR THE OPENING NUMBER??? AND THE OPERA HOUSE SET???? I watched live at 2 a.m. EST, and from the second the show started, my ass AND paws were up.
'We are monsters – and monsters never die,' Lady Gaga said during her performance of "Bad Romance" in the show's finale. As a long-time Little Monster, that to me was the thesis of the entire performance. Never afraid to reference (or not reference), the concert was an homage to herself...and therefore an homage to the community of fans who have been there since "Just Dance". After all, Mother and her monsters go paw in paw.
But who am I besides one Little Monster in a sea of many??? Here's what everyone had to say about what's being considered Coachella's wildest headlining show EVER:
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Time Magazine
18 hours ago
- Time Magazine
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In the breakout third episode of Call Her Daddy, the podcast's co-hosts, Alexandra Cooper and Sofia Franklyn, encouraged a male listener to track his crush's movements via Snapchat, advised a woman that there was no need to tell her boyfriend about her sugar daddy, and plotted to sell dirty Coachella shoes to foot fetishists. But the bit that really made 'Gluck Gluck 9000,' posted on Oct. 3, 2018, a classic was Cooper's lively and detailed description of the eponymous, supposedly game-changing oral sex technique. Six years and three days later, Cooper hosted an episode of the same podcast in which she posed to Kamala Harris, then the Vice President of the United States and Democratic candidate for President, questions about mental health, reproductive rights post- Roe, and the economic challenges facing young people. How did the Call Her Daddy that launched, not so long ago, as a chronicle of two 20-something Lower East Side roommates' X-rated exploits evolve into the ultra-mainstream Call Her Daddy of today? The short answer is that Cooper and Franklyn's cheerfully raunchy banter quickly attracted an audience of millions and just kept getting more popular, fueled by successive deals with the fratty platform Barstool Sports, then Spotify, and now a three-year Sirius XM contract reportedly worth $125 million. A more illuminating explanation for the show's expansion into a media empire would require an understanding of who Cooper—a solo act since Franklyn's departure in 2020—really is. The Hulu doc Call Her Alex presumably exists to offer such insight. But in just two scattered episodes (whose release as a series rather than a feature probably comes down to marketing), it's less a portrait of the podcaster than an infomercial for her brand. Directed by Ry Russo-Young (Nuclear Family, And Just Like That) and, crucially, produced by Cooper's company Unwell, Call Her Alex takes a form so typical of the authorized 21st century celebrity documentary, it's become a cliché. Behind-the-scenes footage of Cooper preparing for her first tour, which she's determined to make more exciting than the live tapings that comprise so many podcasters' events, is paired with a roughly chronological origin story. In the present, tension builds around troubled rehearsals of a program that includes musical numbers where Cooper is flanked by male dancers. The pressure to give her beloved listeners, known as the Daddy Gang, an unforgettable night seems insurmountable. An anxious Cooper seeks comfort from her unflappable husband and business partner, Matt Kaplan (a figure so adored by the Daddy Gang, some audience members carry giant cutouts of his face). Of course, as the trope dictates, last-minute disasters give way to an unequivocally triumphant opening night. The biographical portions can feel evasive—weirdly so, considering that messiness and candor are central to Cooper's brand—often swerving away from uncomfortable topics. She recalls escaping the pain of boys' bullying, as a skinny redhead, by bonding with other girls on the soccer field and making videos with friends. Then, suddenly, the awkward childhood photos are replaced by images of the perfectly proportioned and coiffed blonde she'd become by the time she matriculated at Boston University. There's no talk of how this glow-up might've affected her personal life or career, or the messages it might send to skinny redheads who worship Father Cooper, as she calls herself. The defining contradiction of Call Her Daddy, like Cosmo and the 'female chauvinist pigs' of Y2K pop culture, is its frequent implication that female empowerment requires catering to male desires. But Russo-Young never really interrogates Cooper's gluck-gluck feminism. Also conspicuously downplayed is the Cooper-Franklyn split, a perennial hot topic for the Daddy Gang. Talking heads who lived through it allude to a breakdown of the women's personal relationship as well as their professional partnership, as they renegotiated their initially meager Barstool contract—old news. Cooper doesn't have much to say about this. And while Barstool's controversial founder, Dave Portnoy, who also became a character in the contract drama, offers a few anodyne words of praise for Cooper in the doc, Franklyn is only glimpsed in archival footage. Anyone hoping to learn more about the end of the friendship, which isn't necessarily unreasonable for fans of a show premised on the intimacy of girl talk, will be disappointed. Still, Cooper is too savvy to put out a product entirely devoid of revelations. The morsel of news that started circulating in the days leading up to the series' release concerns the accusations of sexual harassment she levels in Call Her Alex against a since-retired BU soccer coach. Framed by Cooper's return to Boston for her tour, her story of a female coach who she says pried into her sex life and touched her inappropriately and used the students' scholarships to manipulate them—and of the university's alleged refusal to act on her scrupulously documented complaint—is infuriating. (Boston University has yet to comment on these allegations.) It also complicates Cooper's memories of soccer as a safe space and her choice to build a career around what is often euphemized as locker-room talk, though those aspects of the ordeal are barely explored. Instead, it's framed as yet another chance for Cooper to demonstrate her strength and tenacity. 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San Francisco Chronicle
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- San Francisco Chronicle
Exclusive: Entertainment complex to land in this S.F. waterfront neighborhood
A 'multi-sensory playground' of geodesic domes — imagine a trio of mini Las Vegas Spheres — will bring an immersive entertainment complex to San Francisco's Pier 70, enlivening a waterfront development site that has been stalled since the pandemic. The domes will feature live music, movies, educational programing like nature documentaries and wellness-oriented offerings like sound baths and yoga. Elevation XR, which operated a similar venue in Los Angeles during the pandemic, has signed a five-year lease to put four structures (the three domes and a pyramid) on a site between the bay and a historic building that was recently renovated and opened to the public. The four structures, which range from two-and-half to four and a half stories, are being built in Eastern Europe and will be shipped to San Francisco. The project will cost about $7 million and open early next year on the three-acre site. The four structures combined will accommodate about 2,500 people. There will be parking for 200 cars to the south of the park. As it did in L.A., the park will feature productions inspired by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead and Daft Punk, with top-notch cover bands playing live along with immersive visuals. The group has also built temporary domes at Coachella, SXSW and Burning Man. Elevation XR CEO Sean Ahearn said that the goal is to 'build a cultural hub that celebrates innovation, creativity and the incredible local talent that makes San Francisco so special.' 'In an age where so much of life is spent online, we're inviting the community to step away from the everyday, look up, and engage with immersive experiences that spark wonder, reflection, and connection,' he said. The project comes as developer Brookfield Properties has paused most of the work at Pier 70, with the exception of the restored historic Building 12, which has been filling up in recent months with tenants including Standard Deviant, Sven Ceramics and Breadbelly. There is a paper artist, a florist, a motorcycle dealer, a pickleball and padel complex, a sneaker designer, a metalsmith and other tenants. The Pier 70 development is approved for nine acres of waterfront parks, up to 2,150 homes, up to 1.75 million square feet of commercial office and lab space, a waterfront arts building, light industrial space for local makers and rehabilitated historic buildings. The property is next to the former Potrero Power where a developer is planning to build 2,600 units and recently announced plans to put an interim park and amphitheater on a site eventually slated for a hotel. The developer is unlikely to break ground on a new structure at Pier 70 in the next year, said Brookfield Vice President of Development Tim Bacon. The three parcels that will accommodate the domes are scheduled for later phases of development, so the dome park is unlikely to cause any delays. 'We feel like the market is slowly recovering but there is still a need for more growth and more momentum,' Bacon said. 'These ground-up projects are still very complicated. High construction costs and uncertainty over tariffs are adding to the uncertainties we have experienced in the last five years.' With Building 12 filling up, Bacon said 'it felt like a great moment to bring more people down here.' 'Fifteen years ago no one thought we would be building a bunch of domes out on the waterfront,' said Bacon. 'Brookfield is a strong believer that interim activations are one of the tools to help advance development. You build momentum.' Ahearn said he had hoped to open a dome park seven years ago but city officials and the real estate community didn't embrace the idea. 'Before Covid, … San Francisco wasn't friendly toward it.' This time it has been different Brookfield and Mayor Daniel Lurie both embracing the concept. Lurie said in a statement that 'projects like this help us reimagine what's possible in our city while creating new opportunities for residents, artists, and local businesses alike.' Susan Eslick, a longtime resident of Dogpatch and board treasurer of the Dogpatch Business Association, called the project 'thrilling.' 'Elevation Sky Park will be an extension of Dogpatch's expansive creative community and a venue for the arts,' she said. 'We want kids and students to feel welcome here,' said Ahearn. 'We don't want anyone to feel like they can't get in because they can't afford a ticket.'
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a day ago
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