Gaga!

I know who Lady Gaga is. I mean, I would have to be living in cave not to know who she is. (Although often, parenthood can seem like a cave when it comes to knowledge of timely popular culture.) But I am not all that familiar with her music. I know it is popular and dance like, but beyond my affection for Glee's rendition of Poker Face (love!), I couldn't name one of her songs.

My very good, dear friend from high school, Tracey, happens to tour with Lady Gaga. She is a photographer and takes pictures for Gaga of all her "little monsters." The last time I saw Tracey, she mentioned that she was so excited for their upcoming Buffalo tour date, but bummed that she only got two tickets per show because she would pass those on to her parents. I told her not to worry, because while I would love the chance to see Tracey work, I am not a Gaga person.

Fast forward to this week. Tracey texts me on Tuesday that there is a chance she may be able to get me into the show, but first she wants to make sure I can go. I tell her I can go and while I would love to see her and catch her in her work environment working her magic, I didn't want her to go to any great lengths on my behalf since I could not pick Gaga out of a line up. Tracey tells me she will be in touch. One day before the sold out show, Tracey texts me that I have floor passes for me and a friend.

Floor passes! I wasn't sure I was even cool enough for any of this. But I adore my friend Tracey and really wanted to cheer her on in something that had become very important to her. So I gussied myself up, picked up my friend Christine, and off we went to Gaga. (In contrast to me, Christine is in love with Gaga. I figured that at least half of our contingent should have some Gaga knowledge! And well, Chris absolutely refused to go. That is not a shocker.)

We got to the arena early, in order to spend time watching Tracey at her make-shift rock star photography studio for the Little Monsters. It was unbelievable to see the costumes, the fans and the talents of my dear friend from high school as she caught the unique beauty in each and every fan. Tracey also looked like a rock star. (This is the same friend that had me camp out at her house for a weekend in high school so we could make a video to send to Kirk Cameron asking him to take her to the prom. ) Tracey had also had a lot of local press on her gig, so she was generating quite a lot of excitement among the fans. There is nothing that we like in Buffalo more than a hometown gal doing good.

After the photography studio shut down for the night, we hung out with Tracey during the opening act. She introduced us to much of the crew also on tour with Gaga, including the woman who runs the social network side of the business for Gaga. I found it all incredibly interesting. But when we heard the first opening chords, Tracey yelled, "Let's go!" and pulled us out to the entrance leading to the floor of the arena.

It was unbelievable. Incredible. Amazing. Any and every adjective that I could think of to describe that moment would not do it justice. To look up and around you and see 18,000 dancing fans, to be amongst such passion, to be so close to a fantastic performance - it was all awe-inspiring. I loved the show. I loved her message of acceptance, of tolerance, of beauty being found in everyone, no matter who you are or what you look like. Yes, she's a little crazy and a whole lot of out there, but well, I think I like her. And above all, I was truly impressed with her voice and musical talent. She sings every note. There is no lip synching, no posturing. She gives it all, from singing to dancing to playing a bunch of instruments - all amazing.

At the end of the night, Christine turned to me and said, "I don't think I am every going to be able to describe how amazing this was. No one will every really understand."

She's right.

I probably can't do it justice. But I do know that I am going to be adding some Gaga songs to my ipod mix today and probably dancing around my living room.