Mother Monster knows how to close out an era in style.
Lady Gaga led a funeral procession Thursday for the Mayhem Ball at The Grove, a shopping center in Los Angeles.
Backed by a New Orleans-style marching band slowly playing her Mayhem hits, the artist was accompanied by 40 performers, including collaborators Ian McKenzie, Victor Rojas, and China Taylor, from the Apple Store to the AMC theater, which was hosting screenings of Apple Music Live: Lady Gaga Mayhem Requiem.
Lady Gaga forms a "tableau vivant" to conclude her Mayhem era at the Grove.Getty/Kevin Mazur for Apple Music
Together, the performers — decked in Victorian reds, blacks, and whites that formed the color palette of the Mayhem era, and throwing roses and petals — formed a “tableau vivant,” a living portrait in front of the movie theater. While Gaga departed shortly after the procession, the performers remained throughout the evening to form a backdrop as a photo opportunity for fans.
The stunt promoted the release of Mayhem Requiem, a filmed live performance directed and produced by Morningview, which screened one-night only in 15 AMC theaters nationwide. As a capstone to last year's Mayhem Ball, Gaga recorded this performance January 14 in front of a live audience at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.
After an international tour that featured an elaborate, operatic set, Gaga performed on a stage where "the opera house has been reduced to rubble," as a release notes. As the "phantom of her own gothic opera," the artist, largely seated at the piano and synths, reinterprets the Grammy-winning Mayhem album's songs amid the ruins of the ball.
In addition to the procession, the "Abracadabra" singer delivered remarks before the screening of the film that spoke to her creative process with the Mayhem Requiem director.
"We talked about this idea that the opera house from the art of personal chaos — what if it was reduced to rubble, and what if it completely fell apart? What if we tore the album down and we just completely put it back together and reimagined the music in a new way?" she told the crowd, which included RuPaul's Drag Race champion Symone and the makeup influencer Patrick Starr. "And I was just saying to some folks in the other theater that to me this idea that we can take the broken pieces of our lives and put them back together, is a lot of why I made this album in the first place."
Gaga also thanked her fans for helping make "the dream of Mayhem a reality."
"You have all made the last year very, very special to us and making this performance was very special to me because I feel like you're gonna actually see a side of me that's more of who I am in the studio and the energy in the room that night was very powerful," she said.
"I feel like one of my greatest privileges is I get to witness the audience every night, and it's always very unique and always special," she added. "It's the community that has welcomed me, that makes me strong. So I hope that you know that this reimagining of my album was for all of you, and it was done to kind of give myself a reminder that...you can rewrite your history."
Lady Gaga at AMC The Grove.Getty/Kevin Mazur for Apple Music
Lady Gaga Mayhem Requiem is now available to stream on Apple Music for subscribers, who can also listen to an accompanying Spatial Audio live album.
