Live: Lady Gaga

Academy, Manchester

SINCE arriving in a blaze of crotch-flashing, attention-seeking glory at the start of the year, Lady GaGa has morphed into an unstoppable Godzilla-like pop star.

It has been a calculated assault on the charts executed with ruthless precision.

So sure was Stefani Germanotta (her real name) of impending stardom, she called her album The Fame. And it worked.

As the fans who've queued for 12 hours before the show prove, GaGa has already built a legion of obsessives to go with her two monster No 1 hits.

And when she hits the stage, she's met with nothing less than total mania.

"I love my fans so much," she gushes after piano ballad Brown Eyes. "I just want to stab myself and bleed all over the stage".

It's a moment that perfectly crystallises what she's all about - total larger-than-life exaggeration.

Unfortunately, much of the rest of her set proves there's nowhere near enough substance to back up this exuberant style.

Grunge

The emphasis on glitz and glamour does make for a spectacular live show, though - and the stage is a blur of backing dancers and lavish props.

Her huge electro-pop tunes like Just Dance and Boys Boys Boys are augmented by a cheesily "authentic" grunge band who rock out like they're auditioning for a Ben Elton musical.

There are also numerous outfit changes, each more ridiculous than the last, culminating in the already infamous fire-spitting bra that singes the eyebrows of the front row.

Only during a slowed-down piano version of Poker Face does GaGa attempt to strip away the gloss and show a more vulnerable side.

Even then, she gets bored halfway through and reverts to type, bending over on top of the ivories in a skimpy leotard. It only serves to underline the fact that, if she was willing to bare her soul more often than her backside, Lady Gaga might make for a far more interesting pop star.

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