Lady Gaga

Like a high profile football game, you kind of know when something big is about to go down in Berlin.

There's no exception tonight as Lady Gaga's Mayhem Ball rolls into town. Some 15 or so trucks, filled with anything from gondolas, to coffins and spiral staircases, park up outside the city's Uber Arena. Somewhere in those trucks, there's even a giant, Lenin-like skull.

Also present of course, are Gaga's adoring mass of suitably attired monsters, a sight to behold midweek on public transport and in nearby bars, some holding handwritten placards seeking spare tickets.

Some three hours from now, they'll be back at street level, holding post-show singalongs of Gaga favourites under a full moon.

A real full moon, to match the projected one on Gaga's enormous stage backdrop. Indeed, everything about tonight's show is full-on and epic, even Gaga's more intimate moments, sat alone at a small upright piano in the round and singing the metal roof off this multi purpose venue. Placed towards the end of her near 2.5 hour set, Dance in the Dark and Hair are delivered with such delicate power that you almost wonder if all the props, stage tricks and costume changes were ever needed.

But Gaga, of course, is an artist with many guises and statements to make. We see her as leader of her circa 20-strong dance troupe, as a stage actress, and quite brilliantly, on screen, backstage, without the glitz, overcoat and black beanie on and ready to get her bus.

While the show's pallet is red, black and white, there's more than enough space to beam the pride rainbow onto her trailing veil as it stretches the entire length of her runway, which serves as dancefloor, catwalk, chess board, Venetian canal.

From THAT entrance aboard a giant, crimson-curtained trolley, to her singing alongside skeletons in a sandpit coffin, Gaga continues to offer her fans a million reasons to get their "paws up".