Lady Gaga debuts ‘Free Woman’, ‘Sour Candy’ and more during first night of ‘The Chromatica Ball’

Lady Gaga has officially kicked off ‘The Chromatica Ball’, premiering her new stage show to over 54,000 fans at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Düsseldorf, Germany tonight (July 17).

It comes after a lengthy string of delays were imposed on the tour, which initially scheduled to begin in 2020 before being postponed to last July, and then again to this month. The final run of dates was locked in back in March.

Gaga performed 20 songs on at the first ‘Chromatica Ball’ show, including nine from the album it comes in support of (which landed back in May of 2020). Six of those were live debuts: in addition to singles ‘Stupid Love’, ‘Rain On Me’ and ‘911’, Gaga performed ‘Alice’, ‘Replay’, ‘Sour Candy’, ‘Babylon’, ‘Free Woman’ and ‘Enigma’ for the first time ever.

The latter two songs featured extended outros, according to setlist.fm, while ‘911’ was performed with an extended intro, and both ‘Babylon’ and ‘Stupid Love’ were extended in different ways.

Additionally, Gaga performed her 2009 hit ‘Monster’ for the first time in eight years – having last squeezed it into her set in April of 2014 – and incorporated elements of ‘John Wayne’ (from 2016’s ‘Joanne’ album) into a performance of ‘LoveGame’ (from her 2008 debut, ‘The Fame’). The set itself was split into four acts that were bookended with a “prelude” and “finale”.

Have a look at fan-shot footage from the concert, as well as the full setlist, below:

Lady Gaga performed:

1. ‘Bad Romance’
2. ‘Just Dance’
3. ‘Poker Face’
4. ‘Alice’
5. ‘Replay’
6. ‘Monster’
7. ‘911’
8. ‘Sour Candy’
9. ‘Telephone’
10. ‘LoveGame’ / ‘John Wayne’
11. ‘Babylon’
12. ‘Free Woman’
13. ‘Born This Way’
14. ‘Shallow’
15. ‘Always Remember Us This Way’
16. ‘The Edge Of Glory’
17. ‘Enigma’
18. ‘Stupid Love’
19. ‘Rain On Me’
20. ‘Hold My Hand’

‘The Chromatica Ball’ tour will continue in Stockholm on Thursday (July 21), when Gaga takes to the Friends Arena. Shows in Paris and Arnhem will follow, before she rounds the month out with two enormous London shows at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Rolling into August, Gaga will perform nine stadium shows across the US and Canada.

Find tickets for the European and UK shows here, and those for the North American ones here.

In a four-star review, NME‘s Hannah Mylrea wrote that on ‘Chromatica’, Gaga “has fully embraced creating a pure pop album”. She continued: “The record is littered with catchy choruses and glossy production, but it goes deeper than that.”

In other news, it was revealed last month that Gaga is in talks to star as Harley Quinn in the upcoming Joker sequel. Her most recent musical release was ‘Hold My Hand’, which arrived back in May as her contribution to the Top Gun: Maverick soundtrack. That song was performed as the encore at tonight’s show in Germany.