“Mother Monster” is back again! After debuting her new hit album Mayhem on March 7, 2025 to much success, Lady Gaga went back on tour, ensuring to bring her all to her hometown of Manhattan, New York.
The Mayhem Ball was brought to Madison Square Garden for 6 shows: August 22, August 23, August 26, August 27, September 6, and September 7 of 2025. The concert consisted of songs from her new record like “Abracadabra”, “Vanish Into You”, and “Die With a Smile” while also including fan favorites like “Bad Romance”, “Paparazzi,” “Born this Way”, and more. Lady Gaga set up her concert by splitting it up into 4 theatrical acts following “dueling twins” who were meant to represent Lady Gaga’s struggles regarding her old and current music while writing her new album. The themes of the acts follow the show seamlessly through the singing performances, the set designs, and the onstage dances done by Gaga and her backup dancers.
Friday, August 22, 2025, marked Lady Gaga’s first performance at Madison Square Garden for The Mayhem Ball, and she did not disappoint the fans within the sold out arena. Lady Gaga performed the song “Hair” from the Born this Way album for the first time in nearly 11 years during the acoustic set of her concert. When addressing the crowd before this performance Lady Gaga made sure to give a heartfelt speech, stating how she was forever thankful to her fans for believing in her and how she was grateful for the integral role New York City played in her beginnings as an artist. After the initial concert, Lady Gaga then sang a surprise encore of “Heavy Metal Lover” from the Born this Way album while wearing her original “Born this Way” jacket from 2011. Fans noticed that Lady Gaga had various crew members filming the entirety of the show on this date, however, nothing has officially been announced about a concert movie just yet.
August 23, 2025 continued the trend of Lady Gaga performing “Hair” during her acoustic set, and it was later revealed that this trend would only occur during the New York City shows of The Mayhem Ball. She also made sure to shout out her new fiance, Michael Polansky, before her acoustic set, leading to a large amount of cheering from her many fans within the venue.
The shows on August 26 and 27 were very similar to her previous one on August 23, with the exceptions of this being the surprise songs “Electric Chapel” and “Highway Unicorn” being played at the end of each show respectively. In the short amount of time Lady Gaga left between her August 27 and September 6 shows, she attempted to travel to Miami to perform two showings of The Mayhem Ball in the Kaseya Center, however she was only able to perform one of her two shows due to a vocal strain.
Before coming back to New York City from Miami, however, Lady Gaga ensured to keep her fans happy. On September 3, 2025 Lady Gaga made her debut in episode 6 of the hit Netflix show Wednesday’s second season. Besides this she also wrote and sang an original song titled “The Dead Dance” for the show. On this day Lady Gaga officially released her new song on all streaming platforms as well as two other songs titled “Can’t Stop the High” and “Kill for Love”. Fans were enthused to see her act in the series’ new season, and “The Dead Dance” debuted at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Lady Gaga made her re-entrance to Madison Square Garden on September 6, 2025, and confused fans when she began singing songs before the concert even officially began. As reported, Lady Gaga sang “Abracadabra” three times as well as performed “The Dead Dance” for the first time ever right before the initial show started. It was later revealed that Lady Gaga was pre-recording her performances of these two songs for the Video Music Awards happening the next day in the UBS Arena in New York City. After her performances, she continued on with her original show with her surprise encore being “Bad Kids”, which marked its first time being performed since 2013.
On the final date of Gaga’s Madison Square Garden residency, fans were left befuddled when Ticketmaster issued a warning stating that The Mayhem Ball would be starting an hour later than the expected time. Confusion was soon cleared however when fans found out that Lady Gaga was attending the Video Music Awards dawned in a black dress essencing the Mayhem energy. The first award of the night was the “VMA Artist of the Year Award”, and fans already in the Madison Square Garden Arena bursted into cheers when they found out that Lady Gaga had won in that category. Gaga gave a heartfelt speech dedicated to her fiance, and ended by saying, “I wish I could stay and watch all these amazing performances, but I have to come back to Madison Square Garden. Love you”. Lady Gaga also won the VMA for “Best Collaboration” for her song “Die With a Smile” featuring Bruno Mars as well as the VMA’s for “Best Direction” and “Best Art Direction” for her “Abracadabra” music video. After returning to Madison Square Garden and going on with her scheduled show, Lady Gaga ensured to bring out her newly won VMA during her performance of “Perfect Celebrity” and implement an encore of her new song “The Dead Dance” to close the show off.
At the end of her Madison Square Garden run, the venue itself decided to give Lady Gaga a custom guitar from McSwain Guitars for fully selling out six shows at MSG. The guitar itself has a monster paw design and a plaque dedicating the achievement. While Lady Gaga has not publicly said anything about the gift, based on the heartfelt speeches she gave to the crowds all six nights and her personal connection with New York City, it is safe to say that the guitar will be very special to her.
I’m not sure about you, but for me it is definitely obvious that Lady Gaga caused the most “Mayhem” as possible at Madison Square Garden. I was fortunate enough to attend Night 1 of the Madison Square Garden shows, and I can assure you that if you have the chance of going to one of her shows you will be guaranteed to have a blast. If you are reading this and are upset that you missed her at MSG, do not worry! After seeing the demand these six shows had, Lady Gaga decided to add new dates to her tour for March 19, March 20, and April 13, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. The April 13 date is the last announced showing of The Mayhem Ball in its entirety, so if you are interested in going be sure to check Ticketmaster and other ticket resale sites for more information!