Music review Glorious gothic mayhem from oddball of pop

Lady Gaga's eighth world tour, The Mayhem Ball, does not lack ambition.

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Lady Gaga 02 Arena, London

Lasting two hours and featuring 30 songs, it comes divided into five acts, each with a deeply portentous title that glows from the big screens in blood-red gothic script: Of Velvet and Vice; The Beautiful Nightmare That Knows Her Name; Every Chessboard Has Two Queens.

It arrives preceded by a lengthy film in which next to nothing happens: Lady Gaga in a ruff looks pensive and occasionally writes on a scroll with a huge quill, while opera booms in the background.

Perhaps she's paying tribute to her avowed influence Andy Warhol, in this case his notorious alwaysleave-them-wanting-less approach to cinema. When it becomes apparent that looking pensive and writing on a scroll is about the size of it, the audience become restive: a slow handclap erupts.

When she finally rolls her scroll up and pensively walks off-screen, the cheer is deafening. The real Lady Gaga is wheeled out on stage atop a giant scarlet crinoline dress.

The devoted crowd - some in T-shirts demanding "Justice for Artpop", the coolly received 2013 album that temporarily derailed her career go berserk.