Lady Gaga's Coachella show proves she's still a prime performer

When Lady Gaga first performed at Coachella in 2017, she had only a few weeks to prepare for her headlining show. She was a last-minute replacement for Beyoncé, who had to postpone due to pregnancy, delaying her set to the following year.

- By JANUAR JUNIOR AGUJA

Still fresh from her critically acclaimed Super Bowl performance at the time, Gaga managed to pull off a spectacular show.

But give her months to prepare for a second headlining appearance — eight years later in 2025 — and she delivers the quintessential Gaga show that everyone deserves, both at Coachella and for those watching from home via YouTube during the two weekend performances on April 11 and 18 (U.S. time).

Her Coachella show (called “Gagachella”) comes on the heels of her seventh solo studio album, “Mayhem” — a record critics and fans alike hail as a true return to her early pop roots from her debut, “The Fame,” with a touch of its follow-up, “The Fame Monster.”

Lyrically, the 14-track album is introspective. Aside from exploring her past and present lexperiences — including her engagement to fiancé Michael Polansky — much of the album’s ethos is about the star finding balance in her artistry as both Lady Gaga and Stefani Germanotta, her real name.

"I used to always feel like I was playing two different people, and I would crash when I was doing either," she explained in a Rolling Stone interview.

"Now, I really feel like myself. I used to write music on napkins in the middle of the day when I was 19 or 20 years old, which I know is too young to be in a bar, but I was. I used to go back and visit, and I would feel sad and almost far away from my community and what I had built there. And it would almost just feel like lifetimes ago. When I went [there recently], it was the most intact that I had felt in a long time, and that was really nice. It was nice to be there. When I feel creatively fulfilled, that's when I feel most myself."