At the Commodore on Wednesday, March 18

Apparently, being scantily clad and outrageously provocative sells. Aspiring amateur stripper Lady Gaga gave fans of processed electro-pop an eyeful—and an earful—during her sold-out show at the Commodore on Wednesday (March 18), part of her ”˜Fame Ball’ Tour.

Filling up the venue for the 50-minute set, was a mix of barely legal girls and overly ecstatic Davie Village boys, many parading around in their best Gaga getups: animal print dresses, masquerade masks, outrageous hair bows, barely-there miniskirts, too-tight tees, and hot pants.

Following opening sets by the White Tie Affair, Cinema Bizarre, and Chester French, the 22-year-old New Yorker, known to her grandmother as Joanne Stefani Germanotta, started off her set with a film short inspired by Andy Warhol and an old film-reel countdown that made the crowd go wild in anticipation. Proving once again that people love to spend $30 to watch concerts through a one-inch video screen, cameras were high in the air as they waited for her Vancouver debut.

After a fiery explosion on screen, Lady Gaga stood, her arms in the air surrounded in smoke, looking straight off the runway of a haute couture show. Wearing a geometric silver top, black-wired skirt, fishnets, peep-toe ankle boots, and her signature shades, she sang “Do you love me?” to the thrilled crowd.

From the response, the answer was “yes”.

She addressed the eager crowd, mentioning that a Vancouver radio station supported her first single, “Just Dance”, before anyone else did.

“I love you guys but I have no money because I spent it all on this show,” whined Gaga, who mumbled melodramatic words between each of her songs alongside short video installations.

A highlight of the show included Lady Gaga hauling out her “Disco Stick”, a glowing silver siphon that she waved in the air like a bizarre—yet equally frightening—version of Darth Vader.

The props didn’t stop there. After disappearing backstage, Lady Gaga reappeared, in leather tights and a skintight T-shirt, on a Vespa adorned with her signature black-and-white lightning bolts.

Disco stick still in hand, she then launched into “Dirty Rich”, all the while dancing like someone having a grand mal seizure.

Halfway through the show, Lady Gaga bluntly announced to the crowd, “I’m going to go backstage and take my clothes off”. Before fleeing the stage to gear down, she introduced DJ Space Cowboy who spun MGMT’s “Electric Feel” and Kid Cudi’s “Day ”˜N’ Nite”.

The singer’s club-friendly electronica, mixed with her extreme take on fashion, brash Amy Winehouse-esque voice, and platinum blonde hair, had the crowd captivated. But the one song that everyone knows Lady Gaga for best, “Just Dance”, wasn’t as much of a high-energy, get-up-off-your-feet and dance thriller to the crowd as should have been expected.

During “Future Love,” Lady Gaga seduced a glowing male mannequin while reciting the lyrics, “I wanna fuck you as hard as I can”. The young girls screamed and not-so-enthralled boyfriends yelled out catcalls.

Not everyone was in love.

“She’s a bit of prawn,” the guy next to me described her. “She’s got a mad body but a bad face, like when you eat a prawn; you eat the body and throw away the head.”

A see-through piano filled with plastic balls rolled out as Lady Gaga appeared wearing another predictably risqué outfit: a nude body suit covered entirely with plastic bubbles, offset with fishnet tights.

“I’m coming in my bubbles because you guys are so amazing,” giggled Gaga seductively as she sat at the piano bench, slamming her hands down on the keys for a painful “acoustic” version of “Poker Face”.

She then patted the butts and grabbed the groins of her three back-up dancers, wearing a glitzy gold body suit screaming the lyrics to, “Boys, Boys, Boys”.

Lady Gaga, with a sudden massive surge of energy that was missing from much of the night, returned for an encore to announce: “I know what you're thinking—I wish you would stop fucking around and play ”˜Poker Face’ properly.” Thankfully, she did.

Depending on how you see it, Lady Gaga put on quite the interesting show: A fantastic girls—and boys—night out or simply an hour of mindless, raunchy entertainment by another platinum female pop star.