“Are we making history or what?” Lady Gaga asked the packed crowd at a special invitation-only concert at the Apollo Theater on Monday night.
Gaga was playing her very first show at the historic venue to celebrate SiriusXM’s acquisition of the Pandora streaming service, which took place earlier this year.
She performed a set list filled with her biggest hits, including Just Dance, Poker Face, Bad Romance, and Telephone, but also took the opportunity to address her fans halfway through the show.
Referencing the Pride celebrations happening in New York, she said: “We have a lot of things to celebrate ― it’s WorldPride Week. I think Pride should exist 365 – all year – but I’ll take a fucking global week!”
Gaga also noted that Friday marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, an event many designate as the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.
“That was when our community said ‘enough is enough!’” Gaga said before giving a quick shoutout to trans icon Marsha P. Johnson, one of the rioters at Stonewall that night.
The Oscar-winning singer, who identifies as bisexual, then thanked her fans for “showing and teaching me,” and revealed something “very important” that she’d learned from them:
I wish to share this with anyone who is listening ― not just in this theater, but around the world ― ask the question: What is your pronoun? Because for a lot of people it’s really hard and their pronoun is not respected or they’re not asked, and for me, I’ve grown and changed over the years in a lot of different ways. I’ve felt misunderstood in a lot of different ways. All of our hardships are different ― I don’t mean to compare ― I just mean to say we’re in this together and I’ve had a million reasons to want to give up, but sometimes, if you’re lucky you just need one good reason to stick around.
Gaga then launched into a performance of her song Million Reasons from 2016′s Joanne album.
After playing several more fan favourites, including the LGBTQ+ anthem Born This Way, Gaga finished the show by performing her Oscar and Grammy-winning hit Shallow from the 2018 film A Star Is Born.
Earlier this week, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis was forced to shoot down rumours that Gaga would be performing the song, alongside her co-star, at this year’s festival, following claims made by broadcaster Edith Bowman.