Lady Gaga's Monster Ball - Where You can Be Whoever or Whatever You Want to Be!

The show started even before we entered the MGM Grand Arena, where Lady Gaga look-alikes were valet parking their cars, playing at the slot machines, dining in the restaurants and going through the customary concert metal detector to enter the concert hall. Fans with beer cans as hair rollers, bikinis fashioned from crime scene tape, and myriad interpretations of the styles that only Lady G can wear so successfully (though last night hundreds others tried their best). But the real entertainment started when Gaga, with her crew of monsters, took to the stage for two solid hours of dancing, singing and dramatic antics including covering herself with 'blood', donning a pair of men's underwear (autographed I might add), and ascending into the air on a stage barely wider than her size 2 frame.

"Tonight, I want you to let go of all your 'insecurities,' " she told the crowd. "I want you to dismiss any rejection. I don't want you to leave loving me more, I want you to leave loving you more." If anyone came to the MGM Grand with insecurities or low self-esteem, Gaga took on the personal challenge to convince the nearly 15,000 excited fans that they should love themselves, no matter what others thought or told them.

It all enfolded as a series of theatrical vignettes, with Gaga wearing everything from what looked like a nun's habit, which she wore while sporting a see-through dress with white tape across her nipples, to a brassiere that shot sparks. The stage was a continual sea of visual candy, and everyone left the arena, 'showing their teeth' and 'raising their paws'....including me!