What were Lady Gaga's concerts like for 8 dollars in nightclubs before she exploded her world fame

Lady Gaga is one of the most established artists of the 21st century not only because of her eccentricity and musical diversity, but also because she has strengthened the music scene among women and thus indirectly generated the creation of many more artists who could give a competition to her proposal that enshrined it as the new maxim world exponent of pop.

Despite the fact that the singer now enjoys overwhelming success and charges millions of dollars for musical tours or special performances, at some point in her career things were not like that, even she was not even called artistically as she is now known nor did she have the aesthetic style that has characterized her for more than a decade, being as a chameleon on the art scene.

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, which is her official name, was born in New York on March 28, 1986. She has mentioned on more than one occasion that she started playing the piano at the age of four, and at thirteen she composed her first ballad; a year later, she began performing in “open mic nights”.

“I don't know exactly where my affinity for music came from, but it's the easiest thing for me. My mom always tells the embarrassing story that when I was three or even younger, she helped me up to the piano and played the keys. I guess he said to my dad, “He has to study piano.” I started taking classes with an amazing woman, she was great, she's a great friend. So my first instincts were to work really hard practicing,” the singer confessed in Lady Gaga: Inside the outside for MTV in June 2011.

Despite his lifelong interaction with music, it was until he was 19 years old when, in September 2005, he formed a band called Stefani Germanotta Band, also known as SGBand, with some of his friends from New York University, and thus “a star was born” that continues to garner success to this day musicals and even in the seventh art.

The band performed various songs, some written by them and others by other artists, such as D'yer Mak'er from Led Zeppelin. In that same year, they gained a small fan base and attracted the attention of music producers. According to Lady Gaga: How the world went crazy for the new queen of pop from The Independent, the group reached the peak of their career in the 2006 show, but SGBand disbanded and Gaga began traveling to work on songs she had already composed and create new material with a producer.

During 2006 Stefani Germanotta began performing in various nightclubs, but unlike what many people might think, since he had been leaving a band that was already locally known, his start was “very difficult”. Among the secrets of those first shows, according to the special Who's that lady? of New York Post, the singer did not charge half the cost of access to her performances.

One of his most viral performances and fondly remembered by his group of followers, called Little Monsters, is that of The Knitting Factory nightclub, which took place on February 15, 2006 - which recently turned 16 - and where Lady Gaga performed for only $8 as a cover. The singer performed songs of her own, which to date remain unknown, as well as some covers of artists who have been to her liking.

Years later, the small promos that survived time show what the image that Stefani Germanotta was like at that time to his fans, far removed from the pop singer who is known today. Black hair, torn stockings, loose shirts, a very rock-like makeup that was worn in those years, is part of what can be seen of the singer at that time.

The performer continued for a long time doing this type of event while continuing to interact with different personalities from the American country, which gradually allowed her to charge more per event, as well as “upgrade” from the places where she sang and performed even without music like Lady Gaga. Although his stardom would be until 2008 with Just Dance, the first song he wrote for what would become “Gaga” was Boys, Boys, Boys, a mash-up of Girls, Girls from a Mötley Crüe and T.N.T. from AC/DC. She continued to work in the studio with RedOne for a while to prepare her debut album.

Throughout her career, Gaga has won a variety of recognitions. In terms of music, she has won a total of twelve Grammy Awards in ten different categories, having been nominated twenty-nine times. Among these, she was nominated for three consecutive years as Album of the Year, being the third woman with the most nominations in that category. Her twelve awards make her the ninth woman with the most Grammys in history.

Gaga has also won three American Music Awards and nine Billboard Music Awards. At the MTV Video Music Awards, she has won eighteen awards, making her the third most victorious artist. She was also the first recipient of the Tricon Award in 2020, an award that recognized her talent and impact as a singer, actress, fashion icon and activist.

Today, Lady Gaga continues to be one of the greatest stars of recent times, being for many professional critics the only woman who has given Madonna an artistic battle. The singer still has a promising future after her recent foray into the world of cinema, which has already awarded her distinguished awards as a lead actress and even an Oscar for Best Original Song.

KEEP READING: