Bangkok went ga-ga this weekend after 50,000 screaming fans filled Rajamangala Stadium in Lady Gaga’s first concert in Thailand. This was the biggest concert held by any international artist in more than a decade.
For a moment Thais forgot the mundane problem of rising living costs and splurged on Gaga’s tickets that went for 1,500, 2,500, 3,500, 4,500, and 7,000 baht ($50-$235). Hey who knows if Lady would ever come back, right? This could be a once in a lifetime event!
Getting ready for the concert is already a feat in itself, given the artist’s over-the-top, highly provocative, and just plain crazy outfits. Several websites dedicated to mimicking Gaga’s fashion popped up in no time, complete with tips on make-up and costume ideas.
Lady Gaga indulged in all that Thailand can offer. As soon as her private jet landed, she tweeted “I just landed in Bangkok baby! Ready for 50,000 screaming Thai monsters. I wanna get lost in a lady market and buy a fake Rolex.” Later that night Lady and her crew showed up, unannounced, at Asia Hotel’s Calypso Cabaret.
Thailand can certainly offer the singer plenty of counterfeit watches, cabaret shows and even Gaga’s own fake CDs.
Celebrities and Thai fans alike showed up in outrageously creative outfits. Even Princess Siriwanwaree Nareerat showed off in her pretty pink feathers.
The Born This Way Ball features expletives, simulated sex acts, and people being gunned down onstage – so it certainly isn’t for the sexually and morally faint of heart.
At one point, Gaga borrowed a Thai chada from a fan and put it on her head, while she herself was (barely) wrapped in leather bikini-like outfit. “I love and respect your country…Bangkok is so beautiful…I feel like crying.” Then she hopped on a Harley and told the fans how much she appreciated Thais for being so open to the “girls” like those in the cabaret shows.
And it went without any major controversy.
Elsewhere in Asia, Gaga faced some opposition ranging from a small protest to threats of violence. Her June 3 show in Jakarta has remained tentatively cancelled because of threats from hard-core Islamists to disrupt it. The Church in the Philippines protested against Gaga’s influence on gay youths. In Korea the government, wary of her provocative performance, bans youth under the age of 18 from attending.
Lady’s message for gay rights or her outrageous outfits didn’t meet the same resistance here in Thailand.
In fact, Gaga’s concert is being used by the authorities as a means to rescue the country’s image abroad.
Suwat Liptapanlop, head of the concert’s committee and Chart Pattana Peua Pandin party chief, revealed the motivations behind the Born This Way Concert: “We discussed at length about how we could salvage our reputation and image abroad given recent political turmoil, economic problems and last year’s devastating flood. We all agreed that Lady Gaga’s concert in Bangkok would do just that.”
Given the success of the concert, perhaps the singer did manage to do just what our politicians can’t….
Gaga – you’re a savior!
Aim Sinpeng is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, Canada
People are ignorant of this person who is a victim of manipulation at best and mind control at worst. Regrettably people are gullible and about corporate media endorsement when alternative media knows full well the modus operandi for celebrity.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/lady-gaga-the-illuminati-puppet/
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Thanks very much for paying attention to a less “heavy” topic such as Lady Gaga. She really is a bizarre case of boundary-crossing popular culture. I wonder where we can locate her in Southeast Asian youth culture. Do her performances in SEAn countries, and the varied reactions of adversaries, mean anything, and if so what? Superficial middle-class modernity, consumerism, liberalism?
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While Gaga’s visit to Thailand met with less controversy than in other Southeast Asian nations, there were a few very small protests. Pictures circulating around facebook show groups of two or three holding signs with messages like “กาก้าเป็นทูตแห่งซาตาน” (Gaga is the ambassador of Satan). I am not at all clear, however, on the relationship between Satan and the Illuminati.
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She hasn’t yet controlled my mind, but I am willing to give it a go.
A question for Aim: In the pics, which one is the princess? Or has it already been removed?
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It is great for Bangkok that a star of her magnitude will play concerts there, hopefully other will follow. She is an entertainer, she does things outrageous for the publicity, at the end of the day if you like her music but a ticket, no doubt it was a very professional show.
Personally I like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, in their day they were condemned as evil, but at the end of the day you like the music or you don’t. Gaga Illuminati? I don’t know or care as personally she doesn’t ring my bell, looks like a Madonna remake. Charles Frith III think back to the days when you were screaming for the Bay City Rollers dressed in your tartan, you survived it all didn’t you?
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Here is the genius, must watch, Isaan version of Lady Gaga from about 18months ago….
Lady Pla Ra… (start at 1min)
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I would argue that the transhumanist themes espoused by insta-slebs is the most damaging long term.
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No end to Gaga yet:
Lady Gaga in hot water over Bangkok concert
2012-06-15 15:27
Bangkok, June 15, 2012 (AFP) – First she made a joke about buying a fake rolex. Now Thailand’s culture ministry has filed a complaint to police against Lady Gaga for misuse of the Thai flag during her show last month.
The ministry said the part of Lady Gaga’s performance when she wore a traditional headdress and sat on a motorcycle in a skimpy outfit with a Thai flag trailing behind was “inappropriate and hurt Thai people’s sentiment”.
“We are not asking police to prosecute her but it’s our normal procedure to file complaints to concerned agencies when we receive them,” a senior ministry official, who declined to be named, said by telephone.
The ministry noted that the Thai national flag consisted of three colours — red for the nation, blue for the revered monarchy and white for religion.
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/74494
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What is especially hilarious in this new just-filed complaint from the Ministry of Culture is that the actual flag Lady Gaga used was not a Thailand flag but the flag of another country and the Minister of Culture apparently cannot recognize a Thailand flag.
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