Mayhem Ball with Lady Gaga in Amsterdam

I've just returned from a long weekend in Amsterdam, where Rob and I went to see Lady Gaga in concert. It was absolutely incredible, just such an amazing experience, and I cannot believe that in the past year and a half I have been fortunate enough to see not just one, but all 3 of my favourite artists live in concert (Gaga, Nine Inch Nails, Taylor Swift)

These tickets were extremely hard to get because although Gaga could easily sell out a stadium and has many times in the past, she has now been singing and performing for 20 years, so she is trying other things out. To prove that point, she performed one of the first versions of this 'Mayhem Ball' in Brasil for 2.5 MILLION people! Yes million.

For this particular show, where she is touring in support of her newest album 'Mayhem' she said in an interview that she wanted absolute intricate control over the lighting and effects, all things that just aren't possible to do (to that extent) in a massive stadium. To illustrate the size difference between a 'stadium' and an 'arena'

This is where we watched the show, in the Ziggo Dome

Whereas this is where I watched Taylor Swift in Milan.

The simple fact that there is a law of supply and demand meant that since it was to be arenas only, that easily reduces the number of available tickets by a factor of ten! I could see that this was going to be the tour of an artist at the peak of her career, at this point just doing whatever she felt like doing, and that kind of thing makes for the best performances. Not performances because an artist has to (and there is nothing wrong with that of course, and those are incredible experiences too) but there is something special about watching someone who is objectively among the top of their field doing what they love, because they love it.

To increase my chances of getting tickets I checked on when the all the presale date for the cities within basically in a 2000 km radius of Copenhagen would be, found the few, and saw that they all went on sale at the same time, not good odds. So I did some more digging and I found that would be a Mastercard Preferred pre-presale. Off to find a Mastercard - card I went. The first bank that I had when I moved to Denmark (Handelsbanken) actually used to give out Mastercard cards as an alternative to the more common Visa cards, but after a few months of being a customer of that bank I got a notice that the bank "didn't want to be a bank in Denmark anymore" - whatever that means and so they sold themselves and all their customers to Jyske Bank, so bye bye went my Mastercard.

Luckily Rob had a Mastercard card (the word card has now appeared far too many times in this blog post) so I signed it up for preferred thingy and blocked off my work calendar from 12:00 to 12:30 on 31 March 2025 and joined the queues for all the European cities at exactly 11:59, each one in a different tab, and waited to be let in and see which one would let me through. The one that worked first was Amsterdam. A few seconds later and thanks to that master-not-going-to-say-card-again-darnit - I got to the front of the queue and saw a map of the arena, grabbed 3 seats right at the front - just before the pit (which would have been so much fun) but requires at a minimum of 4 hours of standing, something I wouldn't even dare to dream of. My feet hurt even just writing about not doing that.

I had visited Amsterdam around September 2024 (some photos from that trip below) and whilst it is a very popular city, it's a city filled with an infinite number of perpetually furious cyclists riding in all directions at highway speeds in their 12 confusingly overlapping cycle lanes. Also, after a mildly disappointing day where I went to Anne Frank's house, only to find that you need to book a timeslot at least one month in advance,

I dipped into a restaurant to get something cold to drink, only to be told that you can't order drinks without ordering food, so I ordered some food.

only to find that when I went to use the bathroom to wash my hands I discovered that YOU NEED TO PAY TO USE THE BATHROOM, IN THE RESTAURANT, WHERE YOU CANNOT ORDER JUST A DRINK. The chutzpah!

However there is one reason other than Gaga to visit Amsterdam and that is Zuiver, a traditional European 'therme' ie a thermal spa with a ton of different sauna's and steam rooms, and hot pools and cold pools, and medium cold pools and everything in between. For my South African readers, picture the spa/massage sections of warmbaths/sun city but sometimes even more options.

What I really enjoy about Zuiver is that as is rather common place in many countries in Europe called textile free. That means that instead of wearing a swimming costume / bathing suit, which gets soggy and cold/clingy as soon as you get out of the first pool, you don't wear one, and in fact in most places aren't allowed to wear one. Now that doesn't mean that everyone just walks around naked everywhere. On the contrary, everyone gets two large towels (one for sitting on in the sauna's and one for drying off) and a big fluffy robe and one wears those when going from pool / sauna to the next and when sitting at the restaurant or bar area.

When in the pool, thanks to the bubbles and the steam, there isn't really any visible difference between wearing a bathing suit and not, and the sensation of being free from sticky polyester in the water is incredibly relaxing and helps me decompress tremendously. One thing I really love about northern Europe is that nudity is not at all sexualized like it is in many/most parts of the world, so even for the few seconds that people enter or exit a pool or steam room is just not a big deal, and in fact, it's not any deal at all. I've found it to be a very healthy experience in terms of body image and acceptance of myself. I understand that this probably sounds very odd to most of you, but I assure you it's quite normal in this side of the world!

The first day there, we checked in at reception, and immediately went to the spa and soaked in all the different pools of varying temperatures. My favourite of this trip was the hot tub that had the absolute perfect mix of water temperature and bubbly-ness. Also relaxing was this small room with a shallow pool with these sort of laying down benches inside this very warm water that overflows the edges and makes a really pleasant constant sound drowning out all other sound. It was quite cold outside, especially wet and in just a towel and robe but there is a long heated pool where you can swim from the indoor area to the outdoor area, and although your head gets a bit cold, your body is under the nice warm water. It's a really incredible sensation of hot and cold.

The second day I got up had breakfast and right back to the spa. This time Rob and I tried the various steam rooms and what they call 'aufguss' which is a guided sauna session where everyone gathers inside the sauna, and then a 'gusmeister' does 3 rounds, set to 3 different pieces of music one one starts with them adding a ball of aroma infused ice onto the hot coals, then waving a towel above the steaming coals to spread the heat and scents around, and then makes a round the room fanning each person in turn with a towel. If you want to be grilled extra well done, you lift your arms above your head and get a few extra flaps of the towel as you feel your skin ... um ... cook heat up.

As the humidity from the steam increases, the room feels like its getting hotter and hotter, and then they add more ice and then more fanning, and you end up feeling like a baked potato all extremely overheated. Then you shower off in cool water, and optionally, extra cold water either in a plunge of cold water or with a suspended bucket of cold water that you pull a rope and it dunks it on you all at once. The contrast between the hot, where your veins dilate and increase blood flow, and then the cool, which causes them to constrict is said to be very healthy and for sure leaves one with a feeling of euphoria.

After doing that for the entire day it was time to get ready for the concert. Rob had re-created one of Gaga's many iconic outfits and I, valuing comfort over fashion had a T-shirt with the cover of one of her albums, and a pink cowboy hat (which she is wearing on said cover).

The show itself was kind of indescribeable. Gaga gets everyone in the mood and energy right away, and plays a mix of songs throughout her whole varied career, from the pop and dance ones to her more acoustic side where its just her and a piano or guitar and everything inbetween. There is a whole narrative arc with various chapters in the theme of a classic opera (maybe?) and it tells a story through her songs. The set was also incricate and immaculate. A massive mansion like structure with actual multiple levels of rooms that she runs about at various times. It's been a long running tradition in the fandom where she is called Mother Monster and her fans are called Little Monsters.

Everyone wears these light up bracelets that are remotely controlled each one individually, and its all coordinated to fit in with whatever theme is going stage and makes you feel like you are part of the show and not just watching it. To that point, at many moments of the show she shouts, inbetween lyrics, put your paws up (carrying on the long running 'monster' motif). That's not just to get people into it, the light effects are more impressive when your wrist bracelet is above your head in the air vs at your side. It's simply out of this world the feeling of being part of a crowd of thousands of people, all of whom are passionate about the exact same thing, that thing being the show right in front of them.

I'll drop a few videos that show the energy and atmosphere

So that was Gaga in Amsterdam!

This was a much longer post than many of my others but that is how it goes when I get like that and think of more and more things that I want to share and before you know it, it's utter ... Mayhem!

Thank you for an unforgettable night Gaga!