The start of the COVID-19 pandemic gave us some of the absolute worst media imaginable. Anne Hathaway’s luxury department store heist movie was mind-numbing, despite all of those words together suggesting something incredible. Judd Apatow’s latest effort left everyone wishing the pandemic had shut down its production. For god sake, Bette motherfucking Midler agreed to be in an HBO original movie called Coastal Elites. It was a time of deep crisis.

But what stands as one of the biggest pop-cultural tragedies of that time, at least for my gay ass, was the scrapped promotional rollout for Lady Gaga’s Chromatica. The superstar’s long-awaited sixth album ignited the weary souls of fans when its first single was announced in February 2020, just two weeks before the world shut down. Initially, Gaga planned an expansive album launch, the kind she pioneered for the modern pop singer—and that her own career had not seen since 2013’s hotly contested ARTPOP era. For Chromatica, Gaga had planned a surprise Coachella performance alongside Blackpink, award show performances, a worldwide promo tour, and “lots of other fun surprises” that had to be discarded when it became clear that COVID was very much here to stay. And then, there was the Chromatica Ball, the world tour originally planned for summer 2020 and that had to be delayed so many times, it became a joke among Gaga’s fans.

Lady Gaga puts her hands over her eyes during the Chromatica concert.

Of all of the what-ifs that remain from the Chromatica era, its tour is not one. The show went ahead in summer 2022, selling out each of its 20 dates. Now, the sweeping production is making its way to your living room, with a high-energy concert film, Gaga Chromatica Ball, debuting on HBO May 25. The film is Gaga’s first professionally recorded concert since 2011’s Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour, which earned the singer raves while her nascent star was quickly rising. Thirteen years later, this new special replicates all of the excitement that swirled around the singer in those early years. It’s an exhilarating watch from start to finish, bolstering an already stellar show with trippy editing and crisp, stylistic filmmaking. The film refines Gaga’s big, offbeat ideas and makes them palatable enough for........

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