Stephen Colbert's version of the Late Show debuted on CBS on September 8, 2015. That means the show celebrated its 10th anniversary last night -- a bittersweet occasion, since CBS just canceled the show under shady-ass circumstances a few months back. Colbert still put together a big episode for the occasion. Cillian Murphy sat for an interview, and Will Ferrell and Julianna Moore made appearances. As for the musical guest, Colbert got Lady Gaga, who loves to stage a unique TV performance. She took full advantage of the situation, doing a masterful and stripped-down take on her Mayhem track "Vanish Into You."
On record, "Vanish Into You" is kind of a synthpop power ballad, written about Lady Gaga's husband. On Monday night's Colbert, Gaga transformed the song, stripping it down and using to show off all that she can do with her voice and with a dramatic but pared-back arrangement. She sat at her piano and belted the shit out of the song, with only a pair of guitarists backing her up. Even with a relatively minimal arrangement, Gaga still built huge grandeur into the track, and you brain might plug in all the thundering drum fills and keyboard explosions that weren't actually there in the performance. Gaga plays the pop-star game, but she's got the chops to really make a performance like that one feel special, rather than like just another stop in the promotional rounds. Check it out below.
Lady Gaga was already in New York before she gave her Colbert performance. At the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday night, Gaga won the award for Artist Of The Year. She also gave a performance, though she didn't do that at the actual awards show. Instead, MTV aired a two-song stretch of her Mayhem Ball tour performance at Madison Square Garden, where she sang her recent hit "Abracadabra" and "The Dead Dance," her brand new single from the Wednesday soundtrack. The thing about Gaga is that her regular touring performances have all the theatrics and production value of anyone else's awards-show display. Watch that below.
Mayhem is out now on Interscope.
