Girl Gaga performs throughout her free live performance on Copacabana Seaside in Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, Might 3, 2025.
Silvia Izquierdo/AP
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Silvia Izquierdo/AP
RIO DE JANEIRO — Girl Gaga gave a free live performance Saturday night time in entrance of two million followers who poured onto Copacabana Seaside for the largest present of her profession.
“Tonight, we’re making historical past. (…) Thanks for making historical past with me,” Girl Gaga advised a screaming crowd.
The Mom Monster, as she is understood, kicked off the present at round 22:10 p.m. native time along with her 2011 track “Bloody Mary.” Cries of pleasure rose from the tightly-packed followers who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the huge stretch of sand.
Live performance organizers mentioned 2.1 million individuals attended the present.
Girl Gaga carried out her traditional hits, together with “Poker Face” and “Alejandro,” switching between an array of clothes together with one with the colours of the Brazilian flag.
Some followers – lots of them younger – arrived on the seashore on the daybreak to safe a great spot, armed with snacks and drinks. They spent the day underneath a blazing solar, whereas others perched in bushes, decided to get a panoramic view.
Followers cheer as they look ahead to the beginning of Girl Gaga’s free live performance on Copacabana seashore in Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, Might 3, 2025.
Bruna Prado/AP
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Bruna Prado/AP
“As we speak is the perfect day of my life,” mentioned Manoela Dobes, a 27-year-old designer who was carrying a costume plastered with {a photograph} from when she met Girl Gaga in america in 2019. “It is surreal to be right here.”
Madonna additionally turned Copacabana Seaside into a large dance flooring final yr.
The big-scale performances are a part of an effort led by Metropolis Corridor to spice up financial exercise after Carnival and New Years’ Eve festivities and the upcoming month-long Saint John’s Day celebrations in June.
“It brings exercise to the town throughout what was beforehand thought of the off-season – filling motels and growing spending in bars, eating places, and retail, producing jobs and revenue for the inhabitants,” mentioned Osmar Lima, the town’s secretary of financial growth, in an announcement launched by Rio Metropolis Corridor’s tourism division final month.
Rio’s Metropolis Corridor mentioned in a latest report that the present ought to inject at the very least 600 million reais (some $106 million) into Rio’s economic system.
Related concert events are scheduled to happen yearly in Might at the very least till 2028.
Girl Gaga arrived in Rio within the early hours of Tuesday. The town has been alive with Gaga-mania since, because it geared as much as welcome the pop star for her first present within the nation since 2012. Rio’s metro workers danced to Girl Gaga’s 2008 hit track “LoveGame” and gave directions for Saturday in a video. A free exhibition celebrating her profession offered out.
Whereas the overwhelming majority of attendees had been from Rio, the occasion additionally attracted Brazilians from throughout the nation and worldwide guests.
Greater than 500,000 vacationers poured into the town within the days main as much as the present, greater than double the preliminary forecast, in accordance with information from the native bus station and Tom Jobim airport, Rio’s Metropolis Corridor mentioned in an announcement on Friday.
Followers pack the shore of Copacabana seashore to observe Girl Gaga’s free live performance in Rio de Janeiro, Saturday, Might 3, 2025.
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Bruna Prado/AP
Ingrid Serrano, a 30-year-old engineer, made a cross-continent journey from Colombia to Brazil to attend the present.
“I have been a 100% fan of Girl Gaga my complete life,” mentioned Serrano, who was carrying a T-shirt that includes Girl Gaga’s outlandish costumes over time.
For her, the mega-star represents “whole freedom of expression – being who one needs with out disgrace.”
Rio officers have a historical past of organizing enormous concert events on Copacabana Seaside. Madonna’s present drew an estimated 1.6 million followers final yr, whereas 4 million individuals flooded onto the seashore for a 1994 New 12 months’s Eve present by Rod Stewart in 1994. In response to Guinness World Information, that was the largest free rock live performance in historical past.
To make sure followers may hear the songs, sixteen sound towers had been unfold alongside the seashore.
Rio state’s safety plan included the presence of three,300 army and 1,500 cops, and 400 army firefighters.
Amongst these current had been Girl Gaga admirers who keep in mind their disappointment in 2017, when the artist canceled a efficiency scheduled in Rio on the final minute as a result of well being points.
Ricardo Filho, who has been a fan since childhood, mentioned it was well worth the wait.
“She’s the perfect artist on the earth,” the 25-year-old mentioned, as chants of “Gaga, I like you” in Portuguese rose from the gang behind him.
