Empire Polo Club, Indio, California – April 11, 2025
In the furnace of a record-breaking desert heatwave, Lady Gaga didn’t just headline Coachella 2025 — she incinerated it. This wasn’t a comeback. This was a coronation.
From the moment the multi-story hoop skirt unfurled and Gaga emerged as both prisoner and queen, it was clear: Gagachella was no ordinary headlining set. It was a five-act fever dream. A pop masterclass laced with inferno-level theatrics, symbolic exorcisms, and a sonic blitz that left no part of the Empire Polo Club untouched. Gaga’s long-teased “unfinished business” from her 2017 set was finally settled — and then some. At 38, Gaga delivered a performance that didn’t just celebrate her career — it redefined what a headliner can be. Think Beyoncé’s Homecoming level of ambition, but darker, weirder, more industrial. From the pounding aggression of her new album Mayhem to foundational anthems like “Poker Face” and “Born This Way,” the set blurred time and identity. It was a triumph of duality: queen vs. innocent, past vs. future, black bob vs. blonde ringlets — played out in dizzying transitions and ritualistic, near-mythical set pieces.
No Artpop. No Joanne. Not even Chromatica. And still, the show felt all-encompassing. There was Disease, her new high-water mark — a snarling graveyard duet between 2025 Gaga and her 2009 VMA-self that left the crowd howling. “Killah,” staged as a demonic cabaret with Gesaffelstein buried in shadows, had Gaga pounding the drums with the intensity of a woman who might combust at any moment. Every costume change, every scream, every wig swap was a spell cast. And yet, in between the chaos, she gave us brief, breathtaking glimpses of humanity. “I built you an opera house in the desert,” she told us, standing beneath curls and silk. A gesture so intimate, it stung. “Sometimes I feel I’ve been in a dream since I was 20. And I didn’t want to wake up — because what if you weren’t there?”
What followed was Bad Romance, resuscitated as a plague-drenched Frankenstein ballet — her voice breaking through layers of performance to hit something personal, even in the spectacle. But Gaga wasn’t the only force shaking the desert floor. Charli XCX pulled off the most anti-headliner headliner set in recent memory, turning a non-mainstage slot into the most Brat-coded moment of the weekend. Lorde, Billie Eilish, and Troye Sivan all made surprise appearances, but the real takeaway was the energy: erratic, brilliant, chaotic — like someone let Tumblr 2014 DJ the party.
Elsewhere, chaos reigned supreme. Brian May of Queen played “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Benson Boone. Three 6 Mafia summoned Wiz Khalifa and MGK. The Prodigy returned without Keith Flint, proving their defiant pulse still beats. Neon Carnival made a dusty comeback. Visa issues forced FKA Twigs to bow out. Meanwhile, the temperature crossed 103°F. None of it mattered. The music carried us. Because that’s Coachella — equal parts delusion and divinity. A hyperreal dreamscape where Lady Gaga can turn trauma into theater and strangers into apostles. Where a pop set can be a sermon, a breakdown, a resurrection — sometimes all at once.
So if 2024 was the reset, then 2025 is the revelation. And Gaga? She didn’t just headline it. She claimed it.
