Original show The original version of the tour received generally positive reviews from critics. Jane Stevenson from
Toronto Sun gave the concert four out of five stars and said that Lady Gaga came across as a "confident, colourful, and campy performer. [...] Gaga's success was evident with slick-looking videos, lights, elaborate costumes, dancers, and yes, a band, even if her stage was sometimes left dark as she left to make numerous changes." T'Cha Dunlevy for
The Gazette noted that the performance was lacking—adding that the show never reached its peak until the end, when Gaga performed the "real rendition" of "Poker Face" and "Bad Romance". "Better late than never", Dunlevy concluded. Aedan Helmer from
Jam! magazine said that "At first blush, it might seem the real driving force behind Gaga's meteoric rise to fame is her hand-picked cadre of costume and set designers—dubbed
Haus of Gaga—who seemingly know no bounds when it comes to pushing the envelope of haute couture and the theatre of the absurd. [...] But what really sets Gaga apart from the middling masses of lip-synching Britney clones and Idol wannabes is her pure, unadulterated musical talent. [...] The Lady can sing." Theatre critic Kelly Nestruck, while writing for
The Guardian, said "While the Monster Ball has nothing on the great operas or the golden age of musical theatre, Lady Gaga's 'electro-pop opera' is at least twice as entertaining and infinitely fresher than any stage musical written over the last decade." Lauren Carter from
Boston Herald praised the show saying "[Gaga] only has two albums under her belt but who cares? Every song feels like a hit, and Gaga-as-star is already taking on Madonna-like proportions. [...] After [the show] at the Wang Theater, fans could justifiably walk away thinking Lady Gaga is crazy, brilliant or both." Jeremy Adams from
Rolling Stone reviewed the performance at
Wang Center in Boston and said that "Throughout the evening, Gaga [..] aimed for a kind of pop theatricality that might potentially cement her burgeoning status as performance artist." Aidin Vaziri of
San Francisco Chronicle said that "During her 90-minute performance—not so much a live concert as a meticulously choreographed spectacle—Lady Gaga also evoked
Kanye West with the futuristic set,
Britney Spears in her heavy-lidded stage movements,
Courtney Love with her interminable between-song monologues highlighted by four-letter squelches and—who else?—
Madonna for, oh, just about everything else." Jim Harrington from
San Jose Mercury News felt that the show would have been better technically if around thirty minutes were lessened from it. James Montogomery from
MTV reviewed the concert at San Diego and said that "[Gaga] powered through and turned the San Diego Sports Arena into a raucous, delightfully raw discotheque." Writing for the
Las Vegas Sun, Joe Brown observed that "Lady Gaga out-Cher-ed Cher, made Cirque du Soleil and Britney's '
Circus Tour' look like county fair carnivals, and made New Year's Eve in Las Vegas anticlimactic."
Los Angeles Times writer Ann Powers avouched that the tour was "an invigoratingly ambitious show, executed with vigor by its star and her expressive dancers."
Jon Pareles from
The New York Times said that the tour always provided "something worth a snapshot: a sci-fi tableau, perhaps, or a skimpy, glittery costume. The more her image gets around, the better Lady Gaga does."
Revamped show The revamped concerts were also met with critical acclaim. Mark Savage from
BBC Online reviewed the first of the revised performances in the United Kingdom. Savage described the concert as a hugely ambitious, terrifyingly loud show, "spread over four acts and held together by a flimsy 'narrative' about Gaga and her dancer friends trying to get to a party." He was also impressed that the entire spectacle was put together in just four weeks. Glenn Gamboa from
Newsday said that Gaga "built her monster-sized fame on knowing how to create a spectacle and then having the substance to back it up. For every coat made of Kermit the Frog dolls or headdresses that covered her face in red lace, there was a stomping disco anthem or tender piano ballad to match. That back and forth is the centerpiece of her Monster Ball Tour." Dan Aquilante from the
New York Post was critical of the show, calling it "scripted, silly, and tired, right down to Gaga's patter." He added that the 15 costumes Gaga wore during the two-hour plus gig were "more successful helping her cement the notion of an erotic and exotic otherworld." Writing in the
Telegram & Gazette, Craig S. Semon was appreciative of the show, calling it "an out-of-this-world blast and end-of-the-world blow-out that must be seen to be believed." Rick Massimo, reviewing the concert for
The Providence Journal, wrote that as a musical theater, the Monster Ball was not that exciting, but "that leaves the music, and when you lay two hours of her songs end-to-end, it's easy to see the vision, the intelligence and a serious songwriting talent at work." Jay N. Miller from
The Enterprise was impressed with the show, saying that the music was somewhere between industrial disco and house music with a rock edge, but "always danceable". Philip Borof from
Bloomberg Television reviewed the concert in New York's
Madison Square Garden and found it average, calling the crowd decked in various costumes as the "most entertaining".
Toronto Stars
Ben Rayner appreciated the show, exclaiming "hot damn, that was one hell of a show Gaga brought to the Air Canada Centre Sunday night and suddenly it doesn't seem redundant to add one more voice to the Lady Gaga choir." Mariel Concepción from
Billboard felt that Gaga "may be best known for her gaudy outfits and over-the-top stage shows, but at her hometown headlining debut at Madison Square Garden last night, the pop phenomenon proved she's a regular girl at heart."
The Seattle Times staff writer Marian Liu declared that as "one of the most anticipated touring acts of the year, [Gaga] stimulated the crowd's senses on Saturday night in a way few artists can. She brought spectacle and backed it up with soul."
The Guardian journalist
Alexis Petridis reviewed the opening show of the European leg, and commented that "it takes a certain je ne sais quoi to open your show doing something that looks suspiciously like mime on a rickety metal staircase while wearing an outfit with shoulderpads the size of the deck on a small aircraft carrier." == Commercial reception ==