Not much in Lady Gaga's career is surprising anymore, including the fact that she announced an Aug. 21 date at Xcel Energy Center along with the rest of her 2017 tour on Monday morning -- just hours after landing a high-flying performance at Super Bowl LI in Houston.
Tickets to her St. Paul concert, which falls on a Monday, go on sale next Monday, Feb. 13, for $47.50-$252.50 via Ticketmaster and the arena box office. Minnesota will get to see the New York pop adventurer about three weeks into her Joanne World Tour, which begins Aug. 1 in Vancouver.
Just like Beyonce did last year, Gaga used the Super Bowl Half-Time Show as a 12-minute commercial for her summer tour. Unlike Bey, she avoided making any overt social or political statements that might have generated controversy, perhaps with an eye for selling tickets in red and blue states alike. As Forbes reported, the NFL doesn't actually pay its performers, it just covers production costs (which probably were quite sizable in Gaga's case given the bungee jump off the stadium's roof and synchronized drones). The payoff for the artists comes in the form of boosted album and ticket sales.
The New England Patriots weren't the ones to enjoy a big comeback on Sunday night. Gaga's Super Bowl LI performance capped off a career comeback that began with the October release of her fifth album, "Joanne," which earned strong reviews and includes the singles "Perfect Illusion" and "Million Reasons."
Her 2014 album, "ArtPop," stiffed commercially and critically, and her concert that year at Xcel Energy Center only drew about 11,000 fans – down from the 30,000 she played to over two sold-out nights at the St. Paul arena in 2010. In the interim, she won a Golden Globe for her acting in the FX series "American Horror Story" and issued a jazz duets album with Tony Bennett, "Cheek to Cheek."
