Madonna who? Lady Gaga is Sydney's new queen of vogue

HEY Madonna, we don't miss you anymore. Your heiress apparent Lady Gaga has more than ably filled the void you left in our pop heart and we honestly don't care if you ever tour here again. Sure, she has borrowed some of your schtick - the corsets, the titillation, the gyration - but she does it all oh-so-well that it's difficult to remember it was ever your act. Gaga opened her Australian tour at the Sydney Entertainment Centre last night behind a floor-to-ceiling screen, teasing us with her Dance in the Dark strike-a-pose as the music pulsed so hard and so loud our eyeballs vibrated in their sockets and our teeth chattered. You could tell she was giving it her all even after the second song, Glitter And Grease, because we could hear her laboured breathing in her head mic - this was definitely a lipsynch-free zone. By the time she got to the third song, Just Dance, her first worldwide No 1 hit, Gaga had the capacity crowd roaring. The high concept show, designed around Gaga's quest to get her friends to the Monster Ball, also borrowed a hell of a lot from The Wizard of Oz. Her 16 costume changes and the relentless pace of the hit-packed set - not one second of the two-hour show was wasted - unfolded in front and behind an impressive set which was part West Side Story, part Oz's evil forest. A burning piano, a broken-down car on which the bonnet revealed a keyboard, a subway carriage and the most elaborate and elegant keytar to grace a pop stage were just a handful of her impressive props. While her proclamations of love for her Australian audience and a brief moment of crocodile tears during Speechless were a tad overdone, her professionalism and devotion to being the ultimate pop star could not be questioned. Lady Gaga performs at the Entertainment Centre tonight, with limited tickets remaining. By Kathy McCabe From: The Daily Telegraph