Musical concerts both exuberant, moving
HBO kicks off the Memorial Day weekend on a musical note. “Gaga Chromatica Ball” (8 p.m. Saturday, TV-14) was taped in front of a live Dodger Stadium audience exceeding 52,000 people during the Los Angeles leg of Lady Gaga’s 2022 tour.
The concert includes quiet and intimate numbers on the piano as well as exhaustively choreographed extravaganzas featuring dozens of dancers, accompanying talent, elaborate and expensive sets.
This concert special also streams on Max, as does the 2018 remake of the legendary Hollywood backstage musical “A Star Is Born.” This fourth version of the film, starring and directed by Bradley Cooper, resulted in a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Lady Gaga for her role as an up-and-coming singer who eventually eclipses her more famous but self-destructive sponsor/lover (Cooper) and a win for Best Original Song for “Shallow.”
In addition to her Oscar for “Star,” Gaga won a Grammy, Golden Globe and BAFTA, all in the same year, an unprecedented feat. “Shallow,” has become one of the best-selling singles ever and is featured in the “Chromatica” set list along with some of her most popular hits, including “Stupid Love,” “Bad Romance,” “Just Dance,” “Poker Face,” “Rain on Me” and more.
Also streaming on Max and offering a more vintage concert experience, the 1984 musical documentary “Stop Making Sense” captures the Talking Heads over four nights at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. Directed by the late Jonathan Demme and long considered to be one of the greatest concert movies ever made, “Stop” offers an interesting contrast to “Chromatica,” showing a much less elaborate stage show and an intimate spectacle closer to cabaret and suggesting some of the Weimar-era Dada influences featured in the 1972 musical “Cabaret,” directed by Bob Fosse. The set list includes songs from the Heads’ earliest art school incarnation (“Psycho Killer”) to the ambitious polyrhythms featured in songs like “Burning Down the House.”
Max also streams the 2022 biographical documentary “Moonage Daydream” containing a wealth of unreleased concert footage following David Bowie from his incarnation as Ziggy Stardust in the early 1970s to the work he was undertaking at the time of his death in 2016.
› An annual tradition now in its 35th year, “National Memorial Day Concert 2024” (8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Sunday, PBS, check local listings) honors the service and sacrifice of American veterans and active-duty men and women and military families. Special attention will be paid this year to surviving veterans of World War II, many who have approached and passed the century mark. As they have for some time, actors Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise will preside and participate in dramatic readings. Other presenters and participants include Bryan Cranston, Jena Malone, BD Wong and Mary McCormack.
In addition to performances of patriotic, classical country, pop and Broadway tunes, the concert will relate stories of personal heroism and sacrifice, including that of Army veteran John “Jack” Moran, who recalls his small part in efforts to bring the war to Germany over the course of 1944-45 and put an end to Hitler’s regime in May 1945. Marine Corp. veteran Kirstie Ennis recalls her own personal struggles to find a new path in life after losing her legs in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Vietnam veteran Allen Hoe recalls his own sorrow when his son, 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe, was killed in Iraq.