“Don’t you call me Gaga.”

Stefani Joanne Angelina tried to set the tone after opening her Tampa set with “Diamond Heart” and “A-YO,” the first two songs from her brand new album, Joanne, which is named for Gaga's father’s late sister who, in 1974, died at the age of 19.

“Call me Joanne,” Angelina — the 31-year-old pop superstar better known as Lady Gaga — added, “We’re here to celebrate two Grammy nominations for my new album, but some of us here have known each other for ten years, right?

Known? More like grown.

Nearly 10 years ago, Gaga was supporting her debut LP, The Fame, at G. Bar in Ybor City. That club is now Southern Nights, just across the street from The Bricks and a block away from the Ritz where, in April 2009, Gaga played an 11-song set a few months before the same LP would be re-released as The Fame Monster.

EDITOR’S NOTE: No local photographers were allowed to shoot the show, but we’ve included approved photos (c/o Live Nation and Amalie Arena) taken from an August 29, 2017 stop of the tour. They're at the bottom of this post, because, well, we know you love Lady Gaga.

On Friday, Ms. Joanne played a long sold-out show for just under 17,000 Little Monsters, and while the first stanza of her show — which did feature spirited takes on new and old club-staples “Perfect Illusion” and “Poker Face” — felt languid by her standards (maybe it was the effect of back-to-back shows), things started to fall into their majestic, magnificent places by the time Gaga donned her black Stetson, unleashed some pyro on Joanne stand-out “John Wayne” and got her Kraftwerk on during “Scheiße” from 2011’s Born This Way (which, in 2012, earned Gaga her third consecutive Album of the Year Grammy nom, a feat only previously achieved by The Beatles).

“I was in a lot of pain when I wrote this song for Born This Way,” Gaga told her fans, “But you need pain to know what it feels to be strong.”

And with that sentiment, Gaga really began to make what she means to her fans clear to any aliens who may have accidentally found themselves at this nearly two-hour celebration of acceptance and the idea of empowering people regardless of gender, orientation, ethnicity and even political ideology.

A trio of trippy, mushroom-looking, pseudo-bioluminescent bridges dropped in from the ceiling as Gaga made her way to a second stage where she played “Applause” on a clear piano made alive by a stage illuminated in fluorescent club lights. It was a fitting visual for the only ARTPOP cut of the night, and Gaga continued in the happy-go-lucky vein with her Vegas-ready, horn-drenched feel-good anthem-for-kindness, “Come To Mama,” before telling the story of a young girl from the previous night’s Miami meet-and-greet who asked her how to break into the music industry.

“I told her that the most important thing is that you love that art you make,” Gaga explained. “The other stuff, cameras, fame, it’s is wonderful but it changes your life, and if you ain't got heart in you, then you ain't got nothing.”

She went on to encourage the artists in the crowd to nurture whatever their craft was as if it was their child, and reminded them that she practices alone at home all the time.

“When you're practicing, I'm practicing,” she added. “We'll be on the edge of our glory together.”

What spilled out of Stefani after that was a sublime, supreme and exalted solo-piano take on “The “Edge of Glory” where Gaga effortlessly inserted subtle, multi-octave vocal runs. Even when her voiced dropped to a whisper, Gaga’s delivery had the power of a scream. It’s a testament to the soul — and dedication to perfection — inside of the young performer, and Gaga was most impressive last night when she did reveal the emotion — and care for her fans — that she harbors inside.

She complimented audience members costumes and drag before “Born This Way” (“How’s mine?,” she asked while striking a pose), vogued and posed after bachata-flavored self-pleasure statement “Dancin’ In Circles,” advocated for black Americans’ right to vote, and stripped it back on an acoustic take on “Angel Down” from Joanne. Before an encore performance of “The Cure,” Gaga reiterated part of her mission statement.

“It's important that we stick by each other. Just be kind to each other,” she said. “Kindness kills all things.”

And if you’re wondering what kindness looks like, then all you had to do was look into the faces of fans refusing to leave the floor after the show. You could’ve looked at Gaga before a take on set-closer “Million Reasons” when she personally acknowledge Tampa artist Cam Parker, a superfan who painted a mural of Gaga less than two miles away on the northern end of Franklin Street. And you could’ve tuned your ear to the story Gaga told before performing Joanne’s title track where she spoke warmly of her father, who lost his sister to lupus.

As the bridges glowed, Gaga spoke about the strength she pulled from a line (“I know where I’m going”) in a poem her aunt wrote before she died. Gaga talked about how the death likely destroyed her father’s life in a way that he probably never fully-recovered from. In turn, that meant Gaga never got to spend time with that version of her dad, and she explained how that happens to all of us in some way or another.

“Imagine life blasting you so hard that it changes you forever. We can all understand family because you either got it or you don't. Pain is an equalizer,” she said before dedicating the song to “that person in your life who changed you.”

Gaga was dressed — per usual — to the nines, but this time in an ensemble designed by her 25-year-old sister Natali Germanotta, who is a source of strength for the singer, and she offered a bridge for anyone who may feel abandoned, and alone, in a well of emptiness caused by death, bullying and misunderstanding.

“My father didn't get to keep his sister,” Gaga said. “But I got to keep my sister. Look at the blessing.”

Finding the blessings. Finding the light. And being that for others. Despite Gaga’s powerhouse vocal and intricate stage show, that’s the real power of a set from Joanne, and it’s a nice reminder that — if you can make it — things usually get better in the end.

“All this fame. So much has changed in my life, but I'd trade it at to keep my family,” Gaga said.

“All that pain makes me who I am.”

Have a look at a setlist — plus more photos from the tour — below. Listen to a playlist featuring songs Lady Gaga played in Tampa here.

Setlist

Diamond Heart

A-YO

Poker Face

Perfect Illusion

John Wayne

Scheiße

Alejandro

Love Game

Applause

Come To Mama

Edge Of Glory

Born This Way

Bloody Mary

Dancin’ In Circles

Paparazzi

Angel Down

Joanne

Bad Romance

The Cure

Million Reasons