Heading into Thursday night, I had my twist on the cheesy old journalism intro all set. "The circus came to town last night but this time, there were no dancing bears. Only an androgynous auto-tuned yelper tossing herself around stage like a bed sheet in the early hours of dawn."

Open mind or not, it's impossible not to establish at least some kind of pre-conceived notion of the behemoth that is Lady Gaga.

So with that I headed to the Bradley Center on Thursday night to bear witness to Lady Gaga's Monster Ball tour. There's no mistaking the power and raising omnipresence of Lady Gaga's music. There's also no mistaking everything that comes along with the massive cult of personality that has been created in such a short period of time. This is a show that has quickly become can't miss.

This is an artist who drags trailers of props, costumes and dancers behind her. By the end of the night, I realized with quite a bit of clarity that this is also an artist who brings along enough credibility, ferocity, tender care, power and swagger to force us to start aligning her performances with the greats. Yes, really.

Seemingly career openers for Lady Gaga, Semi Precious Weapons had just started when I took my seat. The strobe lights were so abundant it felt like I was looking into the reflected eyes of a giant fly. I was stage left, about 15 rows up. A perfect spot to watch the overly self-proclaimed rockers do their best to lay kindling for Gaga as the crowd strolled in and took their places. The band's singer cavorted around stage in the way I had initially expected from the evening's headliner. He was dressed like a modern Betty Boop and paused long enough between tracks of thrashing guitar and shouting to swear loudly and rebelliously. Remember, swearing makes you a rebel, Dottie. Swearing makes you edgy. He even went as far as to tell the parents in the crowd not to be offended by their act. And their swearing. Right, don't think of an elephant. Got it. Oh, wait, you're not offensive, that's right.

He'd thump around stage sliding from song to indecipherable song, demanding dancing out of the crowd that stood still in front of him. When the strobes would cast enough light across the main floor to see the reaction, the crowd looked as immovable as solid concrete. Still, as showman, they fit the bill. He tried and brought the energy dose the first half hour required, even though they looked and sounded like the kind of band that would fill a cantina bar in a deleted scene in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Short though their set was, the crowd was pulsing for the headliner. They wanted Gaga.

Finally, Semi-Precious Weapons drew to a close. Their performance was definitely rated R, and not in the Mick Jagger innuendo (heavy as it may be) kind of way. More like a Harvey Keitel kind of way. They weren't an opening band so much as hype-men. They insisted they were rock n' roll, that what we were witnessing was rock n' roll. Over and over, the singer would pain to tell us. Their act was more like glam metal. Rock n' roll has a whole lot more hip involved. It's the roll. Just ask Mick. There was prancing, sure. There was preening and there was a hefty spoonful of the actual rock he insisted we were listening to, and they did that well enough. But the roll was absent.

During the break, about 30 minutes, I took a few minutes to get to know the people sitting around me. Behind me, were Pamela, 17, Lucas, 16, Rushad, 16 and Anna, 16. In various parts, mostly overlapping through their enthusiasm, they said you come to this show to see, "what she's gonna do." "She's like Madonna," Anna claimed. "You just don't know." That was about the time all four screamed at me in unrehearsed unison, "Lady Gaga!" They were ready. To my left was Amy, 39, from Sheboygan. "I saw Madonna in Chicago at the United Center in 2004. She draws the same sort of people. Eccentric, fun people," she said. "The only other show I'd have rather seen was Michael Jackson."

Her friend, Marla, 53, was also from Sheboygan and expected this show to surpass two of her favorites, Tina Turner and Cher. "Cher changed her costumers every 15 minutes. Tina worked the stage with an incredible energy level. Lady Gaga's become a scene that is not to miss," she said. I turned to my right and met Joe, a 52 year old who drove from Antigo, three and a half hours to the north, with his wife Laurie, 48.

Joe deeply nodded his head with a widening smile when I asked him about his expectations for the night, "Just a great, great show with a lot of action." He has her records and counts himself as a big fan. "Monster," he said, was his favorite song. Casting my eyes around the Bradley Center, it was an incredible cross-section of fans. Young. Very young. Adults. Dating couples. Mothers and daughters. Friends. People from all backgrounds and all tastes.

There was a man who looked like he had just come from a Metallica show at Alpine Valley. A group of four 20 year olds, students from Madison, who wore white shorts, tube socks and T-shirts that read "Legalize Gay." There were people wrapped in the yellow caution tape that Lady Gaga made famous from photo shoots. The fans would applaud each other's costumes as new extravagance walked by. Lady Gaga has clearly reached them all.

At 9:08, the lights dimmed and shrill screams, originating, presumably, from as many men as woman, cut through every inch of air inside a Bradley Center that was pulsing with a heat that even the star of the night herself mentioned.

To start, a white screen dropped over the stage. Projected across its front was an immense, Tron-like grid, glowing green. Lady Gaga's shadow stood on the screen as an angelic statue, frozen, as she robotically called out, "I'm a freak" into the microphone. The image grew, some 40 feet into the air while the beat picked up and hit an overwhelming volume. Everyone in the building started to move, continued to scream and felt smiles crack across their faces.

Finally, the screen lifted, revealing the complex urban jungle gym of a stage and Gaga herself. (You understand, of course, once you're tight with her, you just call her Gaga. That became clear to this novice in a hurry.) The set, including her dancers and the musicians (keyboards, drums, bass, guitar, a giant yet hand-held harp and an electric violin), was perfectly still yet the beat persisted, as did she, "I'm a freak," telling us all how this night would go.

She was stoic ... and all I could think was, "Hell, this is gonna be awesome." At that point, it felt just like a 2010 modern disco version of Madonna's "Vogue" -- and in a really good way. The parallels to Madonna are impossible to avoid and persisted through the night. They were there, twisted, though, by Gaga's own creative force and compassionate assertion toward her audience.

As she performed the first, second and third songs she moved through, as everyone expected, layers of costumes. At one point, she wore knee high black boots, dotted with silver studs and a leather jacket that shot out into sharp triangles at the shoulders and had a cross stamped on the back in sparkling ruby red jewels.

She wore purple wrap-around glasses that covered most of her face. As the song ended, she stalled at the front of the stage and slowly peeled back the jacket to revel one of the evening's many skin tight outfits. This, an animal print all in one.

For the third song, she popped into one of her earlier hits. To say earlier just feels wrong. We know she's played small clubs with no crowds where she probably ended up owning the club owner money at the end of the night but such is her meteoric rise and instant cult status (though yes, she's flexed her muscles and made it happen herself) that a hit from even two years ago classifies as an "earlier hit."

"Just Dance" tore the crowd apart with its beat and the first dip into the infectious formula that has attracted so many fans. It's pure energy gave me chills. The crowd around me, even Metallica guy, matched her dance moves as she flew through the routine. At the song's end, her disciples, er, dancers, surrounded her, as they would on many occasions, for a costume change. This time, they placed a Lady Liberty crown atop her head. Gaga-fied, of course. It was purple and sparkling. Gotta have the sparkles.

Freedom is a constant theme for Lady Gaga. Freedom of expression. Freedom from repression. Freedom to be who and what you want. She preached between almost every song. "(The Monster Ball) will set you free, Milwaukee!" she screamed. "You can be whatever, whoever you want. Tonight, in Milwaukee, we're gonna be super free!"

This theme carried as much importance as her music. There was a heavy and gratefully accepted dose of gay pride, self-belief, encouragement and self-worth. She's a one woman army of motivation.

As she tore into the next song, "Vanity," it was clear that she has mastered the art of the beat as the pure driving soul of a pop song and of using that beat to create and push a melody. As you watch her perform these songs, you can't help but feel her style, musically that is, is at its apex. Still, as she never fails to surprise, something else tells you there's considerably more to come.

Throughout the 3-5 minute gaps for set and costume changes, the arena felt like a Berlin disco. She was taking us on the Love parade. After each interlude, the curtain would raise again as everyone stretched to see what it was this time that she'd be wearing.

Perhaps a dress that floated with the white curves of a lily or the one that made her look like C. S. Lewis' White Witch, or perhaps it was the time she came back looking like a nude version of the Flying Nun in shrink wrap while a heavy synth shocked the pop/rock accustomed masses into a pulsing trance. The women on either side of me at that point couldn't figure out if the song was "Love Game" or "Disco Stick". Either way, they screamed and Gaga continued to dominate.

At about the midway point, she paused for a serious note to tell us that each night, the show's sponsor, Virgin Mobile, was presenting a $20,000 donation to homeless youth. The apex was a phone call she placed to a stunned, moved, and potentially forever empowered and changed young man in the crowd who, upon speaking with the heroine, told everyone that he had only recently come out of the closet.

She spoke with that tenderness that has endeared her to so many as she invited him closer to the stage for the remainder of the show as well as a special invitation to meet her backstage after the show. Gaga as messiah.

Touching as it was, the show must go on and she immediately trotted into "Telephone." The beat and energy instantly came back as she stripped down to a leather bikini and an American flag that she wrapped around her head as a headband. As the song ended, she disappeared, only to raise moments later out of the back of the stage on a platform with a piano.

A steampunk piano, of course. She sat and played alone on stage for the first time. As she played, "Speechless," the piano's top went up in flames. She leaned into with gusto and delivered the song without an ounce of fatigue. Here was a woman who owned every inch of the stage she was on.

As I watched, I thought, "Oh, hi there, Freddie Mercury. It's good to see you again. We missed you." Through the next song, a new ballad that she's been rolling out on tour (the big hits-to-be are kept as secrets for now, she told us), the fire on the piano evolved into a spinning cyclone that must've stretched eight feet high. It was at the end of this song that she again took pause to touch her audience.

She vowed never to lip-sync, to always have live instruments on stage and to always write every lyric and every melody on every song she puts out. From small, big and massive bands to basements, small clubs, theaters, arena, outdoor amphitheaters and anything else, I can't think of many performers who have been as capable at connecting with their audience as directly and sincerely as Lady Gaga.

Most every performer at least makes an effort to engage their audience (Ryan Adams, a notable exception of course) but there was some special magic she's been able to cultivate and it's worth watching for.

As she approached the two hour mark, the momentum was swinging toward her finish. She was leaving no hit uncovered. "Monster" was performed in front of a set that she called the deepest/darkest part of Central Park while she wore an outfit that looked like a hybrid of a Mongolian hut and Cousin It.

"Show Me Your Teeth" had a heavy groove to it that was reminiscent of Blackstreet's "No Diggity" x100. "Alejandro" sparked a massive sing-along, yes, even Joe from Antigo was making his way through the lyrics.

Two hours in and there was another brief pause, carried by a beat, as always, to set the stage for what all presumed was the big finish. Spice trail strings crept up and were intensified by a beat that, this time, felt like it would blow the doors out of the entire building. It was time for the huge hit, "Poker Face."

That slate of concrete that the crowd resembled earlier in the night? Swaying like a roaring sea. You hear these songs performed live, you see the nimble ferocity and you can't help but be wowed and ask for another gulp of the Kool-Aid.

"Paparazzi" was next. Can't just perform the song though, can you? No, sir. Not on a night like this. Out of nowhere they had a giant killer angler fish dominating the stage. Fifteen feet high if it was an inch. It dawned on me at this point that this woman has an absolute ton of hits in just about no time at all. Stunning, really.

With the giant killer angler fish seemingly defeated by the pop power of "Paparazzi," Gaga emerged to one up Madonna yet again. A cone bra? That is so 20 years ago. Please. Gaga has a cone bra that shoots sparks. 2010, people. Gotta have the sparks.

Mega-hit "Bad Romance" was the inevitable closer. And, of course, the curtain dropped for the final time as she came out like some cross between Flash Gordon and Neil Armstrong. An angular metal outfit that looked like it could cut glass shot out at every possible angle away from her body ... and she was in a gyroscope. An actual gyroscope.

As the song carried, with a roar, the show to its inevitable conclusion, she slithered out of the gyroscope and across the stage for the huge finish. Still showing, mind you, all of the leg that Wisconsin state law would allow, she led this crowd of 20,000 through the ultimate romp of the night, "Bad Romance." A song that, in 30 years, will probably end up in lofty heights on some Rolling Stone Best Of list.

I've felt Camp Randall shake. I've felt County Stadium shake. I've felt Lambeau Field shake. I've never felt the Bradley Center shake. And it shook. Pass the Kool-Aid.