Back in the glory days of pop, the 1980s, there was
a holy trinity of artists who pretty much ruled the roost – Jacko, Prince and
Madonna. Sadly Jacko’s now playing that great gig in the sky and Prince lives
in his own little world most of the time so that just leaves Her Madgesty to
carry on releasing records, touring, exposing herself, winding up the French...
This current tour (her biggest to date apparently)
includes 90 mega-shows which, with an average ticket price of around £80 (some
are a heck of a lot more), well and truly proves that the material girl’s still
living up to her name. A quick gander at the merch desks backs this up,
t-shirts £35, programme £25, hoodie...a wallet busting £90...hell even her latest
CD was being flogged at frankly unbelievable £20. That seems to be par for the course
on tours like this though and the fans happily doled out the dosh. £15 for a
mug? Hmmm...you said it.
Once you’d remortgaged your home to pay for a fridge
magnet (classy) and found your seat (some of which seemed to be in a different
county) you were in for a fairly long wait. In fact it was 9.45 before things
got going. Not a patch on Guns n’Roses, who routinely keep fans waiting for
several years before Axl waddles on stage, but still...a tad tardy. Unsurprisingly
given her capacity for splitting opinion there have been some spectacularly
savage and fantastically fawning reviews for this show. The haters (and there
are quite a few of ‘em) bemoan the lack of the old hits and the sometimes
radical reinvention of those that are included. The lovers...well...they’d be
happy if she just showed up and waved for an hour or two. The truth lies
somewhere between the two camps. This isn’t a bad show. Far from it. It’s got
some great moments, some truly iconic performances and...hell...it’s Ma-bloody-donna.
The set’s heavy on tracks from current album MDNA
but...hello...as that’s what the tour’s called the fact that this comes as a
surprise to some people says more about their ability to read and come to a
logical conclusion than anything else. MDNA ain’t her best effort, but again it’s
not worthy of the savaging that some critics...yawn...have heaped on it. It’s
just a collection of big dumb pop songs, like opening number Girl Gone Wild for
instance. After some scary monks ring bells for a bit and waft a giant censer
(that thing they use for burning incense in churches) Madge appears in a black catsuit,
the ‘monks’ disrobe and they all jig about for a bit, thrusting crotches and revealing
the amazing multi platform stage thingy (bits pop up and disappear all over the
place...cool). She slipped in a brief snatch of Material Girl (you’ve got to
love Madge’s brief snatch...er...anyway...) for good measure too. Next up Gang
Bang was supposed to feature a motel room set but it seems to have gone AWOL,
maybe it was on the piss somewhere. Sets do that sometimes. I once saw a
Kasabian set playing billiards in Digbeth. True story. Anyway, being the pro
she is she improvised, strutting around the empty stage shooting the shit out
of everything against a gory blood splattered screen projected backdrop. Who
the lover is that she wants to blow away we only guess...poor Guy...er...guy. A
neat segueway into Papa Don’t Preach gets the hairs on the back of the neck
rising and for anyone who grew up in the 80s this shit’s pure magic. Carried
aloft by some weird masked dudes the show shifts up a gear with Hung Up,
performed on and under some large purple rubber bands stretched across the
stage. There’s been some speculation about how much of this show is sung live
and how much is pre-recorded and this section looked a little iffy. I could be
wrong, it’s hard to tell when the vocal’s been vocodered to death.
There are a bundle of tracks from the new album,
some good, some a little more ‘meh’...but again even the average stuff is well
presented. That’s something a lot of critics seems to have missed. It’s a slick
production with some neat touches, the flying drummers, the dancers falling
into a pit, the seemingly endless stage permutations...it’s a brilliantly choreographed
piece of theatre. Express Yourself cheekily morphed into La Gaga’s Born This
Way, highlighting the similarity between the two tracks. There’s seemingly no
love lost between the two of them (or their fans judging by some of the
hilarious online spats) but let’s face it, they’re from the same mould. Yep,
get over it. Give Me All Your Lovin’ is one of MDNA’s stronger numbers and the
majorette routine was bubblegum cute (ahhh sweet memories of Toni Basil). As if
to ram home the point that Madge was there a few decades before Gaga though a
brief video montage of hits reminded you...and I know I’ve said this
before...but hell...you’re watching MADONNA tonight people.
Speaking of which Vogue was pure classic Madonna, a
little remixed at the start but not too faffed about with, with Madge giving
particularly good face. Like A Virgin was reinvented as a piano led waltz,
transforming it from a horny chat up line to more of a post coital hymn to lost
love and fading youth perhaps. It’s a bold interpretation, again attracting
much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth from people who’d clearly prefer
Madge to play it safe...in other words just how they’ve sung along to it on
their record player...Walkman...i-Pod. That’s the crux of the problem. Madonna’s
such an icon, with at least a dozen truly classic hits, that many people don’t seem
to want anything new. They want her preserved in aspic from whichever era they
discovered her in and, let’s face it, that would be the easy (and I’m guessing)
more profitable option. Surely the fact that she’s still willing to do
something new is to be applauded?
Any gripes about of the lack of old hits were
frankly rendered obsolete by a glorious Like A Prayer, arguably her finest
moment. You’re watching Madonna people. Singing LIKE A FREAKIN’ PRAYER. Yep,
you’ve spunked a week’s wages on the tickets, pawned your grandma for a
programme and sold a kidney to buy a beer but it was all worth it just for that
moment when several thousand people clapped their hands off eh?
Celebration closed the show, pointlessly really.
Like A Prayer was all the celebration we needed and next to it this track’s
like a wet weekend in Rhyl. With that Madge and her entourage disappeared into
the set and the middle aged masses (the majority of the crowd for
30...okay...40 something) filed out into the night to relieve the babysitter.
Ignore the bad reviews, they’re seriously out of
line. Ignore the arse licking reviews too. The show has faults, some of the
tracks are weak and how much of it is actually live is questionable. But at the
end of the night the pluses far outweigh the minuses. This is one of pop music’s
true icons (up there with Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Daphne and
Celeste...), the biggest selling female recording artist in history, still
hauling her ass around the world for you. Yes, you. Open your heart and she’s
still ray of light...
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