Camacho
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Posts posted by Camacho
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That should be 9/11 (or 11/9). It's in September. Outside the U.S. a lot of countries post dates in reverse as day/month instead of month/day here
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Madonna - I've seen your new-look stage set and I think you're going to like it
Jul 29 2006
Paul Carey, Western Mail
I MAY not be performing in front of thousands tomorrow night, but I have one thing over Madonna - I saw her new stage set-up before she did.
The queen of pop will debut the new-look set when she opens the European leg of her Confession on the Dancefloor world tour in Cardiff.
It will be her first concert in Wales despite a career spanning more than 20 years and the 47-year-old singer is pulling out all the stops to ensure it goes with a bang.
I had a sneak preview of what is happening behind the scenes in preparation for the main event.
And although there are plenty of top secret Props That Must Not Be Named, this reporter can reveal that fans are going to be awestruck tomorrow night.
This is the first stadium date on the tour and the production crew are taking full advantage of all the Millennium Stadium has to offer, with more of the roof being used than ever before.
Tour staff have been setting up since Monday and the stage looks awesome, extended with a catwalk and decked with a huge curved screen.
At 5,000 square feet it is almost double the size of a normal stage, by far the biggest set up in the Millennium Stadium since it opened in 1999.
Disco balls glittered above it, covered in $2m worth of Swarovski crystals and although I didn't see it, rumour has it that a "discofied" crucifix will rise from the stage floor with a surprise visitor on it.
Security has been unprecedented, with curtains fixed around the pitch area to prevent stadium staff and visitors taking a peek. Although I managed to get an eyeful, I was asked not to reveal certain elements for fear Madonna would learn about them in the media before seeing them for herself.
The superstar was not at the venue when I visited but is flying in later today. I did have a chance to talk to her production director, American Chris Lamb, who has known the star for more than 20 years.
"What you're looking at is probably one of the largest touring shows ever. There's 60 trucks full of equipment here," he said.
Although he was tight-lipped about exactly what would be in the line-up, Mr Lamb was clearly excited about tomorrow's performance.
He said, "This is a show, this is not a rock concert. This is a complete entertainment show. "
He wasn't the only one looking forward to the event. The Millennium Stadium's Paul Sergeant said, "Madonna is the biggest female artist in the world and we have seen from the stage today that it's a massive show. It's going to be one of those awesome occasions people are going to remember for a long time."
DJ Paul Oakenfold will get the party started when gates open at 5.30pm, with Madonna expected on stage at 8.30pm. The star of the show is expected to grant the seal of approval to the new set today and fly out of the city immediately after the gig.
She has reportedly made several diva-like demands, although Mr Lamb says the rumours about brand-new toilet seats are an exaggeration.
"What it is that we've asked for is a clean toilet seat," he said. "She doesn't want one that all the rugby players have used! It's a girl thing."
She has also asked for a bottle of neat vodka - but being a clean-living gal, it is intended to clean her stage clothes and get rid of sweat marks.
Madonna has already played 35 sell-out arena shows across America, to rave reviews. But exceptionally high tickets prices and her use of a crucifix during the set have attracted criticism.
Welsh fans have been asked to pay between £55 and £160 for tickets, with booking agents charging fee of as much as £13.
However it doesn't seem to have deterred the fans. A 59,000-strong crowd is expected to attend the concert. The first 3,000 to arrive will be admitted to a "golden circle" at the front of the stage, where the luckiest will be just four feet from the star.
Of course, the new stage will only be used if the queen of pop is happy with it. And if she's not? Will they be up all night changing it?
"Yep," Mr Lamb nodded. "She's the boss."
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http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006340842,00.html
Booze that Material Girl!
MADONNA has found a neat way of keeping stage outfits clean on her UK tour — by spraying them with VODKA.
Her staff will use up to a bottle a night squirting it on sweat stains.
Her Confessions tour starts in Cardiff tomorrow and organisers were amazed when Madonna, 47 — who drinks only Kabbalah cult water — insisted on vodka backstage.
But an insider said: “It’s fantastic for perspiration marks. Alcohol kills the bacteria, keeping stage clothes fresher.
“It’s a trick they use in opera houses because the big divas perspire a lot.”
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LOCAL STAR! :ursaminorjim:
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Madonna's touchdown in Cardiff
Posted: 28 July 2006 - Thanks to MXV3
Todays edition of the South Wales Echo newspaper has published this story on preparations for Madonna's Confessions Tour touchdown at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff on Sunday - click on the article to enlarge and read.
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The main TV news show in Cardiff "Wales Tonight" had exclusive access to the Millennium Stadium this afternoon.
Madonna would not give permission for full views of the stage to be filmed because she had not yet approved things herself, but the report shows some elements.
Tour manager Chris Lamb was interviewed inside the stadium about Madonna's alleged toilet requests!
Visit madonna-tv.com for RapidShare, MegaUpload and Sendspace download links.
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Welsh singers on Madonna
Award-winning opera star KATHERINE JENKINS
'I was never into boy bands when I was growing up. I've always been a classical music fan. So only the big, obvious singers filtered through to me then, people like Madonna.'
'The first pop song I ever bought was Material Girl. I loved the Marilyn-Monroe inspired video.
'I've got an invitation to see her at the Millennium Stadium and I can't wait.'
She has also performed her own version of the singer's Frozen for television show Madonna Mania on ITV.
'That was really fun. I really like doing things that people don't expect and I like to challenge myself.'
BECKI NEWMAN from The Hot Puppies
'She's sung some great pop songs; Material Girl, Like a Prayer and Vogue. She's worn some of the greatest outfits ever conceived and I'm referring, of course, to the Jean Paul Gaultier-coned breasted number. She's upset the Pope. She's hang-glided nude. She also hitch-hiked nude, but for a set of high heels and a hand bag. She's published both a children's book and a very adult book, which incidentally features Robert Van Winkle AKA Vanilla Ice. And nowadays, from what I hear, she's a very good mum as well. With a CV like that it's hard not to love Madonna.'
Singer JEM, who collaborated on Madonna's song Nothing Fails
'When I finally heard the finished song it was the strangest experience. It's not every day you hear Madonna singing words and melodies you sang into your dictaphone at two in the morning. I really admire her for being so involved in everything she does. The song sounds beautiful.'
Ex-Steps star LISA SCOTT-LEE
'I was inspired by Madonna and still am. She was, and is, an all-rounder. She can sing and dance and act and I liked to think I was like her. She's great.'
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Morgan on the icon that's Madonna Jul 28 2006
Icon? Diva? Mother? After more than two decades at the top can anything else be said about Madonna? Academic, playwright and grandmother Elaine Morgan provides a fresh look at the musical 'genius'
Elaine Morgan, Western Mail
Write About Madonna? I don't know anything about her.' 'You can find out, can't you?' 'But why me?'There's no answer to that.
It must be because most of the commentators on her latest tour have been reduced to saying things like 'She's done it again!' and 'What remains to be said?'
I take it as read that she must be extremely good at what she does, because in showbiz you don't stay at the top for decades on the strength of silly stunts like wearing a pointy bra.
When she shot to fame in the 1980s there were instantly thousands of 'Madonna wannabes' wanting to imitate her, and one of the secrets of her success is that she's always had something in common with them.
Little girls come in various kinds but in every playground a certain percentage of them, from a very tender age, are show-offs.
Whatever they're doing you'll hear them yell out at regular intervals, 'Hey - look at me!'
And all our lives would be poorer if there weren't people like that. There'd be no cinemas, theatres, ballets, opera, or circuses. So I'm always on the side of the performers.
When I used to write plays I was always grateful to them and sometimes amazed by them. It's a dangerous game, being an actor. Even if he's speaking words written by somebody else, he's the one that has to go out there and die inside if the audience is cold and the play doesn't work.
The difference between Madonna and the wannabes is a quality that in other contexts is recognised as genius.
She fits all the common definitions of the word.
'An infinite capacity for taking pains' or '1% inspiration and 99% perspiration'.
I can't evaluate her performances because music isn't my thing, but I can appreciate the work she puts into it, and the courage that keeps her coming back every time she's been written off.
If that makes me sound like a fan, I'm not.
What she does isn't my cup of tea, and sometimes I wish she wouldn't do it. If I had a daughter who regarded her as a role model, I'd be very unhappy about her particular brand of sexiness and exhibitionism, and the lengths to which she'll go to grab a headline.
That's the trouble with too much professionalism: if you set up a really well-oiled PR machine it takes great strength of character not to follow it wherever it leads.
It happens in politics too, I'm afraid. They have such clever computers monitoring public opinion that they simply let the print-outs dictate the policy.
However, Madonna clearly isn't anybody's patsy. She showed that very early in her career.
Rather like Charlie Chaplin and Doug Fairbanks when they created United Artists, she set up an organisation giving her complete control of her choice of music, which artists she worked with, and what kind of image she wanted to project. That's what makes her so hard to pin down.
Studio bosses always like to type-cast performers so that the public will know what to expect of them. Doris Day was always the girl next door; Bette Davies was catty; Katherine Hepburn was posh, and Goldie Hawn was kooky. They stayed within those guidelines. But who or what is Madonna?
Good question. She just won't hold still to answer it. You never know what she'll do next.
Three years after becoming an international star with multi-platinum hit singles and albums, she surprisingly accepted a leading role in a David Mamet play on Broadway. Mamet is a very earnest writer who makes like an intellectual, and Broadway is a very tough assignment - nightly hard work, axe-wielding theatre critics, no backing group, and no music to serve as the wind beneath your wings. It was almost as unexpected as Marilyn Monroe marrying Arthur Miller. But she got away with it.
A few years later she took on Evita. Okay, that was a musical but it wasn't her kind of music, and certainly not her kind of audience. It was aimed at a more mature and exacting public. And by then she'd been successful long enough for some reviewers to be sharpening their knives. A couple of films she'd made had been savagely panned. Her latest single had, for the first time ever, failed to reach the Top Ten. 'Washed up', people muttered. 'Eleven years at the top? Too long. Gerroff and give somebody else a chance.'
If that was the message being handed to her she just didn't get it. She never will.
I wonder what she's really like? I'll bet she's hell to work with, for one thing, because perfectionists always are, and she's a perfectionist. But in private, off the platform, what's she like?
Just when I began to speculate about this, I happened to see an item in this week's Guardian which mentioned that Madonna is presently on holiday in Miami, in a hotel room which costs £1,300 a night. Oh no. That's a different planet! How can you hope to get inside the mind of somebody who's been living in that rarefied atmosphere for umpteen years? What must it do to their brain cells and their personality?
I believe the only route to beginning to understand anybody is to look for things you have in common. Me and Madonna? In common? It's a tall order. I looked up various interviews she's given. She doesn't give all that many and she's got a good trick for putting the interviewer on the wrong foot (just in case he's going to take the mickey).
She reveals at the last minute that it's not going to be a tete-a-tete after all. There'll be twenty-odd other people hanging around as a diversion, and no prizes for guessing whose side they'll be on.
Granted all that, she really doesn't sound as if she thinks she's a goddess.
Asked about her work she says things like 'I think I've definitely improved as a song-writer ....I've been lucky to hook up with a lot of really talented people...I do think I'm a really good dancer.'
Would she like to complain about everybody wanting to get something out of her? 'Yeah but some people actually want to give me stuff too.' Does she think some critics malign her? Yes, sometimes. 'I don't think they were reviewing the film, I think they were personally attacking me.' (The films weren't really up to much, let's face it, but the critics were out for her blood too, and she'd have been lying in her teeth if she'd pretended not to suspect that.)
Oh and here's a revealing bit about one of her children. Her daughter Lourdes, three years old at the time. 'She's very, very fashion conscious. She does have an opinion on what I wear every day. She'll say 'That looks nice, mommy,' or 'I don't like those shoes'.' Now my children were all boys, and if I had had a daughter, heaven forbid that she'd have been 'very, very fashion conscious' at the age of three. But there you are, fashion is Madonna's bag, and that conversation does indicate a good democratic relationship going on there. 'Every day' is good. And little Lourdes (what a disastrous name) doesn't think mommy's a goddess. She thinks mommy could use a spot of advice, and has every confidence that her views will be taken into consideration. I liked that bit.
I liked this next bit too. She was asked if she was fearful of what might happen to her career as she got older.
She said, 'I mean if you lose interest in something, the chances are you'll find an interest in something else. I'm not afraid of that.'
Right on, sister.
Madonna opens the European leg of her world-wide Confessions of a Dancefloor tour at Millennium Stadium, Cardiff on Sunday.
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DM
We suggest you to read the following BBC News article which features lots of details on the European leg of the tour, which has to be adapted to the STADIUM shows and an exclusive interview with Chris Lamb:
Final preparations are being made as Madonna kicks off the European leg of her ’Confessions’ tour in Cardiff.
The show on Sunday at the Millennium Stadium will be the biggest arena yet for the world tour, which started in the Los Angeles in May.
Around 59,000 fans are expected for the show, the first of 21 dates across Europe, including eight in London.
Adapting her show to each venue, the singer will include an equestrian theme during the opening in Cardiff.
The star’s tour director Chris Lamb, from California, has worked with Madonna for 20 years.
He and his "army" have been constructing the set in the stadium since Monday. With 150 workers over from the USA, Mr Lamb said they also employed around 200 local people.
"We’ve done 35 shows in America in indoor arenas, this here is the first stadium show for two years," he said.
"People are not coming to see a rock concert - this is a show, closer to theatre than a rock concert."
Mr Lamb said the cost of the concert was "enormous" but added it was all relative the whole expense of the tour.
After two decades of working with Madonna Mr Lamb believes the singer will never retire.
"I don’t think she’ll ever stop.
"She’s a perfectionist, focused and she knows every little thing about the show," he added. "She wants to outdo herself and challenges herself."
And with regards to the set she "comes up with the basic idea and is involved from square one."
The tour director said the set was "enormously technical" and was state of the art with its video show.
However two large silver "disco horses" backdrops placed on each side of the stage have not been approved by Madonna yet.
Even though she’s seen the drawings Mr Lamb awaits her verdict before they get final approval.
The media, invited to the stadium on Friday, were not allowed to photograph them.
DJ Paul Oakenfold will open the Hung Up singer’s concert at 1900 BST and will perform his set for around an hour and a half before Madonna’s two-hour show.
There will be a "golden circle" to hold around 3,000 fans in front of the stage on a first come first serve basis.
Madonna’s tour continues at Wembley Arena and finishes in Prague before it moves to Japan in September.
CONFESSIONS FACTS:
Stage and equipment weighs 200 tons
Eight pairs of shoes and boots and seven costumes are worn nightly by Madonna
22 dancers perform
There are 600 costumes in the show
$2m crystals embellish a giant disco ball
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctime...ia/15113084.htm
MADGE SAVES THE PEACOCK? Floundering network NBC hopes to attract younger viewers with "Madonna: The Confessions Tour Live," a two-hour concert showcase by the pop phenom to be aired in November.
NBC, apparently, hasn't received the memo explaining that it's no longer 1985.
Not that we don't like Madonna, but hers isn't exactly the MTV demographic anymore. Well, unless she's kissing Britney Spears, which, surveys show, is perfectly fine with males of any age.
Madonna's gig at London's Wembley Stadium is being taped this summer and will feature songs from her latest release, "Confessions on a Dance Floor."
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Japan was always on the tour intinerary. Both Tokyo and Osaka were mentioned in the original press release but without specific dates. Though I think Moscow and Prague were announced after that BB article was written.
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And Iconers wonder why Madonna doesn't post on the official forum there
:scared:Elitest Sellout! NBC concert
Posted by: vashtidmsr Yesterday, 08:34 PM
Fucking Sellout Elitest ***CENSORED***!
HBO would have been LIVE with no EDITING at date of show!
Unless she pulls a Cool Janet Jackson Moon Stunt to them Fucking MERCHANTS OF CHAOS she can Kiss my ASS goodbye!
I'm tired of her selling out to the system of Neo Con Fundamentalists.
She should have released the American Life Video by now with Bush's low ratings.
She is selling out this the fucked up music industry. She is no longer the Rebel I looked up too.
I'm tired of this. She either needs to speak up or shut up and die.
If NBC edits anything from the tour show. I will no longer be a Madonna fan.
At least of the Madonna now!
It's obvious to me she does not care about her poor fans, dissing Australian fans for RUSSIA...What the hell is that about? ***CENSORED*** her then. I tired of looking up to someone that just does not earn respect anymore.
I guess our FREEDOMS are gone forever!
Cause everyone has give up or sold out!
Michelle Basart
Portland, Oregon
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Billboard projected about $200 million for the whole tour.
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http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah978.shtml
NBC Gets Madonna's First Ever Network Special
PASADENA, CA (July 21, 2006) -- NBCwill broadcast "Madonna: The Confessions Tour Live" - a two-hour special set to air in November 2006, the network announced Friday.
The special will be taped this summer at Wembley Stadium in London, UK during the pop icon'sworldwide sold-out 25-city "Confessions Tour."
The special marks the first-ever broadcast network performance by the internationalsuperstar.
"Madonna is one of the greatest artists of our time and never fails to generate excitement," said Kevin Reilly, NBC Entertainment President. "We think this is going to be a big event for television."
The concert special will feature songs from Madonna's recent multi-platinum Warner Bros. Records release "Confessions On A Dance Floor," which debuted at No. 1 in 29 countries and has sold overeight million copies around the globe.
The broadcast will also include some of Madonna's greatest hits from her legendary career.
In the course of that career, thestar has racked up a staggering 35 No. 1 hits on Billboard's Dance charts.
The multi-Grammy winning artist, songwriter, producer, best-selling children's book author, video visionary and cultural icon has sustained an unrivaled reputation for astonishing stage spectacles and has made musical history many times over, including international record sales of over 200 million albums.
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No problem. Use any Madonna pic of mine you like for whatever at anytime. I don't mind any fan using them for sigs or whatever. I never slap watermarks on my pics because I want fans to have them and use them however they please.
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http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800003889
NBC at TCA: Talent 2, Madonna and More
Ausiello just IM'd me live from the TCA Summer Press Tour that NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly has ordered six scripts of Nobody's Watching, a quirky 2005 WB comedy pilot that recently resurfaced on YouTube.com and concerns two young sitcom fans who wind up on a reality show. Also per Reilly: A Madonna concert special is coming in November; Thief's Andre Braugher has been booked for a six-episode ER arc; and America's Got Talent will return with a second season in January 2007. [Cue the Regis overkill.]
Posted by: Matt Mitovich 07/21/2006 12:20 PM
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Touched for the very first time
I've waited 22 years to see Madonna live in concert. But would seeing the Material Girl, lithe and gyrating at 47, make me feel like an old fogy?
By Rebecca Traister
The question I was asked Wednesday by more than one person was: Is it too late to see Madonna?
They were asking me this because, at the last minute, my friend Sara had found tickets to Madge's final stop at Madison Square Garden on her "Confessions on a Dance Floor" tour. I couldn't afford a Madonna ticket and I told Sara this and she said she would buy it and I would pay it off via a kind of social layaway plan. She also said, in a bracing way: "Look, I have never seen her. You have never seen her. And I don't want us to see her when she's 65 and it's too late, you know?" Yes, I said solemnly. I know.
I understand that there are a lot of people out there who have never seen Madonna and who don't consider it a missed opportunity. But I am a 31-year-old American woman. I was 9 when I watched a ratty-looking woman pleasure herself on a Venetian gondola while a panting lion looked on in the "Like a Virgin" video and my father, glancing at the television, asked, "Who is that?" I am sure that my father, who has barely glanced at a television since, has no memory of this. But I remember. Because while I didn't understand the first thing about who she was or what she was doing to that poor lion, I knew she was fascinating. And because my mother -- who also never glances at the television and has never been able to remember anyone's name, including mine -- stunned us all by informing him, "That's Madonna."
The conclusion to which I stumbled by following the logic of that exchange turned out to be coincidentally accurate: If my mother knew who Madonna was, then she was the most famous woman in the world. Twenty-two years later, she is, at 47, the most famous woman in the world -- at least the world I grew up in. Even without having been a truly devout Madonna fan (too young to be a wannabe, I was a wannabe wannabe), I managed to own every one of her albums back when people owned albums. Even songs I think I don't know the lyrics to -- like "Music," or "Ray of Light," or "Take a Bow"? -- I know the lyrics to. Madonna has been the soundtrack to my life.
So I agreed with Sara that this was a pretty momentous event and besides, we had a hot ticket. They all sold out in four minutes or something and this was the kind of concert the cool kids went to, and weren't we hip to be going at all. In short, I felt the way I probably should have felt at 15 if I'd scored tickets to the "Blond Ambition" tour.
Which became abundantly clear when I happened to mention to my mother that I was going to see Madonna. "My goodness!" she chuckled. "That's really some old-fashioned entertainment." That's right. My mother -- the 62-year-old woman who still occasionally asks me what ever happened to "that young rock 'n' roll guy, Billy Joel," which she still pronounces Billy Joe-Elle despite having been corrected 1,000 times, that mother -- was teasing me about being an old fogy because I was going to see Madonna.
Then my brother called. He's been calling a lot recently because he has a 6-week-old son and chatting with a 6-week-old gets boring fast, which makes chatting with your sister a lot more appealing. I told him I was going to Madonna. "Well, you're showing up a little late to that party, aren't you?" he said. I should mention that my brother is 28 and cannot drive a car so I don't know where he gets off making fun of me. "No, I'm sure it'll be great," he said. "Like if Yente from 'Fiddler on the Roof' got her own show for two hours." Then my brother underscored just how doddering we both are (as if the 'Fiddler' reference weren't enough) by consulting with his 6-week-old son as we spoke. "Do you think Madonna is still relevant to your generation, Noah?" he asked. "Do you think that the Material Girl still has the power to put asses in the seats?" I heard Noah burp loudly before hanging up.
Here is the thing: Because I have never actually been to a Madonna concert, and because going is something I considered doing at 9 and 13 and 25, it is not something that makes me feel old at all. In fact, it makes me feel rather spry! Then again, here's another thing: I go to Bruce Springsteen concerts. All the time. As a matter of fact, I have seen Bruce Springsteen four times in the past three months. And what's more, some friends just yesterday proposed that we fly to Dublin to see him play in November and to my immense surprise I said that seemed like a good idea, even though I have never been the kind of person who thinks that flying anywhere to see someone perform is a good idea, let alone if you have seen that person perform four times in the past year, let alone if that person is in his late 50s and you are completely aware that your devotion to him sort of dates you.
Also, in the past year, I have paid money to see Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Prince. For the record, I have also seen Feist and Neko Case, though we left Neko Case early because it was standing only and sort of hot. And I thought about seeing Cat Power, but didn't.
But in any case, what I am saying is that I am not one of those people who goes to shows by Modest Mouse or the Libertines. I feel comfortable admitting that my musical tastes are creaky.
But I somehow felt bad about the perception that Madonna is a creaky act. Maybe because it makes me feel old. Maybe because my radar was so off that I thought it was cool I was going to a Madonna concert when really it was fogyish. Maybe, because seeing Madonna was something I'd wanted to do since I was 9, I got momentarily tricked into thinking I was 9 again.
Anyway, I went. And I think it's a good thing I didn't see Madonna when I was younger, because I might not have been old enough to handle it. There have been a lot of reviews of the concert -- which I assume never varies, since who could do anything spontaneous when you have 14 tightly choreographed backup dancers in chaps? -- but here is a rundown of what happened:
Madonna hatched out of a disco-ball egg that opened like a multifaceted DeLorean; there were pulsing lights and reflecting surfaces; it looked like 12 disco emporia had vomited simultaneously all over the Garden stage. A team of shirtless, musclebound dancers clippety-clopped around in plumed riding hats; gymnasts did some impressive tumbling and jumping on uneven bars, and a woman in electric blue Middle Eastern-ish gear convulsed in a cage. There was crumping. (OK, the truth is, I thought it was break-dancing but when I read Kelefa Sanneh's review of the concert in the Times, he said it was crumping.) At one point, Madonna donned a white Travolta suit and danced like Tony Manero on a lighted-up tiled floor; at another, she invited the audience to "suck George Bush's dick." Images flashed: of dead dolphins and tigers and falling horses. Of Bush, Dick Cheney, Nazis, scud missiles, Klansmen, red blood cells. There was a roller-skating segment straight out of "Starlight Express." It was the Folies Bergères, it was Bianca Jagger at Studio 54; it was the Moulin Rouge -- if all those things were viewed at a distance, as if they were being broadcast when they were actually live.
After Madonna sang "I have a tale to tell," the first line of "Live to Tell," there were performance-arty monologues about falling, or being a gang-banger, acted out on jutting portions of stage by people who were not Madonna. In fact, there was a lot in the show by people who were not Madonna. Several minutes would go by in which Madonna was nowhere onstage but six people in loincloths were climbing jungle gyms or a guy in a turban was blowing a ram's horn and then all of a sudden Madonna -- well-rested and in a new costume -- would get lowered from a helicopter or shot from a cannon, or do what she actually did on Wednesday night, which was appear to sing "Live to Tell" hanging from a disco-ball cross dressed in a peasant blouse, a sequined belt and a crown of thorns.
You probably saw the pictures of Madonna on this cross when the tour started. I remember shaking my head in admiration; this woman's commitment to creating new ways to dismay the public is simply unrivaled. The trouble is, she's made her own job so much harder. Whether she herself trained us not to flinch in the face of manipulated sexual and religious iconography or whether she has simply ridden the larger cultural shock wave past its crest, I'm not sure what her future as a provocateur could possibly hold. The self-crucifixion thing was a good try, but ... eh. She may have to hang on until the day when, in a retirement gesture that will make Streisand cry in her tsimmes, she can disembowel herself onstage.
Anyway, back to the concert: After Madge came off the cross, she launched into "Sorry." The man in front of me -- and believe me, he was practically the only man in front of me; everyone at this concert was female -- started convulsing, face in his hands, Beatlemania-style. Then she stripped into a tank top and began singing, for real (which you could tell because her voice was out of breath, as it should be), and ground her hips into a chair. Madonna humped everything that stood still long enough for her to wrap her legs around it. At one point -- and I do not think this particular disco egg is worth cracking open here and now -- she rode a black man like a horse.
The concert was not at all like watching two hours of Yente from "Fiddler on the Roof," unless updated productions of "Fiddler" have included scenes in which Yente whips a bare-chested Tevye with a riding crop and yells at the audience, "That's right, you motherfuckers, I love New York!" Which, I suppose, is possible. I never saw the version with Madonna's friend Rosie O'Donnell.
In 2004, Sanneh wrote about Madonna's Re-Invention tour that, "When you imagine Madonna, you don't see a single image but a time-lapse photograph, with one persona melting and warping into the next." It's a great line, and a great description of what I felt last night, watching Madonna live, for the first time in my life. When I look at her, it's hard not to imagine decades -- of her life, and of my life -- written on her body. That body. Her legs aren't even traditionally shapely anymore: Their muscles are serpentine and distinct; she's an anatomical enterprise as much as an aesthetic or athletic or musical one. I wonder if Madonna made that body so strong because she has to lug so much of her own baggage around on it every day.
Watching that body -- not a ligament, let alone a strand of hair, out of place -- it's hard not to think of the soft, ragged young woman who was content to hump a stage in a wedding dress back in 1984. I looked for that younger woman at Madison Square Garden. It was she, after all, who made this older woman -- this freak of pop culture -- possible. But if it was easy to recall younger iterations of the performer, it was tough to actually spot them onstage on Wednesday night. And I think that's how she wants it right now.
Madonna played almost all of her new album and only a handful of her classic songs; she seemed to be stamping her feet to convey that she is no nostalgia act. But in drawing such a severe line between her older and her younger selves, in successfully insisting that she's no fogy, she actually made me feel like more of one.
It was in her grand finale, "Hung Up," the best part of the night -- that it felt like a concert at all. She let her hair down, literally and figuratively, and when she threw her leotarded bod around the stage, rubbing herself against a giant boom box, there was the first, and only, glimmer of authentic eroticism. It was then, for the first time, that she appeared to let herself get taken in by her own music, to lose just a shred of control. And for a second, she looked so young -- like that girl in the New York clubs with her stupid leggings and torn gloves -- and she seemed to notice at last that she had a flesh-and-blood audience and berated us, in her old S/M way, to sing along. "Time goes by -- so slowly/ Time goes by -- so slowly/ Time goes by -- so slowly." The crowd rose 20 feet in the air on adrenaline alone. And still she kept holding the microphone out: "Time goes by -- so slowly."
And that was when I, or my 9-year-old self, got way overstimulated. Hearing words about time going by so slowly while staring at Madonna's preserved, warped body; considering all the long-forgotten cultural references on display -- whatever happened to Tony Manero anyway? I was confused about why I was enjoying "Hung Up" more than "Like a Virgin," about why so much of the concert, especially the familiar songs, had seemed so distant but that this new song had brought her alive. And my brain began to expand and contract in sync with the pulsing lights and the rhythmic chanting -- "Time goes by -- so slowly" -- and all I could think was that time goes by so quickly. And that sometimes, like tonight, it can fold in on itself, and remind us of how far away we are from our old selves, our old bodies, our old memories even as we experience things that bring the past to mind. And how this woman, who has been in my consciousness my whole life, seems to be trying to stop time -- by singing about it and making her body impervious to it and making her career about the present not the past. And then I came close to doing the most old-fogy thing I can imagine: crying at a concert. And just then she finally broke the trance with a final euphoric verse: "Every little thing that you say or do/ I'm hung up/ I'm so hung up on you."
"That was a great fucking song," Sara said to me, breathlessly. We walked downstairs, out onto the street, talking about the show. And then, as we exited Madison Square Garden, she turned to me. "You know what?" she said. "Maybe we saw her too late."
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Holidayguy those pages inside NEXT are mostly concert pics:
http://www.drownedmadonna.com/modules.php?...e&sid=14588
Three pics in NEXT are mislabelled as Jump, Forbidden Love and Isaac!
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Madonna
TD Banknorth Garden
Boston, Mass.
July 6, 9-10, 2006
$6,337,115
36,741 / 36,741
3 / 3
$350, $55
The Next Adventure
Madonna
Wachovia Center
Philadelphia, Pa.
July 12-13, 2006
$4,639,775
29,749 /
29,749
2 / 2
$350, $55
The Next Adventure
Madonna
Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall
Atlantic City, N.J.
July 16, 2006
$3,246,100
12,322 / 12,322
1 / 1
$350, $55
The Next Adventure/Caesars Atlantic City
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199 MADONNA I'M GOING TO TELL YOU A SECRET 4,354 -20 5,437 44,515
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/s...3p-367621c.html
Fans risk burning up for Madonna
Madonna was hot last night, but her audience was roasting.
The sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden sweated out the performance when the Material Girl demanded the air conditioning be turned down because of her sensitive vocal cords. On one of the hottest days of the year, the venue was a toasty 85 degrees at the start of the concert and a blistering 90 by the end, a Daily News reporter armed with a thermometer found.
"It's suffocating," said Stephanie Krukovsky, 22, of Toms River, N.J., who was fanning herself in the steamy upper deck. "I'm just disappointed that the air conditioner is not on. But it's only one night."
Some fans aware of Madonna's anti-AC demands brought electric hand fans to try to keep cool.
"It's really, really bad," said Olga Byrne, 64, of Staten Island. "It's so hot, but it's worth it."
Michael Saul
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ABSOLUTE NONSENSE! It wasn't 90 degrees inside (July 18 show). It was nearly 100 degrees in NY this day -- of course the a.c. was definitely on at this show! It was well ventilated and cool-ish inside. I did sweat at the show, but that was because I was dancing/jumping so much and the crowd was bunched up tight on the floor. At the earlier NY shows (most especially the 1st one), I was sweating much, much more and my clothes were DRENCHED in sweat -- the a.c. back then was at a much milder setting or off.
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I'll see if I can find a NEXT this week. If not somebody will probably scan it on one of the fansites.
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NY Metro
This week Madonna, bearing cross, hits the Garden for a return engagement. We asked concertgoers at the first set of New York shows what they thought of her dancing, singing, Christian-baiting, and S&M equestrian ensembles.
By Emma Rosenblum
(Photo: Eric McNatt)
From left:
I thought it was so interesting how she found a way to hump almost every object on the stage, including a fake horse.
Noreen Okarter, 22, legal assistant
The worst part was that the concert just stopped. No encore, and she didn’t even come back onstage! And oh, God, it was hot in there. My white pants stuck to me, it was so hot.
Nicole Branciforte, 30, consultant
From left:
When I was young, my parents bought me one of her CDs. Listening to it, I realized that I might be gay. Thanks, parents!
Kevin Paul, 30, attorney
She had the whole disco–John Travolta thing going on, but she made it fresh, so it wasn’t like plagiarism or anything.
Voon chew, 32, administrative assistant
People think Madonna on the cross is anti-Christ, anti-Jesus, blah, blah. But she has a reason for doing everything that she does. She’s saying Jesus died on the cross for us, but look at us now.
Melissa Ducheny, 22, bartender
From left:
She put a bad taste in everyone’s mouths when she insulted George Bush. I want her to realize that people are out there fighting for democracy!
Josh Burmei, 33, real estate
Madonna’s body is ridiculous. But she should have more break dancing on her next album.
Ricardo otero, 20, break-dancer
The electric guitar was a little retarded. But I loved her outfits. It was, like, WWD right there onstage.
Christina Caruso, 28, accessory designer
From left:
She never sounded better, so she must be doing something right— I wouldn’t be opposed to studying a little Kabbalah myself.
Jeff Clarke, 34, photographer
I liked how there seemed to be all these subliminal messages aimed at the audience, though I’m not sure what they were exactly.
Esther Kogan, 17, student
Madonna is like a savior to the world, so it makes sense to put her on the cross. I love you, Madonna!
Derek Chow, 32, engineer
Moscow is happening
in ARCHIVE - Madonna
Posted
3-2-1 edit!