Jump to content

Philadelphia Aug. 28th USA!!!

IslandBreeze

By IslandBreeze
in ARCHIVE - Madonna

 Share

Recommended Posts

Nikki Veteran

Nikki

Posted
Posted

Just a Europe thing would be my opinion on that cause word has it she was still rehearsing until 15 til 7 before doors opened.

yeah but I think philly was an exception as there seemed to be a difference in the stage compared to europe, so my guess is that she needed to rehearse to adjust to the new stage (this comment is based on a previous comment in this thread from a fan talking with security who said that she rehearsed so long before and after the show)

anyway i guess we'll find out soon anyway :) thanks :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
HolidayGuy Experienced

HolidayGuy

Posted
Posted

Surprised a paper in Allentown (roughly halfway between Philly and where I am) covered the opening night. Not sure why some still get some song titles wrong (even Liz Smith wrote "Erotica" in her article, rather than "Justify My Love"):

http://articles.mcal...adonna-show-way

Madonna in Philly: Hard to pin down but in top form

August 29, 2012|By Jodi Duckett, Of The Morning Call

Madonna has always prided herself in her ability to redefine herself, morphing from character to character over the years to keep it fresh and maintain her popularity.

Well, it felt like all of those characters showed up in Philadelphia Tuesday night, where she launched the North American leg of her MDNA tour at a sold-out Wells Fargo Center.

Madonna issued an " MDNA Show Manifesto" before the show that seemed like an attempt to explain what she was trying to accomplish, particularly addressing the scenes involving guns at the beginning (more on that later) which she wanted to make sure weren't misinterpreted. She described the show as "a journey, from darkness to light, from anger to love from chaos to order."

The show – an extravaganza of musical performance art -- did seem to go from darkness to light. Madonna went from rifle-toting man-killer to cheerleader to gospel singer to rocker girl (with guitar) to club party queen over a little under two hours.

But if that was a theme, I would not have got that without reading the manifesto. It felt more like a series of unrelated sketches – more of a restrospective with fresh – really fresh – choreography and effects – so many effects – lights, dancing characters, costumes, sets worthy of Broadway. So it was hard to tell what kind of groove The Material Girl was in. And while she was "edgy," nothing seemed to really be over-the-top, at least in the context a current musical universe populated by performance artists like Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj.

But all that said, did it really matter? Really?

Madonna was hot and on top of her game vocally and physcially. Critics of the way she looks and acts for an – OMG – 54-year-old should examine their motives for their comments. This woman looks and dances like the proverbial 29. And it's not just makeup and girdles. At the end of "Like a Virgin," near the end of the show, she ripped off her shirt and pulled down her pants, revealing an upper body that is really ripped and a curvy butt that would make most 40 year olds envious. She posed for a couple minutes so the audience could take in the sight –bra, thong and the words "No Fear" painted on her back.

While Madonna was greeted with boisterous cheers and embraced throughout the show, there was some booing before she hit the stage. The concert didn't start until after 10:30 p.m. At about 8:30, Laidback Luke came on with an hour of dance mixes and then it took another hour for the Material Girl to appear.

She offered an apology halfway through.

"Oh Philadelphia. It's so good to be back here. I started the show way late I know. I'm sorry, forgive me, but we had many changes to make from Europe to America and I wanted the show to be perfect for you because my fans deserve it and, quite frankly, I deserve it. We all deserve perfection, don't we!"

She went on with a speech about appreciating the freedom we have in America – "the freedom of speeech, the freedom of expression." She referred to the female members of the Russian punk rock group Pussy Riot who were jailed for hooliganism after singing a song about the president.

"Never forget how lucky you are to live where you live – and don't get fat and lazy and take that freedom for granted."

With that she launched into one of the most enjoyable numbers of the show – "a song about love" – "Masterpiece," the pop ballad she wrote for the movie "W.E.," a flick co-written and directed by Madonna about a New Yorker obsessed with what she perceives as the ultimate love story -- King Edward VIII's abdication of the British throne for the woman he loved, American divorcée Wallis Simpson. It was a tech-free, harmonic segment with Madonna and singers and musicians sitting down.

Speaking of songs, which I should, because, after all, it was a concert – Madonna did pull heavily from "MDNA," her newest album, released in March. But she also performed a bunch of perennials – "Vogue," "Like a Prayer," "Like a Virgin," "Papa Don't Preach," most with interesting, unusual ararngements, but some cut short to make room for newere material.

All the songs were presented as acted out pieces. The show opened with an over-the-top segment with a religious theme. The backdrop was a huge cross with the letters M D N and a triange symbol for A (not available on my keyboard). There were cloaked characters, characters that looked like Tibetan monks, other strange creature characters, the gonging of bells and Madonna arriving in a gilded cage. It was all very "Da Vinci Code" like.

The guns came into play for "Girl Gone Wild" from "MDNA," a steamy frenzy of men and women in black and high heels that ended with Madonna, in skin-tight black garb, pretending to shoot at the crowd.

She was back with a gun – along with four other girls with guns -- in "Revolver," which she performed with rapper Lil' Wayne on screen .

And the gun played a huge part in "Gang Bang" from "MDNA," which featured Madonna set up and taking swigs of liquor in the Paradise Motel and fighting off men with shotgun blasts and Ninja-like moves while the big screen behind showed technicolor images of splattered blood.

It was all a little "Kill Bill" like – I felt like I had seen it before.

In her "Manifesto," Madonna said the guns were used as "metaphors. I do not condone violence or the use of guns. Rather they are symbols of wanting to appear strong and wanting to find a way to stop feelings that I find hurtful or damaging. In my case it's wanting to stop the lies and hypocrisy of the church, the intoleranceof many narrow minded cultures and societies I have experienced throughout my life and in some cases the pain I have felt from having my heart broken."

The show was presented on a stage that jutted out three ways into the Wells Fargo Center, taking up half of the floor space. It had countless trap doors and mini-stages that went up and down and Madonna spent time all over. The band was split into the two corners of the main stage. A fun touch was that band members changed costumes to match the costumes of the various numbers.

Another singer to make an appearance on the big screen was Niki Minaj, her co-conspirator on "I Don't Give A …" from "MDNA."

A real crowd pleaser was the "Majorette" segment , with Madonna and her crew, including band members, dressed as as she sang "Express Yourself," with a few bars of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" sprinkled in. Then she became a cheerleader for "Give Me All Your Luvin."

Another huge crowd pleaser was "Like a Prayer," with 30 back up singers, in the most traditional rendition of the night. The backdrop was floor to ceiling panels with Hebrew scripture.

A cool segment was a gypsy-style version of "Open Your Heart to Me," with Madonna backed by the Kalakan Basque Trio and with a contingent of dancers that included her 12-year-old son Rocco.

The show ended like a club party , with a celebration – the song "Celebration," a colorful dance party that had her and her team of dancers playing pretend DJ's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
rafter69 Collaborator

rafter69

Posted
Posted

thanks for the article Holidayguy...let me ask something...who is this laid back luke? the same act as nero? i was reading an older story on madonna.com about the supporting act for north america and it was listed as nero?? i'm just hoping Washington DC has no support act...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest pedrohdi

Guest pedrohdi

Posted
Posted

What a great article from the HuffingtonPost

Swatch watches.

And Madonna.

Truth?

I had no idea who Madonna was when I first got to camp that summer.

Like, zero.

But there were two girls in my bunk who did.

The first one was from Brooklyn and her name was Nicole.

And she was cool but indifferent in an almost-but-not-quite-goth kinda way.

She rocked pale skin in the middle of July and a jet black asymmetrical bob. She rimmed her eyes in pounds of dark kohl liner. She wore cropped black leggings during the day. She told crazy stories about sneaking out to midnight showings of Rocky Horror that intrigued me even as they scared the shit out of me. And she spent a shitload of time listening to some platinum-haired chick on a cracked cassette tape sing about love and lucky stars.

Madonna.

The other girl who was in the know that summer was Tammy.

And Tammy was a flirt.

She was from an exotic sounding place I had never heard of called the Main Line.

Um.

And even though she was the polar opposite of Nicole in about a billion ways, Tammy rocked a black bob that summer too. Only she paired hers with long, dangly earrings and black Chuck Taylor high tops with fat red laces — which sounds like a ridiculous combination but somehow just absolutely wasn’t.

Maybe it was because Tammy was cute and tiny and popular in all the right ways. The kind of girl who’d run up behind a boy she liked in the middle of the day, fling her arms around his neck and jump on his back with a high-pitched giggle.

Who’d drag you into a sticky, humid bathroom stall and force you into using a tampon for the very first time when you were too much of a wuss to do it yourself. Who was confident in the way only a 14-year-old girl who is just beginning to discover the power of her sexuality can be.

And who knew every word to every song on both Side A and Side B of Madonna.

There were only eight songs on Madonna’s first album.

Eight.

And to this day I can recite them in my sleep: “Lucky Star.” “Borderline.” “Burning Up.” “I Know It.” “Holiday.” “Think of Me.” “Physical Attraction.” “Everybody.”

But eight songs was all it took. Because by the time the camp nights turned damp and cool enough for sweatshirts signaling the end of yet another summer, I knew the words to every single one of them, and my life would never again be the same.

Did you just roll your eyes?

It’s OK. I don’t blame you.

But here’s the thing.

Before Madonna, there were no female pop stars for teenage girls to identify with.

None.

We didn’t have a Britney, or a Christina, or a Katy, or a Ke$ha. We didn’t have a P!nk or a Fergie or a Rihanna. We didn’t even have a Selena freaking Gomez.

I mean… we had Tina Turner. But she was kinda scary. Cyndi Lauper had just come onto the scene. But she was just a little too weird to be relatable.

So who else was there?

I mean, the person I probably identified with the most back then was David Lee Roth, mostly because he somehow managed to possess both the coolest wardrobe and the most totally awesome permed mane of the decade.

I so wish I was joking.

But really?

Who were we supposed to look up to?

Christie Brinkley? Cheryl Tiegs?

C’mon! They were supermodels! And their sexy-but-wholesome images mocked us from the bedroom walls of the neighborhood boys we had once collected lightening bugs with.

Even Charlene Tilton and Catherine Bach had the whole big boobed, sexy-stemmed bombshell thing going on with their perfect Breck Girl hair and Daisy Dukes cut up to vaginaville.

But then came Madonna.

With her messy bleached-out hair, ripped black leggings and cropped mesh tops punctuated with yards of tangled rosaries.

She was a rebel. A misfit. A troublemaker.

And yes. She was a little chubby.

She was also dark, but somehow girly. Pop, but also urban.

She wasn’t perfect. She was a perfect mess.

And she didn’t give a shit what anybody had to say about it.

Unlike the others I’ll do anything. I’m not the same. I have no shame.

I know her lyrics may not have been as straight-up angry and revolutionary as, say, Alanis Morisette’s would be a decade later. But while Madonna may have sung with a certain airy naivete about longing for love and freedom and the one boy who didn’t want her, in real life she was a jagged little pill.

Which made her the ultimate symbol of female empowerment to a generation of girls who were clearly starving for one.

And so it didn’t matter if you were a Nicole from Brooklyn… or a Tammy from suburban Philadelphia… or if you were just another random teenager biding her time with a part-time job at Cignal and a 10th-grade boyfriend who met you in the Friendly’s parking lot after school to smoke clove cigarettes. It didn’t matter if you were a slut. Or a bitch. Or a prude. Or a loner.

Madonna was a vulnerable badass who just wanted to be loved. And so every single one of us embraced her as our generation’s first collective girl crush and loved her.

We proved our commitment by tying those big mesh bows in our hair and piling black rubber bracelets up our arms, and by recording the Lucky Star video on VHS, then racing home after school to rewind about 50 billion times until we knew every single dance move cold.

We scoured second-hand stores for black leather jackets that even slightly resembled the one she wore in Desperately Seeking Susan. We went to see Vision Quest just to hear her sing Crazy For You. And we begged our older sisters, brothers, cool neighbors to drive us to see her live — live! — when she rolled into town for The Virgin Tour.

That was over 25 years ago.

Twenty-five years.

And not once, in all that time, have I ever stopped loving Madonna.

Not during the Sean Penn phase, or the Kabbalah phase, or the Hey-look-at-me-I’m-sleeping-with-Vanilla Ice phase. Not during the Sex book phase. Or Shanghai Surprise. Or even during the time she went to that really dark place and started rocking a big black top hat and scary blacked-out tooth.

OK — possibly then. But only for, like, just a second.

And not even last month when she drew mad criticism for brandishing a fake AK-47 during a show on the European leg of her current tour.

I know. You’re rolling your eyes again.

But here’s the thing:

Madonna moved to New York City in 1977 to be a dancer with $35 in her pocket.

Today her total net worth is an estimated $500 million.

Do you need a minute to let that sink in?

She appeared as if out of nowhere at a time when I was an impressionable young girl who thought following the rules was the only option. Then she put on a wedding dress, called herself a Boy Toy and rolled around on the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards and showed me that it wasn’t.

She had the balls not just to break the rules, but to whip out a Sharpie and freaking rewrite them. And OK — while I agree that Madge has been acting kinda desperate lately in an effort to remain relevant, she has also sold more than 300 million records, has had 37 Top 10 singles and 17 Top 10 albums — seven of which made it to number one. She won two Golden Globes, published a bunch of children’s books, launched a clothing line. She is the female artist with the most certified singles (gold and platinum), more than the Beatles.

And tonight, she will kick off the North America leg of her MDNA tour right here at the Wells Fargo Center.

Do you even have to ask if I am going?

Dance and sing, get up and do your thing.

Proud Madonna Wannabe for over 25 years.

And still freaking counting.

Source : HuffingtonPost

Link to comment
Share on other sites
nemo64 Rising Star

nemo64

Posted
Posted

What a great article from the HuffingtonPost

She had the balls not just to break the rules, but to whip out a Sharpie and freaking rewrite them. And OK — while I agree that Madge has been acting kinda desperate lately in an effort to remain relevant, she has also sold more than 300 million records, has had 37 Top 10 singles and 17 Top 10 albums — seven of which made it to number one. She won two Golden Globes, published a bunch of children’s books, launched a clothing line. She is the female artist with the most certified singles (gold and platinum), more than the Beatles.

I like the article but the writer should have expanded on why she thinks this is so if she wanted to state this particular opinion!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

wow amazing!!!! thank you very much scrapp

however, always scrolling down the page and after a beatiful close up of rhe stage or of Madonna.....there's a tongue from an eye looking at me... :chuckle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
scrapple Rising Star

scrapple

Posted
Posted

wow amazing!!!! thank you very much scrapp

however, always scrolling down the page and after a beautiful close up of the stage or of Madonna.....there's a tongue from an eye looking at me... :chuckle:

happy you liked them. the tongue thing is getting annoying now so maybe I should change it. :laugh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...