Slightly greater than three months because it kicked off on the O2 Enviornment in London, Madonna’s Celebration Tour arrived at Madison Sq. Backyard this week. Whereas the Celebration Tour beforehand hit New York Metropolis in December for 3 dates, these had been all on the Barclays Middle – a venue that opened in Brooklyn 12 years in the past. Madonna and Madison Sq. Backyard, nevertheless, have an in depth historical past, reaching again to when her debut live performance tour, The Virgin Tour, wrapped there in 1985.
So for The Celebration Tour — which is a career-spanning look again on her hits, private struggles, popular culture impression and enduring affect — it solely made sense that the Queen of Pop needed to hit MSG regardless of enjoying NYC only a month earlier. And certain sufficient, her Tuesday night time (Jan. 23) present (the second of three MSG dates, together with her last one slated for Monday, Jan. 29) felt a bit extra particular than her Barclays gig.
First off, the sound was higher. Madonna shaded Barclays as an “echo bowl” when she performed it final month, and it’s seemingly her dissatisfaction with the sound was what precipitated her to (now infamously) start a type of exhibits so late that some disaffected followers filed a class-action lawsuit towards her, which she’s preventing. (Their frustration is comprehensible, though pondering a rock star will hit the stage on time is a bit like anticipating a cat will do what you inform it to do – each do what they need once they need to, and that’s why we love ‘em.)
Secondly, and extra importantly, the shared historical past between Madonna and MSG made this already spectacular tour really feel elevated. A lot of her legend – arriving in NYC at 19 with $35 in her pocket; struggling to make ends meet whereas getting her profession off the bottom; making these preliminary musical waves at iconic NYC venues such because the Danceteria – is wrapped up within the cloth of New York Metropolis. No marvel she cops to nonetheless feeling “butterflies” when she performs in Manhattan.
From a tribute to 2 nurses who bucked the stigma of AIDS/HIV within the ‘80s to her “Vogue” visitor star, these had been the very best moments of her Tuesday night time present.
-
Bob the Drag Queen
All through the trek, RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen has proved to be a deft emcee, introducing the Queen of Pop every night time and popping up in numerous skits, whether or not dressed to the nines in her gag-worthy 1990 VMAs Marie Antoinette look or that (much less flattering) rodeo clown lewk. After a thumping, joyous DJ set from opener Stuart Value (who can also be the tour’s music producer), Bob waltzed out among the many crowd and primed followers for his or her queen. Eying the, let’s consider, LGBTQ-forward viewers, Bob drily mused that he’d in all probability had intercourse with half of the folks at MSG – “and Madonna’s in all probability had intercourse with the opposite half.” Effectively, gotta hold it 100.
-
“I Love New York”
Like her Barclays present, Madonna – guitar in hand — mashed up her Confessions on a Dance Flooring gem “I Love New York” together with her self-titled album’s “Burning Up,” providing up a garage-rock tackle her love letter to a hard-as-nails metropolis. She’s not fairly Orianthi on the axe, however just like the CBGB scene she got here out of earlier than embarking on her globe-conquering pop profession, she oozed an irresistible IDGAF power as she rocked out.
-
Amy Schumer
In the course of the “Vogue” section of her tour, Madonna has routinely introduced out a coterie of friends – everybody from her daughter Lourdes to associates comparable to Diplo and Jean Paul Gaultier – to assist her decide her dancers as they evoke a Harlem ball. On Tuesday night time, Madge tapped Amy Schumer, the comic who opened for her 2015 MSG dates on the Insurgent Coronary heart Tour, as her fellow decide. As with all friends, Schumer flashed 10s on the vogueing dancers when applicable, mimed emphatic reward for Madonna’s daughter Estere (who’s legit a jaw-dropping dancer) and hugged Madonna earlier than returning to the gang.
-
Saluting Two Heroic Nurses
Celebratory as it’s, one of many tour’s most interesting and most impactful moments can also be its saddest – “Stay to Inform,” which options the pictures of women and men who misplaced their lives to AIDS/HIV and its associated problems. Throughout Tuesday’s present, Madonna took an prolonged second to pay tribute to Ellen Matzer and Valery Hughes, two pioneering girls who fought for AIDS/HIV sufferers within the ‘80s (a battle detailed of their e-book Nurses on the Inside: Tales of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic In NYC).
“I need you all to recollect how surprising and horrifying it was within the early ‘80s,” Madonna advised the gang of the early days of the disaster, a time when virtually no politician would point out the illness and many spiritual fanatics celebrated the deaths of LGBTQ folks misplaced to it. “Because of them for being on the entrance line of the AIDS disaster so a few years in the past. Thanks in your bravery and braveness … no person wished to affiliate with these folks, folks had been afraid … These superb girls, these angels, these heroes — thanks for establishing AIDS wards in so many hospitals.”
She concluded with a private recollection of visiting Saint Vincent’s hospital within the early days of the disaster, her voice cracking as she spoke: “I bear in mind one younger man, he was in one other place, he wasn’t actually acutely aware anymore, he was close to demise. I laid down within the mattress subsequent to him and he held my hand and mentioned, ‘Mom, thanks for coming.’ It made me suppose, these girls right here tonight did this each f–king day and so they received no reward, no thanks.”
Naturally, the MSG crowd provided up thunderous applause for the real-life angels in attendance.
-
Her Pleasure
Sure, Madonna is in her 60s (and overcame a brush with demise simply final 12 months, which pressured the Celebration Tour’s kickoff to be postponed), however when she’s skipping throughout the stage throughout “Open Your Coronary heart,” shadow boxing throughout “Erotica,” spitting on the fuzz throughout “Human Nature” or dancing excessive above the viewers in the course of the euphoric “Ray of Mild,” she may as effectively be that 20-something child who knowledgeable Dick Clark she was going to “rule the world” again in 1984 — and proceeded to just do that.