Since debuting in Brooklyn in 2018, LadyLand – a queer music pageant organized by New York Metropolis nightlife pressure Ladyfag – has hosted performances by everybody from Eve to Kim Petras to Christina Aguilera to Honey Dijon to Gossip. After a number of profitable years at Brooklyn Mirage, the pageant moved to the Below the ‘Okay’ Bridge Park in 2023, a uniquely NYC locale that – when not internet hosting fashion-forward queer music fests – is a surprisingly inexperienced public park underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge in an industrial a part of Greenpoint.
As soon as attendees recover from their ‘the place the hell am I strolling to?’ trepidation, folks shortly acclimate to the spacious, easy-to-navigate and visually beautiful location. It’s an ideal spot for a Delight Month celebration, and who higher to have fun in 2024 than Madonna, sizzling off her career-spanning Celebration Tour?
Seven months after bringing that blockbuster trek to Barclays Heart, the Queen of Pop returned to Brooklyn on Saturday (June 29) for the second evening of LadyLand 2024 (Tinashe and Slayyyter rocked evening one) to assist shut out Delight Month.
There had been rumors that Madonna, who was not on the pageant’s invoice, would make a shock look at LadyLand earlier than it was formally introduced on Instagram on Thursday (June 27). However even after her presence on the fest was confirmed, nobody fairly knew what was going to occur. Would she come out throughout Tokischa’s set to carry out their “Hung Up on Tokischa” collab, a remodeling of her traditional 2005 single, whereas making out with the Dominican rapper, as they did throughout Delight 2022 at Manhattan’s Terminal 5? Pop up whereas Arca – who made an onstage cameo throughout Madonna’s current Barcelona tour cease – was performing? Spin a tune through the DJ set by Bob the Drag Queen, the Drag Race champ who deftly emceed her Celebration Tour?
Round midnight on the Fist Stage, attendees discovered: Madonna was there to evaluate. Not the viewers (although she could have been doing that, too), however a coterie of ballroom performers vogueing down the runway throughout a phase known as the Vogue Ball Home Battle that echoed the “Vogue” portion of her current tour. Madonna, Arca, Bob the Drag Queen, Tokischa and Sevdaliza served as judges on a vogueing competitors, flashing 10s for the varied homes. And identical to on her tour, preteen daughter Estere was there, solely this time she gave a pre-vogue DJ set.
“Thanks New York Metropolis,” mentioned Madonna after it wrapped. “With out you I’m nothing.”
NYC’s Delight March, the town’s premier Delight Month occasion, takes over Manhattan on Sunday (June 30) in commemoration of the Stonewall Riots that marked the start of the trendy LGBTQ rights motion.
