OK.. I saw Madonna in concert last week... ask me...

... well, ya know...

but that was one of the few hits she didn't perform.

She was, however, awesome. I've seen her twice before and loved it, but this concert was much better than the others. Even my boyfriend, who is NOT a Madonna fan, admitted it was the best show he'd ever seen. She works her ass off, and has an incredible sense of visual style that transfers to a big stage. It's almost embarrassing to say, but it was one of the best concerts I've ever seen.

How close to the stage were you? Was it so freaking loud as to be painful and distracting?

-- Allen

just right of center.

Great seats. Loud, but not annoyingly so. Just an incredible spectacle - and lordy, she looks amazing. And her dancers were straight out of a gay boy's wet dream.

The Beast Within (spoken word)
Vogue
Nobody Knows Me
Frozen
American Life (highlight of the show)
Express Yourself
Burning Up
Material Girl
Hollywood
Hanky Panky
Deeper & Deeper
Die Another Day (ugh)
The Lament (from Evita)
Bedtime Stories
Nothing Fails
Don't Tell Me
Like a Prayer
Mother & Father
Imagine (yes, the Lennon song - amazing: I cried)
Into the Groove
Papa Don't Preach
Crazy For You
Music
Holiday (finished with the biggest confetti drop I've ever seen)

are my favorite Madonna hits.

was the opening musical number. She rose from beneath the stage and struck a yoga pose, then right into Vogue.

Express Yourself was a really rocking, guitar-influenced version and it was great.

Like a Prayer is one of my favorite songs, too, and she did it well.

We missed her concert here.

I hope she'll come back and do more shows in LA.

That's often the first to go.

but her voice on this tour was better than the previous times I've heard it. Very confident and strong. She also plays guitar now, and it works to her advantage. She's gone from pop diva to Rock Star.

Ah, what the hell. I'm into metal. It's kind of the anti-Madonna. To each his own I guess.

but my boyfriend paid 300 bucks a seat. It was a birthday present, and the best one I ever had.

Even if you don't like Madonna's music, this tour is worth seeing. I've seen literally hundreds of big concerts, and this was up there with the best of them. Nobody commands your attention like Madonna does.

I didn't like her then and I don't like her now. I used to have to deal with her cranking up her boom box to that stuff. It just about drove me nuts.

Madonna did make one song a few years ago that I halfway liked. I don't remember the name of the song, but the video had her in front of the camera singing with high speed shots of a city going by in the background.

took great advantage of her talent for visual effects. Giant screens in front of her, behind her, beside her. A giant walkway that descended from the ceiling and let her walk halfway across the arena. Video of herself, of gay sex, of war-wounded and starving children, of psychedelic images.... all perfectly done.

She's not a great singer. She's not a great songwriter. She's not a great artist. But she IS a great dancer. She IS a great model. She IS a phenomenal live performer.

I'm not saying that the woman is without talent. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the show.

I really did.

I've learned that being a great performer is the best talent of all - it surpasses all else.

Some of the best shows I've ever seen were by Bette Midler and Cher, neither of whom is exceptionally talented (although they both sing well enough, especially Midler). The Rolling Stones put on a great show, and none of them are exceptionally talented. I've also seen great artists put on lousy shows - Jeff Beck and Jorma Kaukonen come to mind immediately.

I think knowing how to please a crowd is its own talent, and one that is often overlooked. I am a die-hard, life-long Sinatra fanatic, all because I saw him in concert and nobody ever worked a crowd like he did. He was old, his voice was shot, and he was likely drunk, but good god, for ninety minutes I was in Sinatra's world and he made me feel privileged to be there.

No doubt, many really talented people don't become huge stars because they don't have that certain je ne-sais quois, but the real stars we love were never necessarily the most talented.

Audrey Hepburn was a very mediocre acress. As was Ingrid Bergman - but both were stunningly compelling on screen. Hell, even Garbo wasn't a great actress. But they were all incredibly powerful "movie-stars".

Madonna is an incredibly powerful "pop-star", regardless of her individual talents.

I saw her on the Drowned World tour in 2001 and was completely blown away. She is amazing in concert. Sounds like she got into more of her older stuff on this tour than she did when I saw her.

I saw Drowned and Blonde Ambition.

I loved 'em both, but re-Invention beat 'em both to hell. Seriously, this tour is her best. I'd urge anybody to go see it if they can - you'd be hard-pressed to find a better performance.

Madonna re-invented

Twenty-one years after bursting onto the MTV music scene, Madonna remains one of a handful of 80’s artists who can still sell out arenas, even with top prices reaching $300. What does the audience get for that money? Pure spectacle - and that’s not a bad thing.

On Tuesday night’s show at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA, the world’s greatest Pop diva rose from beneath the stage - well not so much a stage as a moving, shifting, transforming collection of giant video screens, small monitors, and rising platforms - while acrobatic dancers descended from the ceiling. Over the spoken-word “The Beast Within”, the giant video screens in front of the stage rolled back, and after striking a yoga pose, the star segued into Vogue while a dozen dancers seemed to arrive from every direction and began the two-hour frenzy covering 24 songs.

The tour is called “Re-invention”, presumably in tribute to the most common cliché about Madonna. In fact, though, there was little reinvention. It was Madonna being Madonna, only better than usual. A slight reworking of some classics just improved the songs without really reinventing them. The biggest change, musically, is the addition of some rockified guitar, occasionally played by Madonna herself, to some of her classics. Express Yourself and Material Girl adapted nicely to the new sound. If any reinvention was intended, it was Madonna the pop-goddess becoming Madonna the rock star.

Pounding through her hits and near-hits (and the almost-execrable Die Another Day), Madonna wisely has foregone attempts to be sexually shocking. Instead, political imagery was the order of the day. With Madonna costumed variously in military fatigues and burqas, and the giant screen behind her showed images of war and destruction during a climactic America Life, during which a giant two-pronged walkway descended from the ceiling over the audience, allowing her to walk out halfway across the giant arena. During Evita’s The Lament, she is strapped into an electric chair while singing about impending death. The finest, most moving part of the show was her gentle version of John Lennon’s Imagine, sung while visions of starving and war-injured children flashed on the various screens, culminating in a hopeful image of an Israeli and Palestinian boy holding hands.

Vocally, she seemed stronger than in previous tours. She approached every song with a confidence that managed to outshine the technical and mechanical marvel that was her stage. No matter what the stage was doing at any time, Madonna commands your attention. At age 45, she’s in peak physical condition and lets you know it. Lithe and muscular, she was every bit as good as the spectacular back up dancers half her age. She even kept up with a precision military drill, swinging a rifle like a freshly-minted cadet.

Even when offstage for costume changes, the show proceeded apace, with tap-dancing, break-dancing, Scottish bagpipe and drum drill and even a skateboarder on a half-pipe. While we watched the side-shows , Madonna was changing from a gold-studded corset to Che Guevara drag to a flapper-like costume to an elegant black pantsuit to a Scottish Kilt.

Whether one is a fan of Madonna’s music or not, Re-invention is something to be seen. Few performers have Madonna’s unerring eye for visual imagery, her compelling confidence and her innate ability to put on a really, really big show.

for my friend Beaverhausen, who was curious about the concert.

and I won't comment further...

:evilgrin:

even if you hate her, there's no denying she knows how to put on a show. I bet you would've enjoyed it.

And was it worth it?
Duckie

it was quite worth it. 20 years from now, I'll remember the show, but not how much it cost.

I'm waiting for the "I take pride that I've NEVER seen a Madonna concert" posts.

Jezzzzzzus, some people need to get a fucking grip.

a lot of people take pride in what they scorn. I'm not one of them.

The concert was one of the best shows I've ever seen, and I've seen a helluva lot of shows.

I hope you can see it if she comes near you, Ronny. It's worth whatever it costs. She is a consummate entertainer.

Her first shows were at the Forum and I can't stand that place.

I saw Blond Ambition in 1990 and LOVED it.

I loves me some 'Mo!

the show in which she open masturbated during "Like a Virgin".

ah, sweet memories...