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Madame X Tour Reviews


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https://pagesix.com/2019/10/01/andrew-dice-clay-throws-hissy-fit-in-atlantic-city-steakhouse/

Punctuality immaterial

Seeing Madonna at BAM? Bring takeout. She kept the audience waiting two hours and 40 minutes for her Madame X concert. Eight more shows through Oct. 12. Due 8 p.m., she schlepped to the stage 10:30. The thing was over 1 a.m. Three female children danced with Mama, and daughter Lourdes was projected on the big screen doing ballet during the song “Frozen.” Onstage, Madonna called herself a freedom fighter. The problem is she’d arrive so late she’d probably blow the fight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Madonna fears no one at the Chicago Theatre in a late-night, cell phone-free clash between old and new

By Britt Julious

Chicago Tribune |

Oct 17, 2019 | 11:38 AM

Madonna does what she wants, when she wants, for whatever reason she wants. In fact, the Madonna of today may be more stubborn. Yes, she has amassed a trove of hits from each decade of her career. But the hits matter less to the artist than the intention behind her music.

Known as something of a chameleon, Madonna made a case for the interconnectedness of her total body of work during the first night of the Chicago leg of her intimate, cell phone-free Madame X tour. A small number of older songs were carefully intertwined with a heavy selection of tracks off her latest album, “Madame X,” to tell the story of this new character. And who is Madame X?

A freedom fighter, for one. Dance is politics. Music is politics. Madonna laid plain the intentions of each “Madame X” show from the start. On stage was very little in the beginning, just a silhouette of a woman at a typewriter, a large black screen, and a fit young dancer jerking his limbs to the rhythm of each keystroke. Behind him, a 1961 quote by James Baldwin splashed across the screen: “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” Get the picture? This is not a moment of nostalgia for Madonna. But if you’re interested in “waking up,” in getting uncomfortable, then stick around.

The first half of the set blended a mix of old and new tunes, starting with “Dark Ballet” from “Madame X.” Dancers clad in white gowns and riot gear clashed on stage. Behind a brutalist pyramid staircase were projected images of marches for gun control. Clashing — of old and new, of right and wrong, of fun and seriousness — became a theme throughout the set.

During a slowed-down rendition of “Human Nature,” her twin daughters, Estere and Stella, joined the singer and her backup dancers on stage. She asked each girl to make a statement, with one saying “Hashtag time’s up!” in reference to the social movement. Moments later, Madonna fittingly transitioned into an a-cappella sing-a-long to her smash ’90s hit “Express Yourself,” before asking the audience, “This revolution is bloody. Is there a doctor in the house?” Sometimes the fight to be heard can be jarring, just as it was on stage.

For Madge, art is the medium by which she fights for the freedom of others. It is the medium delivering the message, whether audiences understand or like it at all. “Are you good with me not keeping my baby?” she asked the audience halfway through her set after a spirited rendition of “Papa Don’t Preach.” An audience member in the front row expressed his displeasure and she was not afraid to confront him about reproductive rights. “It is my choice. It’s everybody’s choice,” she uttered. The room erupted in applause. She fears no one. The easy choice would be to next play something light, but Madonna chose “American Life,” an oft-forgotten yet underrated single from the aughts. Back then, it was an awkward song, but here, its mashup of genres and conflicted lyrics make sense. It was perfect.

The latter half of the show was packed with guest artists from across the globe as she performed Latin-inspired selections — including “Medellin” and “Come Alive” — from the new album. A group of Cape Verde batuque singers walked through the aisles and joined Madonna on stage for the “Madame X” cut “Batuka.” During her numerous chat breaks, Madge talked about her move to Lisbon to “become a soccer mom,” and the depression and loneliness that soon set in. It was not until she began frequenting fado clubs that she found herself again. It made sense then that the stage was transformed into a colorful recreation of a fado club. “Get out of your comfort zone!” she cried to the audience. Most people were on board.

The “Madame X” show is not a concert as much as it is performance art and dance theater. This explains some of 10:30 p.m. start time, to the surprise and consternation of some fans worried about a late night (the show ended around 1:30 a.m.). This was also a cell-phone-free show, where attendees had to secure their phones. The entry process was smooth, but expect a post-show bottleneck.

Storytelling framed the evening. Madge is a shifting and growing human urging her audience to do the same, but she’s not afraid to get playful, like when she took a Polaroid selfie of herself and auctioned it off to the audience. The winning bid was $3600, to a man who said he was a writer. “Writer? Bull---- artist is more like it,” Madonna said, in reference to him having that much cash.

“Not everyone is coming to the future because not everyone is learning from the past,” she said before playing the “Madame X” single “Future.” It was a coded message. Casual fans looking for an intimate dance party should stay away. Madonna chose small theater settings for a reason — she is interested in touching and seeing and communicating her message with her audience. Theater breeds emotional risks; the fire of each moment is palpable. Madonna knows this. An arena won’t start revolutions, but a musical confrontation a half-foot away will.

 

 

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10:45 p.m. start time very much in vogue (and worth the wait) when you’re Madonna

By Selena Fragassi - For the Sun-Times Oct 17, 2019, 1:10pm CDT

The pop music icon delivered a potent three-hour spectacle Wednesday night at the Chicago Theatre where she kicked off the first of seven shows at the venue.

There will be a lot of exhausted people in Chicago over the next week and a half, particularly after attending one of Madonna’s shows during her mini-residency at the Chicago Theatre, which, after Wednesday night’s kickoff affair, boasts six more shows over the next 10 days.

With a 10:45 p.m. start time, and topping nearly three hours, the late-night, cell-phone-free spectacle will no doubt garner the ire of some attendees, but the greater takeaway is just how mentally exhausted the performer leaves her fans after the multi-faceted affair, making the show a worthwhile time investment at any start time.

In support of her new album, “Madame X,” released in June on Interscope Records, the show — like the record — extrapolates the many personas of one of the most polarizing figures in music history through well-rehearsed theatrical bits that blur the lines of performance art. Madonna as an artist, a mother, a global citizen, a New Yorker, a Midwesterner, a feminist, a provocateur, a human — all shine through in very distinct and connected ways under the guise of a secret agent looking to find her true identity.

The album/tour title is the moniker originally given to Madonna by dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, with whom she studied in her late teens. But while Madame X is a nod to the singer’s origin story — with a very concerted effort to bring the concert back to an intimate theater setting much like her very first tour — it’s also indicative of how Madonna is pushing the envelope forward with a conscientiousness demanded in the new world order.

“Artists are here to disrupt the peace” was the proclaimed theme of the night. Taken from a quote from the great American writer-playwright-activist James Baldwin, the words were scrawled across a massive sheer curtain, spelled out one letter at a time, as the pounding of every “typewriter” key stroke became a percussive heart beat introducing the opening number “God Control,” which begged for a new democracy. “Everybody’s hurt. What is important is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive,” the passage continued.

The words also hinted at Madonna’s decision to also ban cell phones throughout the tour. “I want nothing to be between us … be present and enjoy the world of Madame X,” she explained.

Madonna, who now lives in Lisbon, Portugal, gave fans a view into her personal world, talking of how she repressed her loneliness in a new country by venturing out into fado clubs and meeting people who would eventually shape her new record, including the late singer Celeste Rebordão Rodrigues whose 16-year-old grandson, Gaspar, was part of the instrumental ensemble. The two paired up for a sweet fado serenade sung in Portuguese; Madonna would also sing in Spanish throughout the show. In another act, Madonna delivered her new song “Batuka” with a history lesson, introducing her audience to the women carrying on the traditions of the Batuque, a music and dance genre native to the Republic of Cabo Verde.

Through panoramic projections, hi-def video and a brilliant use of light and silhouette to denote set changes, concertgoers were transported to the clubs of Lisbon for a trifecta of “La Isla Bonita,” “Sodade” (a Cesaria Evora cover) and “Medellin” and then to the desert of Marrakesh for rousing versions of “Come Alive” and “Future.” There were easily 25 collaborators who made the vision come to life, including her own children. Seven-year-old twins Stella and Estere were an adorable addition to the live ensemble, while oldest daughter Lourdes was projected on a giant screen in a slow-mo, black-and-white dance montage as Madonna delivered a tender version of “Frozen” that made the two virtually inseparable.

Though Madonna relied way too heavily on Auto-Tune, and her intimate between-act stage banter was incredibly bizarre and disjointed (swigging beer from strangers, selling Polaroid selfies to the highest bidder and making jokes about Trump’s small manhood), when she was on stage all eyes were glued to her and her backup squad, particularly for legacy songs “Vogue” and “Like A Prayer.”

The queen of choreography lived up to that title with evocative interpretations, even though a knee injury that delayed the beginning of the tour prevented her from fully participating. True to character, every song rendition had its share of innuendo, sexual or topical, and Madonna relied heavily on the latter in a good deal of hyper-political moments, using “Papa Don’t Preach” as a platform for pro-choice beliefs and padding “Express Yourself” and “Human Nature” with feminist credos. It was the final song “I Rise” that left a lasting impression as a video reel documenting the students of Parkland, the fight for marriage equality and the Flint water crisis gave way to a rainbow-colored flag as Madonna and her backup dancers marched through the audience with fists raised.

“I ask you to be freedom fighters, stand up for those that don’t have the voice or privileges we have. We won’t always be popular,” said Madonna, “but we have to disturb the peace.”

Selena Fragassi is a local freelance writer.

SET LIST

 

"God Control"

“Dark Ballet”

“Human Nature”

“Express Yourself”

“Vogue”

“I Don’t Search I Find”

“Papa Don’t Preach”

“American Life”

“Batuka”

“Killers Who Are Partying”

“Crazy”

“La Isla Bonita”

“Sodade”

“Medellin”

“Extreme Occident”

“Frozen”

“Come Alive”

“Future”

“Crave”

“Like A Prayer”

“I Rise”

 

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Review: 'Madame X' takes the spotlight during Night 1 of Madonna's Chicago Theatre residency

The Queen of Pop, The Material Girl, Ms. Ciccone. Madonna has many names and even more personas, several of which were on display during her Oct. 16 performance at The Chicago Theatre, the first of seven sold-out concerts during her Chicago residency.

Of all Madonna’s alter-ego’s, Madame X – the title character of her fourteenth studio album whose roles include a teacher, a mother, a nun, a whore and a spy – spent the most time in the spotlight on Wednesday night as songs from the 2019 release appeared in all five sets of the operatic evening. The show – with its sleep-be-damned start time of almost 11 p.m. – felt like a party attended by old friends, as fans, many clad in Madame X eye-patches, were ready to celebrate Madonna’s 30-plus year career and the music that served as the soundtrack to so many monumental moments in their collective lives.

The words of James Baldwin served as the theme of the evening as the show began with a projection of his quote, “Artists are here to disturb the peace.” Madonna wasted no time in using her art, music, dance, costumes and set design to disturb political and societal norms opening with the body-moving call for truth that is “God Control.” “Dark Ballet” soon followed, Madonna wielding the genre-bending pop composition – complete with an interlude of Tchaikovsky’s “The Dance of the Reed-Flutes” – to lead fans in worship at the altar of art.

Act III found Madonna basking in Portuguese moonlight as her stage resembled a Lisbon street scene inspired by her new hometown where she spends her time as a “soccer mom.” The setting provided the perfect backdrop for the eight-song segment, comprised primarily of Madame X music with traditional Fado songs mixed in. Portuguese guitarra player Gaspar Varela provided intricate accompaniment to Madonna’s soulful vocals on “Fado Pechincha,” while “Crazy” blended styles with irresistible results. Orquestra Batukadeiras – an all-female group of singers, dancers and percussionists – joined the Queen of Pop on “Batuka” propelling waves of pure joy from the stage to the seats.

Along with the track list of Madame X, the set was dominated by candid conversations during which Madonna would riff with the crowd, often taking time out to revel in the opportunity to enjoy a cell phone-free night as fans’ mobiles were safely locked away in Yondr pouches.

“It’s so amazing to look out there and not see a single phone,” said Madonna, adding her intent to perform a show so exciting that fans would forget about their devices completely.

Elsewhere, Madonna’s politics took center stage as she declared “death to the patriarchy” and encouraged audience members to dedicate their lives to being “freedom fighters.” She even inserted the issues of the day into some of her biggest hits most notably “Papa Don’t Preach,” which featured the lyric change, “I’ve made up my mind / I’m not keeping my baby.”

“Are you good with my right to choose,” Madonna asked the crowd noting that she’s neither for or against abortion rather she’s for the “right to choose for ourselves.”

“If men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM machine,” she scoffed.

“Papa Don’t Preach” wasn’t the only classic Madonna hit of the performance. “Vogue” felt as current as ever – thanks in part to the popularity of the FX series Pose – with dancers capturing the essence of the 1990 hit while wearing larger than life ensembles. “Human Nature” showcased Madonna’s legendary dance moves, including a gravity-defying handstand, as projected shadows pushed and pulled the icon in every direction.

“Like a Prayer” led to one of the biggest sing-alongs of the night – tired fans rallying to make the most of the joyful post-1 a.m. moment – and “Frozen” best demonstrated the tender emotional range of Madonna’s vocals as she sang in the spotlight behind a screen displaying her daughter, Lourdes Leon, dancing with passionate abandon.

After decades of performing at amphitheaters and stadiums, Madonna’s opening Madame X show at the Chicago Theatre was a gift, a chance to experience an artist’s vision in an intimate setting without filters. Her Chicago residency continues through Oct. 28, after which fans can relive the experience through the magic of memories rather than on the tiny screens of their iPhones.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It always makes me laugh when a "critic" pushes his opinions onto a review. 

Maybe HE doesnt like the album, but to say no one truly loves it is bullshit.

And when you go see a show called "Madame X", you do your homework and you familiarise yourself with the music. I always think it's weird that people complain about the setlist when the name of the show says it.

It's like going to see "Cats" and wonder why they're not doing songs from "Evita".

On a sidenote, Im still not over the genius of "Dark Ballet". It's a standout track in her discography. It's so messed up, yet a pleasure to listen to. Just wish there was a proper piano intro on the album, or like, a 6 minute version of it.

Madame X is a statement.

Edited by Derby (see edit history)
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58 minutes ago, Derby said:

It always makes me laugh when a "critic" pushes his opinions onto a review. 

Maybe HE doesnt like the album, but to say no one truly loves it is bullshit.

And when you go see a show called "Madame X", you do your homework and you familiarise yourself with the music. I always think it's weird that people complain about the setlist when the name of the show says it.

It's like going to see "Cats" and wonder why they're not doing songs from "Evita".

On a sidenote, Im still not over the genius of "Dark Ballet". It's a standout track in her discography. It's so messed up, yet a pleasure to listen to. Just wish there was a proper piano intro on the album, or like, a 6 minute version of it.

Madame X is a statement.

You said it.

To the writer of this review: Why can't she "wear a bedazzled patch over her left eye and cloak herself as Madame X."? Is she suppose to never get creative or do something different? And I'll take a two hour plus show anytime any day.  

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If you dont like the album called "Madame X", then dont go see the show called "Madame X", so that you can, in turn, complain about the setlist.

Every time, people are like "Sing your old stuff". And if she did, theyd go on about how she has to rely on her older material to draw people to a show.

This is why Madonna doesnt pay attention anymore and does whatever the fuck she wants. Someone will always bitch and moan. You can complain about what Madonna does when you DO what Madonna does.

And youll notice, the criticism rarely comes from other artists (who are out there in the field). It always comes from know-it-all fans and journalists.

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Madonna’s Madame X comes alive, rises

Pop diva takes control in ‘intimate’ Golden Gate Theatre

Leslie Katz

Madonna’s been using the word paradox to describe her adventurous 2019 studio album “Madame X” and so indeed is her current concert tour, which closed a three-night engagement at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre on Tuesday.

Although the show’s setting was smaller than the arenas she’s filled during her decades as the world’s biggest pop star, it was hardly an intimate or casual affair. True, she chatted with the audience a bit, got a guy named Brad (a drill sergeant from Kansas City in the front) to give her a swig of warm beer and took a single Polaroid selfie, which she sold to another fellow for $4,000, with the money going to charity.

In a welcome nod to theater tradition, photos were not allowed; fans had to lock their phones into bags provided at the entry which were opened upon departure.

Paradoxically both charming and offputting, Madame X made demands of her audience. She asked if they were paying attention, told them to sit the f— down, and, after being distracted by doors at the back of the theater opening, queried, “Did you enjoy this fado club, those who stayed in the room?”

The fado café, her re-creation of her time spent as a soccer mom in Portugal, where she met local musicians and fell in love with their artistry, was a highlight in the middle of the two-and-a-half hour show (which started a half-hour late), a sometimes murky mix of performance art, politics and song.

The segment included the evening’s most joyous number, the call-and-response “Batuka,” featuring the gorgeous, dynamic, singing and hand-drumming, all-woman ensemble Orquestra Batukadeiras from Cape Verde.

“Killers Who Are Partying,” a solemn ode to those who are disenfranchised or facing discrimination, had some Portuguese lyrics, as did the pop-flavored “Crazy,” with accordion.

Singing “Sodade” and accompanying herself on guitar, Madonna explained that the song, popularized by Cesária Évora and sung in Creole, was about longing. Moving to Colombia, Madonna and company performed the catchy dance tune “Medellin,” then closed the club section with the introspective “Extreme Occident.”

The easygoing café was a big contrast to the jam-packed, high-concept start: a silhouetted character typing out James Baldwin’s credo “Artists are here to disturb the peace” as shots were fired, followed by the anti-gun disco-y “God Control,” a wild set piece with Madonna dressed as a founding father facing off with cops wearing riot gear, images of the American flag and video of gun violence. Whew!

“Dark Ballet,” the second number, was even more out there, with Joan of Arc references, religious garb and battles with dancers in gas masks reminiscent of the mice in “Nutcracker,” complete with an electronic alteration of Tchaikovsky’s familiar melody.

A jazzy, percussive version of “Human Nature” from 1994, one of a handful of non-“Madame X” tunes, had shadow images on the back wall and a throng of girls, including Madonna’s young daughters Stella, Estere and Mercy James, serving up MeToo era sentiments as Madge stated, “I’m not your bitch.”

There was an a cappella sing-along of “Express Yourself,” a too short rendition of “Papa Don’t Preach” and a noir-themed version of “Vogue,” with Madonna and dancers in blond wigs and trench coats.

Derided on its 2003 release, the busy rap-filled, social statement “American Life” — wearing her Madame X eye-patch, Madonna played guitar — sounded great and urgent.

“Frozen” was simple and beautiful, sung solo in front of a striking black-and-white video of her daughter Lourdes dancing that filled the theater’s back screen. Next, Madonna’s whole congregation, dressed in colorful flowing robes, convened for the positively upbeat “Come Alive.”

Back in a black robe studded with crosses for the penultimate “Like a Prayer,” Madonna had the audience singing along with religious fervor, before closing with the inspirational “I Will Rise.”

The tune began, accompanied by powerful video of Parkland demonstrators, and closed as fans on one side of the theater basked in their idol’s glow as Madame X herself exited down an aisle (letting people touch her!), with markedly minimal fanfare.

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I have a hard time with what this guy writes. It wasn't "real theatre"? ....yeah ok but why does it have to be? Also, from what we've read from most fans who've seen the show, they loved it and it was totally energizing? And there is more... :sad:

Madonna Wants To Be Your Mom, Provocateur, and High Priestess in 'Madame X' Tour, and It's A Lot

"Are you all starting to get it?" Madonna asked from the stage, at least several times, to a fawning, screaming audience whom she treated at times more like a kindergarten classroom than who they were — a crowd of well-heeled, mostly middle-aged fans who could afford orchestra seats for her pricey Madame X tour.

"Madame X is a teacher. She's a rebel. She's a head of state. She's a mother. She's a child. She's a whore. And she is a saint." (I'm paraphrasing only slightly — no cellphones were allowed.)

Madonna, at 61, sees herself as all of the above, except (maybe) head of state. And in her new tour, which just finished the last of a three-night engagement at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, she is not so much playing a character as just another in a long series of chameleon-like variations on her public self. She sounds every bit the confident, caustic "bad girl" she wanted us to see on the Truth or Dare tour nearly 30 years ago, only she's no girl anymore and likely more invested in her legacy as a performer than in selling albums or concert seats. (Or in making things pleasant for an aging fanbase, many of whom were weary and overheated in a stuffy theater by the time she went on, some 40 minutes later than announced and hours after the theater opened, around 11:10 p.m.)

She admits a little bit of weakness — twice she mentioned tendonitis in a hip flexor, an injury she apparently had when the tour began in September according to this Rolling Stone review, though perhaps this is a second injury. But that's only so that you're more impressed with all the dancing she does.

If I walked away with anything from Tuesday night's show — apart from memories of a truly stunning visual spectacle, enhanced by recent advances in projection mapping — it's that Madonna, more than ever, still craves respect and adoration as an artist and activist more than as a pop icon, but she'll accept a role as quasi-religious icon if she must. She isn't afraid to patronize the kids with auto-tuned, one-off singles like "Crave" (feat. Swae Lee) and "Future" (feat. Quavo) — or "Bitch I'm Madonna" from 2015's Rebel Heart. But her heart is mostly in awing everyone with bold visuals of gun violence, gun protests, and the borrowed soulfulness of her video for "Batuka," which is sung (along with the projected video) with the help of the Orquestra Batukadeiras — a group of African Portuguese Creole women from Cape Verde, whom she has brought on the tour with her.

Much of the new album grew out of Madonna's recent experience living in Portugal while her now 14-year-old son David Banda was at a soccer school. As the story goes, she got bored being alone there while he played soccer, so she started going out to clubs and cafes and fell in love with fado, the guitar-based music genre native to Lisbon. According to this June profile in New York Times, "One night, she visited a Frenchman’s crumbling home on the sea for an improv session, mostly of fado musicians. 'There was a vibration there that was magical and palpable, and suddenly musicians started playing,' she said."

And if you haven't gathered by now, the show Madonna is now performing in small-ish theaters in major cities is a mashup of many things with only the vaguest threads to link them. A quieter central portion of the show, all set in a projected space meant to look like a fado cafe, includes several of her new songs featuring Portuguese guitar — along with the strumming talents of 16-year-old Gaspar Varela, great-grandson of late, famed singer Celeste Rodrigues, whom Madonna also recruited in Lisbon. ("There's not enough dressing rooms for everyone. My manager's not talking to me right now," Madonna said at one point, emphasizing that she still had to have her way and we should all be grateful.)

The show begins and ends with a James Baldwin quote that gets typed on a projection screen multiple times just to make sure we read and absorb it: "Art is here to prove that all safety is an illusion… Artists are here to disturb the peace."

But while Madame X, the show is compellingly odd at times, and no doubt unique as a theatrical concert among her generation of icons, I still can't say that Madonna has transcended beyond "great performer" to disturber of the peace. The only moment of real theater I witnessed was when she sat on the edge of the stage and invited a stranger to give her a sip of their drink and chat. (The handsome military man who complied was clearly a prepped plant who handed her a glass beer bottle full of water, much like one a dancer had handed her earlier — and the Golden Gate Theater doesn't sell beer in bottles to take to your seat. She then semi-convincingly played a beer drinker for 90 seconds while catching her breath.) Apart from nods to the Parkland and Pulse nightclub shootings, Madonna's co-opting of yet another culture not her own and lazy off-the-cuff banter felt out of touch — even with evolving ideas about mental health when she griped about people getting up to use the bathroom or go to the bar as having "ADDDD or ADHD," or when she asked an increasingly listless crowd if their Adderall was kicking in.

I thought about Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music. I sat through that in six-hour stretches and rarely felt very bored or restless. And no matter what I was feeling I knew that Taylor was going to come out with an articulate and thoughtful thing to tie together whatever I just saw. Madonna tended more toward the persona and mode she's most comfortable in — like that too-knowing friend of your older sister who likes to ask you sarcastic questions and never lets her guard down. "You get it yet!?"

For all the ways I love her "Bitch I'm Madonna" swagger and the unique position she is in as an artist and icon, there's a point at which her bravado and aggressive diva-ness are lost on all but her super-fans, and the rest of us are left sighing to ourselves and saying "Bitch, just do 'Ray of Light' already." I don't want her retiring into a Las Vegas residency and turning into a caricature of herself, trotting out her hits and ceasing to look for inspiration. But I can't say that the new material is inspiring enough to carry as much of this intimate show as she wants it to. And I felt like I was expected to worship each costume change and come-to-church moment, spanning the cultures that have influenced her various albums, from Hindu-Buddhist to British trance to gospel to, now, batuque and fado.

There were a lot of slow moments, and the only times she truly energized the crowd were with excellent revisions of 90s hits like "Vogue" and "Human Nature," very early in the two-hour-and-20-minute set. By the time she's taken off her embroidered sari and put on her priest's vestments for "Like a Prayer," which transitions into her finale with the new song, "I Rise," it felt like she'd lost the crowd (except for the super-fans who'd already paid to see this once and were back again). I was ready to rise mostly because I was tired, it was 1:30 a.m., and I've outgrown the person who saw her as a flawless gay icon and god. I see we're all flawed, and Madonna's spent the better part of two decades trying to stay relevant if not quite edgy, and if nothing else I'm happy she found a new music genre to play with in Portugal.

I wasn't the only one grumbling about the decided lack of crowd-pleasers in the set as we all filed to the doors to get our cellphone satchels unlocked so we could return to our realities.

And she still never did "Ray of Light."

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:sad: This one is hard to read...

Fans boo, chant 'refund' as Madonna starts concert after midnight

Wonderwall.com Editors        

Many of Madonna's fans expressed themselves on Thursday night (er, rather Friday morning) when she was nearly two hours late for her Las Vegas concert.

An entertainment source tells Wonderwall.com that "over 500 refunds" were issued after Madge eschewed her 10:30 p.m. start time, instead taking the Caesars Palace Colosseum stage past midnight, which is technically Friday morning. The show also ran longer than anticipated, and eventually let out around 2:45 a.m.

Fans, however, weren't pleased with the late start, many of them started booing and chanting the word "refund," according to local reports and Twitter users.

"@madonna is completely disrespectful to audience starting so late. Lost a fan," one person said.

Since doors for the show opened around 8 p.m., many fans were in the venue for over four hours before getting their first glimpse of Madonna.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John Katsilometes tweeted, "Reports that #Madonna took the stage at about 12:30 a.m. at the Colosseum last night/this morning. She is famously late to the stage, but this might be some sort of record."

The blog Breathe Heavy noted, "Some people in attendance were annoyed, so it didn't help that Madonna ribs the audience by essentially calling them poor, cursing up a storm and explaining her political views. It reportedly resulted in boos and chants for refunds."

Many on social media noted that fans were sleeping during the show due to the time.

"You were seriously late to the show your fans payed good $ to see = disrespectful," one Twitter user wrote. "Fans were walking out, if you can't see that's a problem you've a big problem on your hands."

Irked by Madonna's tardiness, one Twitter user said, "1.5 hours late. Indifferent-to-hostile audience. Juvenile attempts at humor met with audience silence. I've never seen anyone less in control of a room. Truly amateurish."

The tweets all came after the concert was over in the wee hours of the morning, as the show was "phone free," meaning concertgoers had to lock up up their cell phones.

Madge's defenders noted that Madonna has been continuously late for her shows throughout her storied career, claiming attendees should have expected it.

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Madonna’s Madame X Tour goes on late at The Wiltern, but do her L.A. fans even care?

The singer has a total of 10 nights in the more intimate L.A. theater, including Nov. 14, 16-17, 19-21 and 23-25.

Before Madonna’s latest Madame X Tour, which has been set in more intimate theater venues across the U.S., kicked off at The Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles for its 10-night run Wednesday night, West Coast fans were already hearing about the singer’s super late start times and she had also unexpectedly lopped off a few of her dates in select markets without rescheduling them, including Tuesday, Nov. 12 at The Wiltern.

There was even a class action lawsuit that came out of Florida last week from a fan that is suing Madonna for breach of contract, according to NBC News, for moving her ticketed start time from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. When the tour hit Las Vegas, fans reported that Madonna went on well after midnight. Tour promoter Live Nation did, eventually, change the ticket time on its website to reflect a start time closer to when Madge would actually hit the stage.

The other hot button issue for this tour was the use of the locking Yondr pouches, in which fans had to store their cell phones, smart watches and even Fitbits for the duration of the performance.

“We want you to be present and enjoy the journey with us,” a recording of Madonna’s sultry voice said ahead of Madame X taking the stage around 10:45 p.m. and playing until 1:30 a.m. for the first evening of her residency at the 1,850-capacity Wiltern.

So did the fans in Los Angeles care about a late start time or having their precious phones locked away in pouches? It didn’t seem so.

“I didn’t care at all,” Andy Polvorosa, 42, from Los Angeles, said as he was hanging out before the show in The Wiltern lobby, wearing his best Madame X-themed garb. “I’ve seen her many times and she’s always late and people need to get over it.”

Gio Portillo, 34, also of Los Angeles echoed Polvorosa’s stance as well as Madonna’s own response to the fan criticism, which was “a queen is never late.”

“I’m gonna stick with her no matter what,” he added. “I follow a bunch of forums and people were saying, ‘Well Beyoncé doesn’t do this’ or ‘Taylor Swift doesn’t do that.’ Well … they’re not Madonna! Who knows what Taylor Swift will be doing in 30 years … if she’s still around?”

For her 14th album, “Madame X,” Madonna tapped into the music that has influenced her as she’s been living in Lisbon, Portugal, for the past few years. She was living as a glorified “soccer mom,” she joked on stage, as she supported her son David Banda’s passion for fútbol. The songs are a mix of pop, EDM and reggae music with the added sounds she discovered in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, France and Cape Verde.

She’s also taken on the persona of Madame X. Who is Madame X? She’s a secret agent, an enigma of sorts slowly uncovered via a collection of different characters. In her own words, Madonna explains that Madame X is “a mother, a child, a teacher, a nun, a singer, a saint, a whore and a spy.” She even infuses the characters into some of her biggest hits such as “Vogue,” “Human Nature,” “Papa Don’t Preach” and an a cappella version of “Express Yourself.”

The show is played out in a series of acts with a lot of production, numerous costume changes and several big moving parts. It’s like watching a Broadway production, a naughty cabaret and a really loose format stand-up comedy show.

Without cell phones recording her every word and move, Madonna was more free. She made jokes, she did some improvisation — which was hit-or-miss — and she expressed numerous times her joy at being able to look out into the crowd and see eyeballs instead of at phones since it’s “hard to enjoy intimacy with phones.”

Though the intimate setting and production were super cool, it was very warm and stuffy inside the venue. The fans who wanted to dance faced off against the fans who wanted to sit and enjoy the production and that resulted in some shouting wars between patrons across the venue. In quieter moments, a dozen or so obnoxious fans acted like hecklers in a comedy club. They couldn’t stop yelling out random things. Madonna did “shush” the crowd a few times and rightfully so, as they were being rude attention seekers.

There was plenty political commentary throughout the evening, though mostly done through her music and production. The opening number, “God Control,” took on the hot button gun control debate and it was a bit unnerving to hear dozens of gunshot sound effects echo through a very dark venue. But that was the point. She danced about the stage for “Human Nature” and the audience roared along to “Papa Don’t Preach.”

The third act was a multi-cultural musical melting pot. She brought out a collection of drummers, known as Batukadeiras for “Batuka” and took the audience into the world of Portuguese Fado music with a cover of Isabel De Oliveira’s “Fado Pechincha.” She soared through “La Isla Bonita” and her vocals were quite beautiful for Cesária Évora’s “Sodade.” She got the crowd to count down and “cha-cha-cha” to “Medellín” and wrapped up the act with “Extreme Occident.”

Before launching into “Frozen,” Madonna’s dancers, who were on-point all evening, did an incredibly interesting number as they all twisted and contorted in a line on stage and in perfect time. It was breathtaking and hard to look away from. With “Frozen,” Madonna was on stage solo, seated behind a screen and backlit by a single white light. As she sang, video of her eldest daughter, Lourdes Leon doing a stunning interpretive dance played out on the screen and at times, Madonna and the imagery of her daughter sweetly played off of each other.

Fans got up and danced to “Come Alive” and “Crave” before the venue turned into a church and everyone sang and clapped along to “Like a Prayer.” She ended the set with an encore performance of the powerful anthem, “I Rise,” the first single off of “Madame X” that includes selections of a speech by Emma González, a survivor of the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Madonna’s run continues at The Wiltern Nov. 16-17, 19-21 and 23-25. Suddenly there were more tickets available via LiveNation.com this week. Fans can now score a ticket for a more reasonable price range of $132-$200 instead of the initial $375-plus tickets or the resale tickets, which were initially going for anywhere between $500-$1,500. Those resale tickets have also dropped significantly with many now available in the $200-$400 range.

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First London Review....

Madonna – Madame X review, London Palladium: Anarchic, experimental and her best show ever

I'm not sure who was having more fun at the opening of Madonna's London residency, the audience or the star. She sang, she danced, she joked and she beamed with almost childlike glee at the crowd's adoring response. "How happy I am to have made it this far," she declared, calling London "my second home." 

Madonna first played the city in 1983 to 1500 early adopters at the Camden Palace. Her next London gig was Wembley Stadium. She was clearly delighted to be back in a venue where she could not just reach out ad touch the audience, she could descend from the stage and sit in their laps. "Its so intimate. Its gorgeous and a thrill for me to be able to see all your faces."

Nobody is going to mistake the salubrious 2,200-capacity Palladium for a cosy club. But the last time Madonna played London, in 2015, it was two dates at the O2 Arena for almost 30,000 people. That is about the same number she will play to across all 14 nights in London, if she makes it through her residency in one piece.

Madonna is 61, and reportedly having problems with her knees. She has already cancelled ten shows on this tour, including what would have been its London debut on Monday. But she was in fine form shimmying and shaking across the stage in a set full of artful and exuberant choreography.

Indeed, sometimes you might wish she would just sit down and sing, because, in the moments when she did just that, she showed she was in exceptionally good voice. An interlude performing a Portuguese fado folk song was scintillating, whilst a stark rendition of 1998 electro ballad Frozen, performed solo onstage to a video of eldest daughter Lourdes dancing, was a highlight of the night.

But Madonna likes to give bang for bucks and this was not a cheap night out. Face-value tickets were priced between £376 and £1,247. What fans were presumably paying for was a chance to get up close and personal, a sense of proximity to their idol that you rarely get in the stadiums and sports arenas where she has performed since the eighties.

When Bruce Springsteen started this trend of superstars in theatres with his acclaimed 2017-2018 Broadway residency, all he brought along was a guitar and piano. Madonna’s idea of intimacy is a little different, involving a a dozen dancers, another dozen musicians, a 14-piece choral ensemble from Cape Verde and 39 crew members making sure the elaborate sets, dazzling projections and incessant costume changes all ran smoothly. Rather than stripping back her stadium extravaganzas, Madonna has essentially tried to squeeze the stadium into a theatre.

It was like a cross between experimental theatre and showbiz extravaganza, Busby Berkeley meets Ballet Rambert

Yet crucially she infused the production with her own eccentric personality, chattering incessantly between songs in bizarre monologues that moved quirkily between ribald humour, political jokes and idealistic proclamations of artistic freedom.

During one odd interlude, she auctioned a Polaroid of herself to charity, admonishing her devoted audience for only coughing up £1,500. "Are you guys all confused by Brexit as it comes to an end?" she asked, before requesting we spare a thought for America where the nightmare continues. "We have a psychopath in the White House."

It didn't always make sense, but the show's slightly anarchic nature only added to the sense of fun. It was like a cross between experimental theatre and showbiz extravaganza, Busby Berkeley meets Ballet Rambert fired up with monster pop tunes. Pop music is supposed to be weird, sexy, silly and exciting and this show was all of that and more.

Madonna has survived so long in this fickle business because she loves what she does, and tonight it showed in her smile. I've been watching her live for four decades, and this may not have been her slickest or most spectacular - but her wacky joy in performance made it the most entertaining Madonna show ever.

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Madonna resumes her world tour in London after injury

By Mark Savage BBC music reporter

Madonna has resumed her Madame X world tour in London, after cancelling dates in Portugal and the UK due to injury.

The star took to the stage wearing knee supports but otherwise refused to make concessions to the "indescribable" pain she has recently been experiencing.

She performed high kicks, yoga poses and even the splits during a highly-polished, two-and-a-half-hour show.

And she told fans she was "happy to have made it" to the Palladium after scrapping her first UK show on Monday.

"How could I not do a show in London?" she added.

'Intervention'

The Palladium seats just 2,286 people - which made Wednesday night's show Madonna's smallest-ever full-length concert in the UK; and her first time on the West End since appearing in David Williamson's Up for Grabs in 2002.

It provided a chance, she said, for a more "intimate and thrilling" artistic experience.

As a result, the audience were required to store mobile phones in sealed pouches as "an intervention for us all". However, Madonna admitted that even she was getting anxious without a phone nearby.

"I'm having little panic attacks," she joked. "I'm like, 'Why is no-one taking my picture?'"

Image caption The concert focuses on traditional Portuguese music that Madonna discovered after moving to Lisbon

But the gambit worked: Freed from distractions, the audience gave the concert their undiluted attention; while Madonna seemed to relax and have fun without a phalanx of tiny cameras recording her every move.

At one point, she slipped into a British accent and recalled how she'd been ridiculed for developing similarly plummy vowels during her marriage to Guy Ritchie.

"I didn't know what anyone was talking about until I heard old interviews of myself," she said. "And then I was horrified and flabbergasted. Why did you let me do that to myself?

"It's all Guy Ritchie's fault," she decided. "He made me to it." (Perhaps because of the theatre setting, the crowd booed her ex like a pantomime villain).

Feel-good throwbacks

The off-the-cuff banter made Madonna, who's often been perceived as imperious and stand-offish, seem refreshingly accessible. But that looseness was often at odds with the heavily-conceptualised musical segments.

The heart of the show had to do with Madonna's life in Lisbon, where she moved in 2017 to support her son David's aspirations as a footballer ("yes, I'm a soccer mom," she accepted).

Uprooting the family wasn't easy, she said, and she struggled with loneliness until David gave her an ultimatum: "You're pathetic, you're chubby and you need some friends."

In Madonna's retelling, she found friendship and sustenance in Portugal's fado clubs, where "I took my loneliness and turned it into something good".

Traditional music percolated the show: Madonna rebuilt Isla Bonita in a fado style and covered Isabel De Oliveira's Fado Pechincha. During Batuka, she introduced the Orquestra Batukadeiras - a group of female hand-drummers from Cape Verde - one of whom danced with a bottle of rum balanced delicately on her head.

But Madonna being Madonna, there were also dancers in gas masks, nuns playing cellos, cameos from her children (NB: very cute) and urgent messages about school shootings and climate change.

Thematically, it was supposedly tied together by the character of Madame X, a secret agent / prisoner / cabaret singer / cha cha instructor / equestrian / prostitute - but the concept never quite gelled.

Instead, music was the unifying force - from the feel-good throwbacks of Vogue and Like A Prayer to more recent tracks like the gospel-infused Come Alive and I Don't Search I Find, which updates the deep house grooves of the Erotica era.

Fans attending the star's 13 remaining London shows will be pleased to learn she arrived on stage within 20 minutes of the advertised starting time, in contrast to the US leg of the tour, where audiences were often kept waiting for several hours.

"I've been warned by Westminster council," she confessed, adding that an "iron curtain" would fall over the production if she broke an 11pm curfew.

However, there will be lingering fears over the star's health, and the fate of future shows.

So far, 10 of the tour's 93 dates have been called off after the star was ordered to "step back" from performing by doctors.

"I have injuries that have plagued me since the beginning of the tour but I must always listen to my body and put my health first," she wrote on Instagram over the weekend, after cancelling the opening date of her residency at the Palladium.

Although she seemed in good spirits on Wednesday night's show, Madonna did admit things were "not good in the knee and the hips".

But she also made light of the injuries, after asking for a chair to be brought on stage during one of her monologues.

"Normally, I kneel for about 20 minutes here," she said, a gleam entering her eye.

"I've been told I'm very good at it."

Setlist

God Control

Dark Ballet

Human Nature

Express Yourself (a cappella)

Papa Don't Preach (string introduction)

Vogue

I Don't Search I Find

American Life

Batuka

Fado Pechincha (Isabel De Oliveira cover)

Killers Who Are Partying

Crazy

La Isla Bonita

Welcome To My Fado Club

Sodade (Cesária Évora cover)

Medellín

Extreme Occident

Rescue Me (Dance Interlude)

Frozen

Come Alive

Future

Like a Prayer

Encore: I Rise

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5/5 from NME

Madonna live in London: The Queen of Pop lets her guard down and it’s incredible

After cancelling a handful of shows – including two London dates – due to injury, Madonna has finally arrived at London’s Palladium for opening night. By her standards, it’s a ludicrously small venue. This lofty, gilded space has hosted a few other musical legends in its time – Frank Sinatra and The Beatles to name a couple – but in bringing her latest record ‘Madame X’ to life, Madonna takes the dramatic brief from a venue as well known for theatre as for music, and runs away with it.

Much like a theatre production, the gig is split into a number of different segments, and the ever adaptable Madame X – with her enterprising approach to the current jobs market – is the versatile thread running through. During opener ‘God Control’ she’s a fighter, dodging gunfire, and fighting off police officers with riot shields: “Death to the patriarchy,” she yells as they bundle off her into one of the set’s moving compartments.

In a surreal interlude she turns comedian and addresses the room from behind a doctor’s screen, cracking jokes about small penises, and pretending to give birth: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it’s like to have Mozart coming out of your pussy!” In the disco banger ‘I Don’t Search I Find’ she’s a spy under interrogation. And later on, she’s a cheerleader for Lisbon: kicking back in a blue-tiled fado bar for a reworking of ‘La Isla Bonita’, inviting all manner of new friends – including Cape Verde group Orquestra Batukadeiras – to join her on stage. During this last segment, Madonna is wide-eyed and awestruck; it’s clear that collaborating with these musicians is what really makes her tick.

At times, a little like the more ham-fisted moments of ‘Madame X’, the messaging can feel a bit overbearing. The world is going to shit, but Madonna really loves Portugal – this much is clear.

Continually, Madonna plays on the intimacy of the West End theatre, at one point marching into the audience in search of a spare seat. Cosying up next to a bemused fan, she takes a swig of his beer. “I’m about to drink your backwash!” she declares merrily. “Do you come to the theatre often?” Quite understandably, he’s lost for words.

At times, the affair feels like a pop panto: when Madonna appears in a resplendent feathery hat and her customary eye-patch, she could easily be mistaken for a knee-slapping Captain Hook. This only heightens as the superstar leads the Palladium through a chant of “One, two, cha, cha, cha” (from ‘Madame X’s lead single ‘Medellín’) later in the set, demanding they shout louder and louder. When a stage-hand brings out a chair, Madonna seizes the opportunity to reference her injury, while cracking a dirty joke. “Usually I kneel for it [this interlude] for like, 20 minutes,” she says. “I’m good at that, so I’ve been told”.

And the wisecracks keep coming. There’s a truly bizarre charity auction where Madonna takes a selfie onstage, and flogs the resulting polaroid to someone in the front row for a grand; when a man gets onto her stage and waves a wad of cash at her, she’s visibly fuming. “I don’t care,” she tells him, waving his money away. “You walked on my stage without permission”. As the whole chaotic saga finally draws to a close, £50 notes strewn across the stage, she sighs at her UK audience’s inability to close a deal efficiently. “Are you guys confused about Brexit?” she quips.

She also makes fun of herself, poking fun at her own inability to arrive on time (on the US leg of the tour, she was late multiple times – tonight she’s a mere 15 minutes behind). There’s even a niche remark about London’s noise curfews. “There’s an iron curtain…” she states, ominously. “I’ve been warned by Westminster Council”.

Largely centred on ‘Madame X’ tonight is light on the classics: there’s a snippet from ‘Express Yourself’, performed alongside her daughters Mercy, Stella and Estere. She sneaks in a brief flourish from ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ into an instrumental section. ‘American Life’, ‘Human Nature’ and an ever-so-slightly underwhelming ‘Vogue’ appear in full – the penultimate song is a thumping rendition of ‘Like A Prayer’. A minimal performance of ‘Frozen’ – Madonna seated behind a screen, a larger-than-life projection of her daughter Lourdes dancing around her – is the goosebump inducing moment of the night amid the visual overload.

As it happens, the production is so intricate and absorbing that you barely miss the more familiar tunes and numerous overlooked cuts from ‘Madame X’ – the self-referential ‘Crazy’ and sinister apocalypse banger ‘Future’ – seem to find their feet. For all of her dramatic personas on ‘Madame X’, tonight is largely about Madonna herself. By the end, it feels like we know her a lot better.

It’s strange to witness the Queen of Pop in this light. As disorientating as it feels, the tension of seeing an untouchable legend letting her guard down makes this show incredibly special. It also feels like a brave move from an artist who could do just about anything. Then again, risk-taking and reinvention is what makes Madonna an icon.

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And another 5/5 from BBC:

Madonna's new persona... stand-up comedian ★★★★★

"She is here, isn't she Will?", asked a worried looking man at the London Palladium at about 20:00 on Wednesday night. "Yes", I said. I didn't actually know for sure, but he looked so anxious I thought a bit of reassurance wouldn't go amiss. 

Anyway, the merch counter had just fallen over and there was a rising sense of calamity which didn't need adding to. 

Madonna goes deep with her fans. The connection is genuine and mutual. Nobody blames her for cancelling shows due to extreme pain in her knees and hips, people just hope it's not on their night (she has subsequently ruled out shows on 4 and 11 February).

"I feel so guilty," another fan told me. "My mates had tickets for Monday night, which was cancelled and I've just sent a WhatsApp of my seat tonight."

"Where are you sitting?" I asked

"Row U in the stalls," he said

"How much did you pay?" 

"£250" he said "Not bad eh? I think it's going to be great."

And it was - 5-star great. 

Not because the show was perfect, though. Madonna's movement was visibly stiff, lighting errors left dancers in the dark, and some of her banter fell flat. All of which only added to the "live-ness" of the event, which was more an evening of intimate cabaret than a stadium blockbuster show.

It was perfectly imperfect, like one of those sketchy landscapes by Cezanne where you can see his underdrawings and misplaced lines, making it so much more beautiful and real than Canaletto's soulless precision. 

Truth is the point of art, not perfection. 

Getting to it sometimes means removing the artifice, or strapping it on. Madonna's schtick has always been the latter. 

She's a post-modernist right down to her kinky boots, adopting superficial personas and cultural influences. She is the Cindy Sherman of pop, the chameleon Queen with a debt to the shape-shifting aesthetics of David Bowie.

This time around, though, Madonna has let the mask slip. 

There's still a character for her to hide behind (Madame X, a dominatrix type cliche sporting an eye-patch and padded pants), with its usual mix of the sacred and the profane (she is both a prostitute and a nun). But she constantly undermines her own illusion just as Cezanne did with his fidgety, cross-hatched lines. 

One minute she is the all-singing, all-dancing Madame X, inhabiting a vividly theatrical world embellished with huge projections. The next she has stepped beyond her own fourth wall to have a chummy chat with the locals. It's improv, kind of. The audience interaction is a pre-conceived element of the show, but her spiel is site-specific, and her responses spontaneous. 

The artist was present in every sense.

Sometimes it worked. 

Sometimes she went on for a too long, leading to the occasional "get on with it". And sometimes it was awkward: "Does anyone have a spare seat I could sit in?" she asked (scripted).

A chap near the front put his hand up. Madonna gingerly stepped down from the stage for a tete-a-tete. She's fine, he's star-struck. Beer is swigged (scripted). To no avail. His tongue has tied itself into a knot so tight no amount of liquor is going to loosen it. A stilted conversation ensues (unscripted). 

Nobody minds. Madonna's doing stand-up. We're in the room. She is with us, of us, not some distant star on a faraway stage performing a risk-free romp through back catalogue favourites with a few numbers from the latest album thrown in to help sales. 

The Madame X Tour is an adventurous piece of contemporary theatre, and a match for any of the Tony and Olivier-winning shows currently playing the West End and Broadway. 

It starts with a Hitchcockian scene. Madonna is stage right, in profile: seated, visible only as a silhouette behind a translucent curtain. She is typing. Slowly. A gunshot rings out every time she strikes a key, provoking a robotic movement made by a single besuited dancer standing in front of the curtain, stage left.

Text is projected on high as the dancer contorts his body under a hail of literary bullets, most fired decades ago by James Baldwin, one of America's finest post-war writers. His words "Artists are here to disturb the peace" appear as an epigraph. 

He is right. Up to a point. Which is about 23:00 for Westminster City Council, according to our celebrated hostess. She told us an iron curtain would be dropped if she went on beyond its stipulated curfew.

The diaphanous fabric lifts, Madonna struts, the stage is set, and the show proper begins with God Control. The audience goes nuts ("I should have done this years ago," says the singer as an aside), as the steps and structures revolve and animate. 

Dark Ballet comes next in a show built around her recent Madame X Album. The smattering of old favourites stitched into its fabric have been incorporated so elegantly as to make them feel an essential part of the whole rather than crowd-pleasing add-ons.

And so it is with Human Nature, which follows and resolves in a seated scene that doubles up as a rest for the star and a witty nod for the die-hards towards the famous 1995 video directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. 

Then comes some "Hello London" repartee before an a cappella version of Express Yourself. 

It's good, and it gets better. 

A string introduction to Papa Don't Preach segues into a sophisticated rendition of Vogue performed in a striking, angular, black and white design. 

Not all the creative decisions are made so astutely. There's an ill-advised, wince-inducing vignette, which sees Madonna launching into a "let's wind back the years" routine involving an upside-down-splits topped-off with toe wiggle. I felt a tweak in my own groin - and not in a good way. 

Fortunately for Madame X, and us, such moments are few and far between. This show is designed (and constantly redesigned) around the 61-year-old's physical condition. Dancers help her on and off pianos, chairs and steps. You can sense her frustration at her body's restricted ability, but she can still hit the beats better than most. 

Plus, her team of dancers are fantastic. They excel under Megan Lawson's choreographic vision, which appears to riff on a revered contemporary dance cannon including such notables as Pina Bausch's The Rite of Spring, Hofesh Shechter's Sun, and Michael Jackson's moon walk.

The heart and soul of the show is provided by Madonna's newly found love: the evocative sound of the Fado musicians she discovered in her current home city of Lisbon. 

That, and the wonderful female Batuque singers from Cape Verde, an African archipelago once colonised by the Portuguese who took an unfavourable view of their traditional music.

The star's show is infused with her love of Fado music, which originated in Portugal around the 1820s, and is known for being deeply melancholic

The show ends with a full-bodied version of Like a Prayer, which leads into an encore of Madame X's protest song, I Rise. 

Which we all did as a visibly delighted Madonna led her merry band of players out of the auditorium and off into the night (or the physio's bench).

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Madonna review – chutzpah, spy chic and revolutionary zeal

4 Stars
A heady riot of bangers and spectacular dance moves, the first night of Madonna’s West End residency is worth the hefty ticket price

White port and willpower make for quite a cocktail. About halfway through tonight’s two-hour set, the first of 14 in London, Madonna takes a break on top of a baby grand piano. She drains a glass of the Douro region’s finest export – “sipping my pain just like champagne”, perhaps, as per the lyrics of Medellin, a song from her last album, Madame X.

Madonna grew fond of white port when she first moved to Lisbon, where her footballing son, David, enrolled in Benfica’s youth academy three years ago, and tonight it combines very well with Madonna’s steely self-possession. Forget the overplayed G&T boom – a little fortified wine allows the embattled singer to deliver a knockout show, full of stagecraft and chutzpah, spy chic and revolutionary zeal, in spite of well-publicised limitations.

The first night of this London residency was pulled because doctors once again ordered her to rest. It was the latest in a series of missed shows as the Madame X tour has wound its way through theatre venues in North America and Lisbon, often into the small hours. A friend who went to see her in Los Angeles reported the venue was Bikram-hot, presumably to keep Madonna’s muscles supple.

Tonight, this dancer turned singer shows she can still bust out some spectacular moves. Madonna does a handstand in a circular nook, gets dragged and thrown around by her dancers, and kneels down at the front of the stage to take a Polaroid of herself and count up wads of cash. Only because this is Madonna – her commitment to perpetual motion has always matched her desire to rattle the cage of the Catholic church – do you notice the absence of high heels and the pared-back legwork. How to get down from the piano, with a dodgy knee, a sub-par hip and a mild port high? A dancer tips up the piano lid and Madonna slides off, grinning. Another workaround: for Frozen, a slow-burner about emotional constipation from 1998’s Ray of Light album, Madonna sings as her eldest daughter, Lourdes, does the dancing for her, via a video projection.

The wine rush seems to make Madonna even more garrulous. These theatre shows have been designed for greater intimacy, a way to deliver the politics and world bops of her actually very good Madame X album less bombastically than in an arena. There is a lot of audience interaction, not least when Madonna plonks herself down next to a poor soul from Sardinia and unconscionably mocks him for sourcing interior design fabrics. The Polaroid auction for charity is crass and weird, as Madonna fields cash offers from a couple of bidders who have already forked out for stall seats, one of whom climbs on stage and receives a tongue-lashing.

She can combine a girl crush on Joan of Arc with a meditation about the death of American influence globally

Mostly, though, the proximity is intoxicating – the singer-percussionists of the Orquestra Batukadeiras join Madonna for the rousing, Cape Verde-themed Batuka filing in through the stalls. At the end, everyone – musicians, dancers – sashays out through the stalls too. If the seat prices are ridiculous (£140 is typical, peaking with VIP packages at around £1,000), the sense of occasion is only heightened by the absence of mobiles, safely tucked away in Faraday pouches. “How come no one’s taking my picture?” Madonna jokes, then confides: “I consider this an intervention for all of us.”

There are roughly 20 songs in the set, but some of the chitchat almost deserves equal billing with bangers such as the deathlessly wonderful Vogue and Like a Prayer, and a restyled version of La Isla Bonita (“a Portuguese lullaby”), the song that first crystallised Madonna’s now on-trend Latinate bent.

“I’m now going to use my British accent,” Madonna announces, primly. She was, she says, aghast listening back to interviews from her London years. “Why did you let me do that to myself? I’m from Michigan!” A notoriously tardy diva, Madonna refers repeatedly to a warning from Westminster council to bring down the nine-ton fire curtain if she breaks curfew. We learn that David supports Tottenham.

Underneath all the topspin, the show itself is strong. Somehow, Madonna can talk about gun control – in the arresting opener, God Control – and how she learned about Portuguese fado from the late fadista Celeste Rodrigues without grinding gears. A 16-year-old Portuguese guitarist joins Madonna on stage for an impressive attempt at the dramatic Portuguese folk form. (The audience convinces Madonna that it’s perfectly legal for him to have a swig of beer afterwards.) If anything, Madonna’s voice has only improved with the years.

She can combine a girl crush on Joan of Arc – the song Dark Ballet, played out via a Coldplay-like penchant for revolutionary uniforms – with an extended meditation about the death of American influence in the international sphere. Hard-won self-actualisation is juxtaposed with smut, Moroccan gnawa with a Japanese viola player on Come Alive. The narrative line throughout is that Madame X – Madonna’s latest incarnation – is an international woman of mystery, travelling around from Kingston to Angola to Medellin.

Little mentioned in gig reports thus far is the excellent lighting work and shadow-play, particularly when shadowy hands assail Madonna in her circular nook. Dancers frequently carry a star’s costume change interlude, but the section tonight when nine dancers spasm to some beats created out of gasps was so intense you wish it had gone on longer.

The use of images of the typewritten word is trenchant throughout. A long intro repeatedly hammers the words of US writer James Baldwin into the consciousness: “Art is here to prove that safety is an illusion.” The letters clack out, resembling pistol cracks, and a rubber-boned dancer falls repeatedly to the ground as more gunshots ring out. The beats of the letters become the percussion to songs. This rat-a-tat may have begun as part of the tour’s retro spy-game styling, but it also supports the witness-bearing of writers and journalists.

Clearly, Madonna is a member of the 1%, and her outrage at environmental crimes sits uneasily with a jet-set lifestyle. But her treatment of the issues is full of believable anger; her proactive and progressive grandstanding dates back to the 80s. On Killers Who Are Partying, in the wake of Donald Trump’s nominal Middle East peace deal, she sings the line “I will be Palestine” – a change from the usual “Israel” lyric. It prompts a shiver-inducing cheer.

One of the finest songs on Madame X is Extreme Occident, a mature assessment of a very female state of being: being told what she is or isn’t. “I wasn’t lost,” sings Madonna, “I was right”. Perhaps most of all, this Madame X tour is an advert for trusting one’s own instincts, however contradictory and eclectic they may be.

• At London Palladium until 16 Feb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7959421/Madonna-61-cheekily-pulls-tongues-leaves-concert.html

'She's in a league of her own': Madonna, 61, wows fans despite her knee injury as she cheekily sticks her tongue out following concert at the London Palladium

By CHARLOTTE DEAN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 19:19 EST, 2 February 2020 | UPDATED: 05:39 EST, 3 February 2020

Madonna appeared in high spirits as she cheekily stuck her tongue out while leaving her concert at the London Palladium on Sunday evening.

The singer, 61, has performed a series of concerts at the popular venue, with fans taking to social media to praise the show. 

Madonna was spotted exiting the theatre following her latest performance, days after taking to Instagram to announce that two more of her shows in the capital had been called off on doctors' orders.

High spirits! Madonna appeared in high spirits as she cheekily stuck her tongue out while leaving her concert at the London Palladium on Sunday evening.

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In the post Madonna revealed that she was already undergoing six hours of rehabilitation a day in a bid to recover from her serious injury.

Madonna was bundled up in a cosy black jacket as she headed back to her hotel after another energetic performance. 

The singer's London shows have gone down well with her legions of fans with many taking to social media to praise the star.

One wrote: 'The reviews for Madame X at the Palladium are overwhelmingly positive. It's easy to knock Madonna and she doesn't always make it easy to be a fan sometimes... but she really is in a league of her own.' [sic]

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