Madame X Tour Reviews

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Dazzling and nonsensical in equal measure: Madonna at the London Palladium reviewed

You might have thought Madonna was not a singer but a professional footballer judging by the talk before she took to the stage at the Palladium last Wednesday night. She’d missed ten out of 93 appearances, and she’d been picking up the kind of niggling injuries — would her knees stand up to the strains of a long, hard season? How’s her hip? — associated with hard-running midfielders. Just as in the Premier League, there were gripes about ticket prices — go on Ticketmaster and they range from £69 to £511.50 (yes, there are tickets available throughout the run; you’ve got until 16 February to see her). The only thing missing was burly blokes in the crowd showering those around them with spittle as they bellowed, ‘Second ball, Madonna! Win the bloody second ball!’

In the event, she missed her London debut on the last Monday of January, and so what was meant to be the second night became the first. And you’ve never seen such a peculiar thing in your life: the Madame X show was dazzling and nonsensical in equal measure, an arena production crammed into a theatre, where half-baked politics and seaside-postcard bawdiness sat side by side (think of it as The End of Wigan Pier), and where every moment of brilliance, of which there were several, was then neutralised by momentum-sapping interludes as the stage was reset or Madonna interacted with the crowd (which didn’t work, because the fans she interacted with were plainly so gobsmacked at being allowed to address Her Majesty that they literally couldn’t think of anything to say).

The high points were so high, though. Her 1998 single ‘Frozen’ — a dark and strange and mysterious thing even as it was a smash hit — was slightly musically recast to dispense with the drum’n’bass-ish rhythms that now date it a little. On a translucent screen, her daughter Lourdes danced and writhed in giant form, mimicking the original video, while behind Madonna appeared wreathed in darkness, as if suspended in mid-air. It was an astounding staging for a quite brilliant song, and the link between mother and daughter gave it true emotional heft. Tracks from the slightly underwhelming Madame X album made up most of the show, and the best of them gained new life: ‘Crazy’, in which Madonna returned to her time-honoured theme of refusing to be anyone’s puppet — slapping away the hands of the male dancers trying to grope her — was dramatic and compelling.

But the very nature of the show exposed the weaknesses of the worst of them. I tend not to have sympathy for those who sneer at Emma Thompson, or whoever, for flying to climate protests — we’re all hypocrites in one way or another, as any law’n’order zealot who goes above 70 should accept. But there was something jarring about Madonna singing ‘Killers Who Are Partying’ to people who had paid 500 quid a ticket: ‘I will be poor, if the poor are humiliated/ And I’ll be a child, if the children are exploited.’ Maybe the solidarity would count for more if the poor could afford to get in?

You can expect to see more of this kind of show in the coming years, where the big star checks in to a small room for extended runs at bank account-emptying prices. Bruce Springsteen’s 236-show run on Broadway grossed $113 million across 2017 and 2018, and Madonna’s promoter, Arthur Fogel of Live Nation, told me last year, discussing the Madame X tour: ‘I think the Springsteen run has opened up people to that potential.’ Thirty-five years ago Madonna and Springsteen were sparring at the top of the charts. Now they’re inventing new ways for superstars to play live. And still making fortunes.

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Madonna furious as London Palladium ‘censors’ her by dropping curtain and shutting off sound before end of live show

Madonna has reacted with fury after London Palladium dropped the curtain and shut the sound off before the end of her live show on Wednesday night (5 February).

The singer posted a video of the show on her Instagram page, in which she can be heard shouting, “Censorship. Motherf***ing censorship. Artists are here to disturb the peace. F*** you,” as the curtain falls.

Alongside the video, Madonna wrote: “It was 5 minutes past our 11:00 curfew – we had one more song to do and The Palladium decided to censor us by pulling down the metal fire curtain that weighs 9 tons."

She added: "Fortunately they stopped it half way and no one was hurt.............. Many Thanks to the entire Audience who did not move and never left us. Power to The People!! #Irise #ongod #madamextheatre #thelondonpalladium.”

Fans who were at the gig have tweeted about the show, saying Palladium staff turned the lights off and shut off the sound, leaving Madonna to argue with them before returning to the stage to sing “I Rise” with an unplugged microphone.

Madonna has cancelled numerous dates in her sold-out Madame X tour, with the star suffering from an unspecified injury that she said has been causing her “overwhelming pain”.

Her first show at the Palladium was awarded four stars by The Independent’s critic Kate Hutchinson, who called the concert an “eyeball-twisting audiovisual assault”.

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From BBC.com(link below):

Madonna has claimed the London Palladium tried to "censor" her by cutting short a concert after she ran over her curfew on Wednesday.

The singer was performing her Madame X show when the lights and sound were switched off and the curtain closed as she went past her 23:00 GMT deadline.

Madonna shared a video on Instagram, which showed her trying to sing her final song in front of the curtain.

The Palladium had warned her not to break the strict curfew.

The pop superstar is in the middle of a residency at the venue.

She wrote: "It was 5 minutes past our 11:00 curfew, we had one more song to do and The Palladium decided to censor us by pulling down the metal fire curtain that weighs nine tonnes.

"Fortunately they stopped it half way and no one was hurt. Many thanks to the entire audience who did not move and never left us. Power to the people!!"

The venue denied that staff had used the fire curtain, but did not directly comment on the show being cut short.

"Contrary to a number of reports, at no point during last night's performance did staff at The London Palladium pull down, or attempt to pull down, the Iron Fire Curtain," a spokesman said.

The video footage appeared to confirm that it was the main cloth curtains which were used closed, rather than the iron fire curtain.

Madonna emerged from the closed curtain with her backing dancers as the crowd chanted her name. She performed her final song, I Rise, with the house lights turned up and her microphone switched off.

"I've been warned by Westminster council," she told the audience during the first night at the London venue last week, adding that she knew an "iron curtain" would fall over the production if she ran late.

Previous shows in the US have run considerably later than the London dates, with fans often kept waiting for several hours.

One fan wrote on Twitter: "Madonna just got cut off mid song by the Palladium curtain dropping and the lights coming up as she overran the curfew. Glorious moment. She finished the show a cappella in front of the curtain like a champ!"

Another said: "So not only did we finally see the utterly iconic Madonna live but she missed the curfew and the Palladium shut the lights and sound off. As the curtains fell, Madonna and her dancers stormed back onto the stage and sang I Rise a cappella backed by the audience."

Madonna has previously cancelled 10 of the 93 dates on the Madame X tour due to injury.