The Celebration Tour (Spoilers)

[Future Lover 1,010]

20 minutes ago, McDonna said:

Who is really bitching though? Most people have enjoyed what they've seen. Of course, there will be a few that have other wishes, but right now very few people are bitching.

Doesn't really take many whiners to spoil fun, though does it?

There's been plenty of bitching here, on Twitter, on Reddit, and other pop forums. And most of the complaining is over really, really pendantic stuff. I'm all in support of criticism of things, I engage in it myself. But so much of the negative responses to things tonight all across the various fan connection points hasn't been criticism, it's just been outright dismissal and whining without an ounce of thought put into it. 

[Glassy24 992]

Bad Girl was great!

[dankpepe 1,042]

9 minutes ago, Future Lover said:

Doesn't really take many whiners to spoil fun, though does it?

There's been plenty of bitching here, on Twitter, on Reddit, and other pop forums. And most of the complaining is over really, really pendantic stuff. I'm all in support of criticism of things, I engage in it myself. But so much of the negative responses to things tonight all across the various fan connection points hasn't been criticism, it's just been outright dismissal and whining without an ounce of thought put into it. 

I'm not really seeing any bad reviews. Sure fans like us will critique different things for the purpose of discussion, but overall on all the forums, I'm seeing great reviews

[Redha DBL 7,348]

15 minutes ago, Burning Up 4 Madonna said:

I think she is just wearing the padding to give us something to argue about lmao

Yeah obviously ! Her body look perfectly fine 

 

[Voguerista 11,815]

43 minutes ago, McDonna said:

Exactly.  It's crazy how these visuals can further excite us.

With every tour, I have loved performances more so than I ever expected to. She always surprises. She is such an innovator too in some way. Sure, there are some kinks to work out, but, it’s expected especially working with new technology. I have no doubt they’ll get everything worked out. 

[Lucas B. 831]

38 minutes ago, Glassy24 said:

Bad Girl was great!

Finally my fav song of hers is having justice after 30 years

[diesel6888 1,582]

2 hours ago, Gutten said:

I like NRM but the music sounds cheap AF

The music was anything but cheap lol! The fact they are basically the original song versions or 12" mixes is incredible...

[Future Lover 1,010]

33 minutes ago, dankpepe said:

I'm not really seeing any bad reviews. Sure fans like us will critique different things for the purpose of discussion, but overall on all the forums, I'm seeing great reviews

Overall it has been very positive. It's just really hard to look over the abject stupidity getting spewed in between the plaudits in Madonna fan spaces around ATRL, Reddit, and the like. Not a majority by any means, but a minority that is talking loudly about it. 

[Glassy24 992]

OMG she acknowledged ANGEL! I can die happy, even with that 10 second interlude haha.

[stefo 6,388]

... but I really really need a proper video of the Erotica - Bad girl part and of Die another day!!!

Nothing really matters and Vogue are wonderful and Live to tell (with the interesting transition from the joy of Holiday), Like a prayer and Ray of light are perfectly staged. Very cute Open your heart, Don't tell me and Mother and father. Bedtime story is thought for a wonderful video rendition and Rain unfortunately was not valorized. All the dancy part doesn't work for me and the guitar moment would be better with tracks like Secret or Rebel Heart, instead of I will survive and La isla bonita. I'd like to understand what kind of problem this woman has with trousers and skirts.

The peak is the Dita appearence ... as always.

[cyberrage 405]

2 hours ago, Shoful said:

Us Erotica fans WON this tour. She better keep Bad Girl on the setlist until i see it

Very happy with it musically, I guess boxing can be sexy to some, problematic really. Weird for erotica. Would have worked better with give it to me and a story woven in about all the times she has been counted as down and out and fought back

[cyberrage 405]

40 minutes ago, stefo said:

... but I really really need a proper video of the Erotica - Bad girl part and of Die another day!!!

Nothing really matters and Vogue are wonderful and Live to tell (with the interesting transition from the joy of Holiday), Like a prayer and Ray of light are perfectly staged. Very cute Open your heart, Don't tell me and Mother and father. Bedtime story is thought for a wonderful video rendition and Rain unfortunately was not valorized. All the dancy part doesn't work for me and the guitar moment would be better with tracks like Secret or Rebel Heart, instead of I will survive and La isla bonita. I'd like to understand what kind of problem this woman has with trousers and skirts.

The pic is the Dita appearence ... as always.

 

[cyberrage 405]

51 minutes ago, Glassy24 said:

OMG she acknowledged ANGEL! I can die happy, even with that 10 second interlude haha.

Missed that, what section?

[dankpepe 1,042]

2 minutes ago, cyberrage said:

Missed that, what section?

At the end around the 3:00 mark

[cyberrage 405]

8 minutes ago, dankpepe said:

At the end around the 3:00 mark

Missed that when l fast forwarded the MJ bit, love the league of their own nod as well 

[Alibaba 1,519]

Yeah…it’s me, one of the novel writers! Scroll on if you don’t have the patience or interest. 😂

 

As I scrolled through comments here and elsewhere, I noticed a good few that were simply callous, dismissive and more a reflection of whatever misery resides in the commenter’s mind, and perhaps a nod to their total disenfranchisement as “consumers”. I think the culture in which we live post-social media has rendered people impossible to please, vicious and in constant search of the negative. It’s a social disease, and many people have it. Enjoy your misery - and if you’re triggered by this being said, you know it’s on you!
 

To put the experience of opening night into context, I’d like to share that I remember seeing Sticky and Sweet in Cardiff fourteen years ago, and I found the show underwhelming. With time, Madonna loosened up, and by the time I saw her back home in the US she was commanding that stage with aplomb and gusto. I believe this can be said of her initial performances throughout her years of touring. 

It’s clear that Madonna is somewhat limited in movement by injury, and whether or not her choreography has been adjusted to accommodate this will eventually become clear if she manages to recover while touring. 

All that said, she looks amazing! She’s 65. Most people 20 years her junior would look ridiculous doing what she is doing here, and yet she looks an absolute powerhouse. I saw a lot of vulnerability in her performance this evening. I don’t know if that will stay as prevalent as her confidence increases. Let’s not forget this is her first global tour since having not only a near fatal health crisis, but also significant hip and knee surgeries. She is bound to be uncomfortable. She also has the scrutiny of haters en masse to contend with when committing to exposing herself publicly for all to see night after night! She’s been ridiculed constantly for years, and so I can only imagine the amount of inner work she must do to prepare herself for this type of experience! 
 

As for the flow of the show, I think we need to see it in person and observe everything that is being conveyed before making assessments about what is superfluous and what is lacking. Maybe it’s a work in progress to be fine tuned in the coming shows, but Madonna isn’t dumb. She doesn’t commit herself to projects of this scale mindlessly! There is a narrative. Maybe you’re just not seeing it yet! The audacity of anyone to question her vision as if she’s some bar singer who is taking to the arena stage for the first time! It’s not up to any of us to say what should or shouldn’t  be done in her show. That’s a matter of personal preference, and we established long ago that it is impossible for Madonna to fully please even a large minority of her hardcore fans. It’s not a conventional Madonna show. It’s not a conventional show on any level. The power of suggestion along with negative feedback creates a loop of ugliness. It happens on here and on other platforms all the time. It’s like needing to put down your phone. It requires a type of self-discipline to not feed into it or have your point of view altered by it. As previously stated in another post, it is one thing to offer a critique (and if you want to make it interesting and worthwhile you have to use your intellect and knowledge), but to be immediately focused on her ass, the songs she didn’t perform, the parts you didn’t like…it’s just lazy in my opinion. I have to accept it, and unfortunately I often get caught up in reading it, but for the record, and I will put it in CAPS for emphasis:

I AM SO PROUD TO BE A MADONNA FAN TODAY. I AM PROUD OF HER; HER TENACITY, HER VISION, AND HER LEGACY. 
 

This tour probably won’t be able to match the cultural impact of its 80s, 90s and 00s predecessors because it is totally retrospective. To me, it serves as a reminder of the fragility of life within the construct of time. In this way, I found there was a kinship with The Girlie Show; something ironically uncelebratory lurks throughout the show. Maybe that’s inevitable given the brush with death Madonna had earlier this year and the general malaise in the world as it stands today. That said, there is a warmth to it that I found lacking on Rebel Heart and Madame X. A sense of the transcendent, I guess. The fast pace of the setlist in order to fit more songs in is a little jarring, but we also live in a time when the average pop song is no longer than 2.5 minutes, and so it may also be that this is a throughly modern approach that we aren’t comfortable with because we come from a time when the longer a song was, the deeper it went! That’s my take, anyway. 
 

I didn’t expect to be mesmerized by the livestreams today, especially when the first one showed the ceiling more than anything else and was accompanied by some of the most classic fan “vocals” my ears have ever had the displeasure of experiencing, but there were obvious showstoppers, even rendered in poor quality…NRM, Live To Tell and Bad Girl come to mind. I realized in seeing many other fan videos that Madonna makes references to past performances and videos (Open Your Heart, for example) that I didn’t see in the live stream. I imagine there’s a lot of these moments, and so I am very much looking forward to eventually seeing all this up close and in the flesh! 
 

I’ve read a lot of speculation about her vocals. “Is she singing live? Is the entire show mimed?” 
It seems quite obvious to me from any of the videos from the floor audience that she is singing live. You can hear when she’s relying heavily on the backing track, but it seems like there’s some technology being used to blend her voice better with the track vocals. The only exception to this for me was Everybody, which was just too obvious because the original vocal is too girlish for her now. To anyone questioning if she’s singing live, she even messed up the vocals on a couple of occasions…Bad Girl for example. I think she’s in fine voice for the most part, but she did sound a little croaky and strained on some songs…I don’t remember exactly which ones, but I think Vogue was one of them. She definitely doesn’t have ease with her higher register anymore, and that’s just fine. They’ve done a great job of choosing and arranging the songs to suit her comfort. 
 

FINALLY, THIS IS DEFINITELY A SHOW THAT NEEDS TO BE PRO SHOT LIKE BLOND AMBITION IN TRUTH OR DARE! 
 

🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

[Markdonna 692]

Wow, I didn’t realize that she danced her way through Justify My Love and then sang a bit of Fever for good measure.  I thought this portion of the show was all a video.  Pretty crazy. We get Fever too!!  What a crazy fun show for Erotica fans…

[Markdonna 692]

I really gotta laugh how some are bitching about how the audio of the show is … when here we are all basically watching bootleg videos shot on iPhones for the most part.

;)

[Confessions Lightside 2,131]

"What's the worst thing of being famous then?"
"That you have to answer stupid questions."
LMAOOOOOOO

[litemakr 1,890]

Good video coverage of the full show here:

https://www.youtube.com/@neil2010uk/videos

 

[cyberrage 405]

4 minutes ago, Markdonna said:

I really gotta laugh how some are bitching about how the audio of the show is … when here we are all basically watching bootleg videos shot on iPhones for the most part.

;)

It was phenomenal to be able to watch a live stream and listen to the entire opening show from the other side of the world down here in Melbourne. Got to keep quality in context and be grateful, plenty of better quality stuff up now

l loved the tech issues section, that was the story telling l hoped was going to feature throughout

[BuggedOut 4,121]

32 minutes ago, Alibaba said:

Yeah…it’s me, one of the novel writers! Scroll on if you don’t have the patience or interest. 😂

 

As I scrolled through comments here and elsewhere, I noticed a good few that were simply callous, dismissive and more a reflection of whatever misery resides in the commenter’s mind, and perhaps a nod to their total disenfranchisement as “consumers”. I think the culture in which we live post-social media has rendered people impossible to please, vicious and in constant search of the negative. It’s a social disease, and many people have it. Enjoy your misery - and if you’re triggered by this being said, you know it’s on you!
 

To put the experience of opening night into context, I’d like to share that I remember seeing Sticky and Sweet in Cardiff fourteen years ago, and I found the show underwhelming. With time, Madonna loosened up, and by the time I saw her back home in the US she was commanding that stage with aplomb and gusto. I believe this can be said of her initial performances throughout her years of touring. 

It’s clear that Madonna is somewhat limited in movement by injury, and whether or not her choreography has been adjusted to accommodate this will eventually become clear if she manages to recover while touring. 

All that said, she looks amazing! She’s 65. Most people 20 years her junior would look ridiculous doing what she is doing here, and yet she looks an absolute powerhouse. I saw a lot of vulnerability in her performance this evening. I don’t know if that will stay as prevalent as her confidence increases. Let’s not forget this is her first global tour since having not only a near fatal health crisis, but also significant hip and knee surgeries. She is bound to be uncomfortable. She also has the scrutiny of haters en masse to contend with when committing to exposing herself publicly for all to see night after night! She’s been ridiculed constantly for years, and so I can only imagine the amount of inner work she must do to prepare herself for this type of experience! 
 

As for the flow of the show, I think we need to see it in person and observe everything that is being conveyed before making assessments about what is superfluous and what is lacking. Maybe it’s a work in progress to be fine tuned in the coming shows, but Madonna isn’t dumb. She doesn’t commit herself to projects of this scale mindlessly! There is a narrative. Maybe you’re just not seeing it yet! The audacity of anyone to question her vision as if she’s some bar singer who is taking to the arena stage for the first time! It’s not up to any of us to say what should or shouldn’t  be done in her show. That’s a matter of personal preference, and we established long ago that it is impossible for Madonna to fully please even a large minority of her hardcore fans. It’s not a conventional Madonna show. It’s not a conventional show on any level. The power of suggestion along with negative feedback creates a loop of ugliness. It happens on here and on other platforms all the time. It’s like needing to put down your phone. It requires a type of self-discipline to not feed into it or have your point of view altered by it. As previously stated in another post, it is one thing to offer a critique (and if you want to make it interesting and worthwhile you have to use your intellect and knowledge), but to be immediately focused on her ass, the songs she didn’t perform, the parts you didn’t like…it’s just lazy in my opinion. I have to accept it, and unfortunately I often get caught up in reading it, but for the record, and I will put it in CAPS for emphasis:

I AM SO PROUD TO BE A MADONNA FAN TODAY. I AM PROUD OF HER; HER TENACITY, HER VISION, AND HER LEGACY. 
 

This tour probably won’t be able to match the cultural impact of its 80s, 90s and 00s predecessors because it is totally retrospective. To me, it serves as a reminder of the fragility of life within the construct of time. In this way, I found there was a kinship with The Girlie Show; something ironically uncelebratory lurks throughout the show. Maybe that’s inevitable given the brush with death Madonna had earlier this year and the general malaise in the world as it stands today. That said, there is a warmth to it that I found lacking on Rebel Heart and Madame X. A sense of the transcendent, I guess. The fast pace of the setlist in order to fit more songs in is a little jarring, but we also live in a time when the average pop song is no longer than 2.5 minutes, and so it may also be that this is a throughly modern approach that we aren’t comfortable with because we come from a time when the longer a song was, the deeper it went! That’s my take, anyway. 
 

I didn’t expect to be mesmerized by the livestreams today, especially when the first one showed the ceiling more than anything else and was accompanied by some of the most classic fan “vocals” my ears have ever had the displeasure of experiencing, but there were obvious showstoppers, even rendered in poor quality…NRM, Live To Tell and Bad Girl come to mind. I realized in seeing many other fan videos that Madonna makes references to past performances and videos (Open Your Heart, for example) that I didn’t see in the live stream. I imagine there’s a lot of these moments, and so I am very much looking forward to eventually seeing all this up close and in the flesh! 
 

I’ve read a lot of speculation about her vocals. “Is she singing live? Is the entire show mimed?” 
It seems quite obvious to me from any of the videos from the floor audience that she is singing live. You can hear when she’s relying heavily on the backing track, but it seems like there’s some technology being used to blend her voice better with the track vocals. The only exception to this for me was Everybody, which was just too obvious because the original vocal is too girlish for her now. To anyone questioning if she’s singing live, she even messed up the vocals on a couple of occasions…Bad Girl for example. I think she’s in fine voice for the most part, but she did sound a little croaky and strained on some songs…I don’t remember exactly which ones, but I think Vogue was one of them. She definitely doesn’t have ease with her higher register anymore, and that’s just fine. They’ve done a great job of choosing and arranging the songs to suit her comfort. 
 

FINALLY, THIS IS DEFINITELY A SHOW THAT NEEDS TO BE PRO SHOT LIKE BLOND AMBITION IN TRUTH OR DARE! 
 

🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵

Beautifully said.

[Ekans 933]

Wow I loved it! A few random thoughts:

- opening was a blast! I don’t think anybody was expecting her to start NRM like 10 seconds after Bob stopped talking

- love that she did Into The Hollywood Groove as it is my favorite version of ITG! That chorus is much richer and I loved the remix (Stuart you are a god and you know it)

- loved LAP and the circling human iced birthday cake, it had a dark tone that I appreciated a lot (I could use a longer LAP tho)

- Erotica up to Bad Girl was an incredible moment. Having Erotica as one of my favorite M albums that act was fabulous, I think my favorite moment in the show

- I’m dying to see better quality videos of DAD because it looked fantastic

- missed the bridges of LIB and Rain

- I wish she didn’t lip to her original album vocals at some parts like Erotica, JML and Everybody… rerecording new vocals and dubbing to them would be fresher

- I think I need less Bob. But I understand why she chose to give a drag so much highlight in the show given all the prejudice they’ve been facing in the US lately (and of course to honor the role of drag art in history of voguing and even modern pop music)

- the last song was definitely… a last song. What the hell was that lol hopefully it was because of the curfew

I noticed that she is moving a bit less compared to last tours but that is SO reasonable. It is a smart move in order to preserve her health and her hips. Nevertheless I loved all her dancing moments. Loved also that the show structure is different from her previous tours (4 song act-interlude-4 song act-interlude-4 song act-interlude etc). Felt more… fluid? Also I really missed a band. And Rescue Me. Still an incredible show that I would pay huge amounts of money to see. Come to Brasil pls

@Dazedmadonna could you please give us some more insights about the rehearsals? I would love to know more about songs that were rehearsed but cut (like that entirely scrapped act for example)

[EgoRod 5,449]

I think the discussion and confabulations during months had created some ideas in people and they were open for disappointment.

There's a story-line and storytelling, as she clearly says using her music. There's lots of references to so many iconic moments in her career and so many we can't see. Like the futuristic part with ROL mix and Bedtime Stories, that's for me is Veronica Electronica.

Bringing Vogue to the ballroom scene after being criticized of stealing from it. The whole Erotic-Fever- BA Like A virgin moment is lush.

So many figures that were important for her featured in one or another way.

And whatever people wants to make of the MJ part. He was considered the King of pop while she was the Queen, he was a referential for her and she felt like she couldn't gave him proper farewell. I personally don't care much for MJ but is her story and I can see the value, it was a  nice take (with the Angel bit included)

I was'nt expecting a panto show and the more I see about this one the more excited I am about seeing it live. Love it

 

[Markdonna 692]

I remain amazed at how much I personally like the setlist.

I mean she is doing some really unexpected and surprising songs — including four (quite frankly) I had never expected to ever see her do LIVE ever!  Much less in THIS show because… while they are hits, they aren’t necessarily the ones people were clamoring for.  That said — damn.  They ARE the one I have long been clamoring for.  And I simply can’t believe that, at long last, I’ll see her sing Nothing Really Matters,  Bedtime Story, Bad Girl, Rain, and even a nifty snippet of Fever.  I mean just — wow, wow, wow.

Naturally, there are still plenty of the expected (and necessary) HUGE hits to satisfy more casual fans. 

I like that we are getting the original arrangements for the most part.  And I actually typically love it when she puts new spins on old songs, but it’s here also fun to enjoy them as they originally were in such a retrospective show.

Live to Tell is glorious.  And I simply can’t believe I get to hear it again.  (It was also epic in confessions.). The staging of Like a Prayer looks crazy.  I can’t wait to see it from more angles.  Hung Up. Into The Groove. Holiday… it’s quite packed with the classics.

Oh, sure… I get that there are songs missing.  To me the biggest one would be Express Yourself. But she has done that one a good number of times and so I can see why it was skipped along with Material Girl.

Many of the costumes are throwbacks too. She basically dons the Blonde Ambition Gold Corset in Black during Vogue… There is so much to dissect here and to enjoy.  This shall be a fun era.

I did a bit of surfing and the show is really getting pretty damn amazing and positive reviews.  Even the NY POST which can be insanely bitchy about her sometime basically printed a rave.  Variety. Rolling Stone, much of the London press… everybody has only had nice things to say.