The Rebel Heart Tour Press Reports & Reviews [North America]

[groovyguy 63,864]

MADONNA AT WELLS FARGO CENTER

http://www.independentphilly.com/madonna-at-wells-fargo-center/

Often imitated but never duplicated, pop music icon Madonna is in a league of her own. Her 13 albums have spawned 82 singles, 69 music videos, 10 World tours, and earned her appearances in a variety of movies. While we have heard rumblings in recent years that Madonna is too old, is trying too hard, and needs to hang it up, we couldn’t disagree more. If the legion of fans that packed the Wells Fargo Center on Thursday, September 24th for her ‘Rebel Heart Tour’ was any indication, the Queen of Pop won’t be departing from the spotlight anytime soon.

 

The best selling female artist of all time is still going strong at age 57 and we were there first hand to witness the spectacle that is Madonna. The Wells Fargo Center was abuzz from the moment we arrived just before 9pm. The anticipation was palpable with fans young and old counting down the minutes until the curtain (adorned with the Rebel Heart album cover) dropped. At 945pm, the wait was over and the stage filled with dancers in exotic, soldier-like costumes, brandishing large metal poles with crosses affixed to the ends.

 

Opening with ‘Iconic’, the Material Girl, in an aptly iconic moment, descended from the rafters in a steel cage. Once the cage reached stage level, it opened, and released Madonna into the clutches of the ‘armed’ dancers. The crowd went bananas, chanting her name, and snapping photos on the cell phones. She transitioned into her second song ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ flanked by a gaggle of asian dancers.

 

For her third number, ‘Burning Up’, she dawned an electric guitar and made her way out onto the lengthy runway that ran from the stage out into the floor seats. With flames flashing across the huge digital screens behind her, she rocked the Wells Fargo Center with one of her early hits. The building was electric and would stay that way throughout her 20+ song performance.

 

The next few hours were filled with hits both old and new, a whirlwind of costume, stage, and dancer changes, and a sea of fans that fully seemed to appreciate that they were in the presence of one of the most well known, talented, envelope pushing female artists of our lifetime. Sure, we’ve been annoyed with some of her antics over the past few years (like when she suddenly developed a British accent or when appeared on stage with Avicii at Ultra Music Festival in 2013 and asked the all ages crowd “have you seen Molly?â€, which she later claimed was not a drug reference) but all of that nonsense vacated our thoughts from the moment her captivating performance began.

 

30 years after her first tour in 1985, she continues to bring the thunder to the stage. She even dedicated a song to Pope Francis (‘La Isla Bonita’) who is scheduled to appear in Philly this weekend. “â€Rules are for fools. That’s why I like the new pope. He seems very open-minded.†she told the Philly faithful. We would have loved to see the Pope join her on stage for ‘Like a Prayer’, ‘Like a Virgin’, or ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, but alas it was not meant to be. For lifelong fans of Madonna, not even the Pope himself could have made this a more religious experience. If you have the chance to catch Madonna when she rolls into your city, we highly recommend snagging a ticket and getting into the groove.

[groovyguy 63,864]

Still en ‘vogue’: Madonna shows some things get better with age

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/music/music_news/2015/09/still_en_vogue_madonna_shows_some_things_get_better_with_age

Madonna carries the burden of being 57 in a world where Britney is an old maid at 33. But if we ignore Madge’s age, or forget that the current crop of hot, unremarkable young things run the pop industry, we can step back and enjoy the Rebel Heart Tour for the mature spectacle that it is.

 

Whoa, whoa, I know crucifixes as stripper poles and nuns in short shorts isn’t grown up. But Madonna’s packed TD Garden show last night still seemed so much more adult (in every sense of the word) than the infantilism of Katy Perry’s dancing sharks and Taylor Swift’s cutesy ’80s fetish.

 

Madonna’s visions have a smart, thought-out feel her imitators can’t replicate. Her dancers’ execution makes her would-be peers look like amateurs — the simple, thrilling choreography of “Deeper and Deeper†reminded that talent beats tech every time. Oh, and her pop crushes all comers.

 

“At the end of the day the smoke and mirrors don’t matter,†she told the crowd strumming an acoustic guitar ahead of (surprisingly) killer “Who’s That Girl.†“It’s the music that matters.â€

 

Her new songs balanced the Material Girl with a modern one.

 

She opened with “Iconic†and its bizarre sample of Mike Tyson ranting about his unequaled skills before dropping into a thumping groove that continued into “(expletive) I’m Madonna†and “Burning Up.†Her “Holy Waterâ€/“Vogue†mashup mixed sex and the sacred (and those pole-dancing nuns). “Living For Love,†maybe her best song this century, delivered the hook and gospel harmonies of old-school Top 40 — and had loads more snap and pop than her Grammy performance.

 

Unwilling to be enveloped in nostalgia, she deconstructed her classics.

 

Like “Who’s That Girl,†“True Blue†got an acoustic makeover, this one with Madonna on ukulele. Stalking the catwalk alone, she pimped out “Like a Virgin†with a fresh club beat.

 

The band opened “Music†with some jazz age swagger. She extended the flamenco vibe of “La Isla Bonita†through a medley of “Dress You Upâ€/“Into The Grooveâ€/“Lucky Star.â€

 

Ignore the constant chatter surrounding her private life and turn your back on the idea a pop star must be irrelevant after 30. Instead dig into her exotic and familiar cocktail until she can’t mix it up anymore — she’s good for at least one more mega-event like this one. Embrace that her blonde ambition continues to make her the genre’s greatest icon.

[groovyguy 63,864]

MUSIC SCENE: Madonna's 'Rebel Heart Tour' dazzles Boston

http://www.enterprisenews.com/article/20150927/ENTERTAINMENT/309309963/2052/ENTERTAINMENT

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna’s rebel heart on proud display at TD Garden

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/09/27/madonna-rebel-heart-proud-display-garden/17dkAqrWEqpDTyUTsRsYtM/story.html

Truth or dare?

 

Truth: Madonna’s performance at TD Garden on Saturday night was a crowning achievement in a year that has unjustly denied her such moments.

 

Let me put it this way. The narrative surrounding Madonna in 2015 has not exactly been kind to the 57-year-old pop icon. You would think by now she has earned the right, and the public’s trust, to be whomever she wants. And yet the older she gets, the more she has to counter sexist questions of why she’s not acting her age (“I am,†she has said) and what is left for her to do.

 

Those critiques faded inside the Garden as Madonna reasserted a longstanding hallmark of her career: She is at her best and fights her hardest the minute you count her out.

 

“Tell me I’m no good/ And I’ll be great,†she sang on the opening “Iconic,†a battle cry from this year’s “Rebel Heart,†a very good pop album that deserved to sell more than it did.

 

The accompanying Rebel Heart Tour reveals a softer, more reflective Madonna who’s celebrating her legacy while forging her future in the genre. There is no blueprint for her trajectory, so, critics be damned, she’s blazing her own.

 

And she’s obviously having so much fun right alongside her fans. This new tour is a window into Madonna as both deity and human being. It was heavy on spectacle brought to life by a band, her many elastic dancers, glitzy costumes, and streamlined set pieces that kept the production stylish and fluid.

 

The show also allowed Madonna to appear exposed. Three songs in, she stalked the runway extension of the stage alone with an electric guitar as she sang “Burning Up,†an early club classic. My jaw dropped when she dug into “Like a Virgin,†once again by herself on the catwalk, simply dancing and singing and making eye contact with the audience. It was poignant to see an established artist revisiting her roots and engaging with them all over again.

 

She also found fresh ways to enliven hits that are now decades old while connecting the dots to more recent work. A matador theme set the tone for “Living for Love,†her latest hit, which segued into the flamenco beat of “La Isla Bonita.†It was a seamless setup for a Mexican-tinged revamping of “Dress You Up†that mashed in snippets of “Into the Groove†and “Lucky Star.â€

 

Fans will forever quibble with the set list, but this tour gets the balance right, from the thumping groove of “Deeper and Deeper†to the closing euphoria of “Holiday.†Madonna opened the vaults, dusting off favorites she hasn’t performed on tour since the mid-’80s. On acoustic guitar, she reclaimed “Who’s That Girl†as an introspective ballad, and with Madonna strumming ukulele, “True Blue†featured her most stirring vocal of the evening.

 

She delivered “La vie en rose,†the Edith Piaf classic, in its original French, leading you to wonder why she hasn’t reinvented herself as a supper-club chanteuse. She dedicated the song to her son David, who turned 10 on Saturday, and then brought him out to dance for the audience. It was a sweet mother-son moment that was suddenly comical when you realized the song she was singing: “Unapologetic Bitch.†(See? Some things never change.)

 

With the pope visiting the US, it was prime time for Madonna to stir the pot with some blasphemy. On “Holy Water,†a reference to what a certain part of her body tastes like, her female dancers donned nun’s habits and twerked on stripper poles shaped like crosses.

Having seen her live a handful of times over the past decade, I admit I’m guilty of wondering how much longer Madonna can pull off such a demanding and youthful pageantry.

 

Truth: She can — and will — do it as damn well long as she wants.

 

MADONNA

At: TD Garden, Saturday

[groovyguy 63,864]

MADONNA SHOCKS CHICAGO AUDIENCE IN A WAY THEY DIDN’T EXPECT

http://www.inquisitr.com/2456393/madonna-shocks-chicago-audience-but-not-in-way-they-expected/#FO9dobj0kdYqYOB7.99

Madonna performed for a sold-out audience at Chicago’s United Center on Monday evening, and judging by comments from people leaving the show, it was the best concert Madonna had given in Chicago during her 30-year performing career. Madonna brought out the best in herself and her fans. Madonna made performers like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga seem like “Beta†pop stars, and that’s saying a lot, since all the mentioned performers are great.
 

 

Despite rumors to the contrary, Madonna still does a lot of choreography in the show and barely seemed stiff, although it appeared that she almost lost her balance again during “Living for Love,†but — thankfully — didn’t fall down the stairs. She still dances with a lot of energy, but that’s not what thrilled the audience the most. It was Madonna the vocalist that ruled the show.

 

Madonna opened the show with “Iconic†from her Rebel Heart album. She then went into “B***h I’m Madonna†and got the whole crowd clapping along when singing “Burning Up.†Then, there was the obligatory blasphemy segment of the night with Madonna performing “Holy Water,†which doesn’t make reference to the type of moisture you may think. She even added in some stripper nuns with white panties before singing some bars of “Vogue†and then recreating The Last Supper with herself as the main feast. While it’s easy to see why some could be offended by this, Madonna delivered it with a huge sense of irony and self-parody.

 

 

While the audience was impressed with the first part of the show, they didn’t catch on fire until the second act, when Madonna beautifully sang “True Blue.†There were some longtime fans in the audience with tears coming out of their eyes. She then sang “Deeper and Deeper†from her 1992 album Erotica and even though she displayed some impressive dance moves, her powerful singing is what really made the performance come alive.

 

Madonna then fought with a dancer on a staircase while singing “Heartbreak City,†a forgettable track from Rebel Heart. However, when she switched to “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore†from 1984’s Like a Virgin, she brought the audience to their feet just by belting out the lyrics. Madonna then performed the Like a Virgin title track very playfully, almost like she was imitating herself from 30 years ago.

 

Madonna plays guitar on several numbers during her latest tour. [Photo by Kevin Mazur / Getty Images Entertainment]

 

By the time Madonna performed “La Isla Bonita,†the audience wasn’t only on fire, but exploding with joy. She did a slow version of “Who’s That Girl,†which had fans lighting their phone flashlights all over the arena. Perhaps the night’s best performance was “Ghosttown,†the song that followed. Even though it’s a relatively new song (and wasn’t a huge hit), the audience still knew the words and sang along as Madonna’s voice was filled with the amount of raw emotion and intensity rarely seen throughout her career.

 

Madonna thrilled the audience by bringing back a jazzy version of “Music†and “Material Girl,†which had her throwing dancers in tuxedos down a photo slide that must have cost several thousand dollars to make. She then talked about marriage (“It goes downhill from here!â€) and then stunningly sang Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose.â€

 

Madonna brought a Britney Spears clone on stage during “Unapologetic B***h†before closing the show with the album version of “Holiday†while wearing the American flag. It was a night Madonna reconnected with her longtime fans, some who doubted that she still “had it.†As expected, Madonna proved that age is just a number. More importantly, however, Madonna proved that her she can thrill people with her voice just as much as she can with all the usual bells and whistles from her shows.

[Breathless 5,286]

This is great - I've yet to read a bad review of this tour! I can't wait to watch it live!

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna Rebel Heart Illuminates Chicago

http://www.chicagonow.com/zen-living-by-design/2015/09/madonna-rebel-heart-illuminates-chicago/

Madonna. Chicago. One Night. United Center. Sold Out. What more do you need to know or even imagine with the energy, love and passion that fans of Madonna have waited for, and bowed in honor at the muse of a collective enigma of love and light. The woman and the music that is an icon in history that has inspired and breathed a strength into all of us.

 

A lifetime fan, as a photographer I collected  thirty years of magazine covers that once adored my studio.  Books, albums, and even a 45 record with her release of Borderline, I was hesitant to the point of only purchasing my ticket five hours before the concert. Yet, Madonna saved me. It was time to honor the woman who saved my youth. Pregnant and having to get married at seventeen, Madonna was there. Divorced with two kids at 19, Madonna was there. At 21 years old, walking into my first disco as a single mom of two, I went there for one purpose...  to dance to Madonna's voice, Love Don't Live Here Anymore. Through pain and through celebrations, it was Madonna who got me through the most difficult times in my life. She saved me. No drugs, no alcohol, and from an abusive situation, Madonna through her music taught me to rise above. I went last night to  thank and support her with her latest collection, Rebel Heart. Iconic, Heartbreak City... captivated me when she climbed the stairs, pushed her dancer off the edge and sang Love Don't Live here Anymore. Madonna knew my story. The music had me in tears. Madonna connected the present with the past, yet focused on the importance of change and letting the past be exactly that. Her single Ghostown,  brought me back to the innocence of the Madonna I knew and treasured. Madonna came full circle playing everything that we loved.

 

Last night's concert changed everyone. Don't you dare tell me she is too old. I dare you to attend one of her concerts. Every word, every breathe, every pulsating sound of light and energy that was experienced last night vibrates within everyone who was in the United Center and was privileged to experience the power of Madonna.

"I'm still trying to figure who I am" Madonna shared with the Chicago crowd. Ongoing cheers and applauds came from the crowd from the highest point of the United Center to the lower level for one reason and one reason only. Madonna connects with each and everyone in her presence. Every single one. What I thought was people coming to a "Madonna Concert" ... I quickly realized that they came to honor her for the inspiration she has given to the world. We are all Madonna, with no limitation, no crosses to bear. Bitch, I'm Madonna. Madonna is the ethereal light that lives within us all.

Madonna and her dancers gave a theatrical performance that told stories and lifted our understanding of her lyrics and music to a higher vibration...  electrifying and magnetic. Although I went with my friend Porzia, I had to sit on the side by the stage... and for the first time it didn't matter I was alone or with strangers.. because we all became one. The man next to me became Joe, a friend that too, high fived me when Madonna began singing Like a Virgin, or when Sean from Brazil said M I want to take a selfie with you to remember this night. Are you kidding me? Who has the power to unite strangers into becoming new friends. Ms. Madonna my friends, that's who.

 

This blog is not about a review of her voice. It was impeccable. It is not a blog to critique or write about the postives or the negatives as it  was pure perfection. It was not about judgement, it was a concert with a  united voice. "In order to have a Revolution, you need to have a Rebel Heart, Madonna told us. Stir up some shit and do it with heart and love. I want to thank you for supporting me all these years."

 

This is being the difference and this is what we all inspire to be. Through her music, we will not forget that we can too. This is Zen Living. Living a life of integrity and having a voice. Madonna shared a visual presentation of hundreds of pieces of artwork that through the years, people had drawn, sketched, painted and interpreted of Madonna and her artistry. Madonna said this was the favorite part of the show... and as I watched I thought to myself... I should have not stopped myself when I wanted to inquire about photographing her in infrared light. I should have played a Madonna song to give me the courage to contact her manager. It would have added another element to the mosaic she is. Yet, I smiled, watched her sing, play the guitar and dance knowing that I know her light and I am forever blessed for the grace she shares with all of us. Madonna, our Illuminati.

[stefo 7,238]

I found this one very interesting:

 

"It’s hard to choose,†she acknowledges. “Sometimes I have to let go of things I love because they just don’t fit, they don’t sound right, they don’t go with the theme. Or I go, ‘Oh, I did that the last three shows. Even though I love that song, let’s do something new.’ Y’know, I tend to like my more abstract, less commercial songs, but I realize I have to have songs that people know, that people want to sing along to and are familiar with. So I have to balance that out and not just do a creative show that’s going to please me. I’ll have one song that I’m really sure I want to do, and then suddenly I listen to an older song and go, ‘Nope, that’s the one. That’s it,’ and I get rid of the new one, even though I love it and even though I’ve never performed it and am dying to,†Madonna explains. “So I have to be quite brutal sometimes and cut s--- out — sorry to swear. It’s hard."

 

http://www.macombdaily.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150928/madonnas-rebel-heart-beats-strong-on-latest-tour

[groovyguy 63,864]

Live Review: At the altar of pop worship with Madonna and the phantom deity

http://www.vanyaland.com/2015/10/01/live-review-at-the-altar-of-pop-worship-with-madonna-and-the-phantom-deity/.Vg2AZddy6Ts.twitter

It’s a generally understood notion that songs are meaningless and trite, and that if one wants to be a productive member of society, avoiding music is a prudent choice. Songs are traps, or so goes this common wisdom, filled with, at best, fantasy notions and, at worst, dangerous and destructive ideas; even worse are artists, who attempt to peddle their songs as a means of stringing them together into a narrative arc which, by using a nice beat and/or a catchy melody, can fool an innocent passerby into conflating their own emotions with that of the artist. The master artists, the ones who amass fortunes with multi-decade careers, are experts at this storytelling, creating a proxy persona through the proliferation of recorded songs — often resulting in the creation of a phantom deity, plastered on t-shirts and advertisements and music videos, that speaks to society and culture conveying ambiguous messages within a framework of relatability and emotional resonance. The artist’s perceived drama becomes real within the psychic æther of our shared mental space, our aspirations and fears and fantasies.

 

Although music is a powerful tool of persuasion, this artist-as-locus-point-of-psychic-power phenomenon is a relative rarity; only a few individuals have managed to punch through the noise of our current electronic lifestyle to overlay their own emotional map onto the waiting cortex of society as a whole. One of the most powerful of these musical artists has entranced, globally, at least three distinct generations of susceptible media consumers: her name is Madonna Louise Ciccone, and she is not just a master musician but a grand wizard able to spin gold out of the dross that is the raw emotional flotsam burbling violently beneath the surface of her haughty persona.

Madonna honored the City of Boston with her presence on Saturday night, September 26, arriving with an intimidating crew of dancers and musicians to a staged piece of formal pageantry fitting to an artist who is a full two-and-a-half decades into the regal phase of her career. Where she was once a scrappy street urchin, a failed ballet student gnawing at the table scraps of late-’70s NYC post-punk culture, by the end of the ’80s she ached to be more than an ephemeral pop presence competing with the likes of Cyndi Lauper or Pat Benatar. Her first taste of fame on the heels of hits like “Everybody†and “Holiday†were narcotic for the budding star — asked at the end of 1983 by Dick Clark what she hoped to achieve in the years ahead, she giggled “To rule the world!†The perversity of our pop culture world, the way that our celebrity machine occasionally lets dream actualization occur through will-to-power, allowed this wish to come true.

 

On Saturday night, to the opening whump of “Iconicâ€, amidst a squadron of dancers decked out in samurai-or-is-it-warrior-from-300 uniforms, Madonna, in a cage made of enormous metal spears, was lowered from the rafters. “If you try and fail, get up again/Destiny will choose you in the end,†she lustily intoned, chopping the air with flailing limbs emerging from her red kimono-slash-warrior-outfit. As the first line of the show, it was also the first lie of the evening, sending the audience the message that not only was her ascent to stardom a preordained result of her lengthy incubation period of struggle, but that the obstacles she continues to face as the most popular female musical artist of all time can all be bested by dogged determination.

 

If this is understood to be at the very least a kind untruth, it is also a bedrock moral foundation of American popular culture — Madonna’s strength as a force and a brand can be conferred to her following if they just allow themselves to be touched by the mental persuasion of determination as a weapon for personal triumph. When an artist such as Madonna is seen as an ’80s artist, it fundamentally has to do with that artist’s adherence to this maxim — if the existence of the cesspool of culture that is the 1990s has taught us anything, it is that basing cultural mores on failure and dispirited ennui tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The lie of determination is the fist in the air that allows musical art to infiltrate our minds and poison our reason, if only by deluding us that we are masters of our own destiny.

 

Madonna, though, of almost any popular musical artist, should be aware of the fallacy of this outlook, if only because of her oeuvre’s focus on the tragedy of love. In many ways, the true power of the brand of Madonna rests in the authenticity of her resilience in the face of this tragedy, and so many of her greatest songs mine the territory of finding strength in, or in the aftermath of, failed romance. The lead single from her new album, Rebel Heart, “Living For Loveâ€, is a prime example of Madonna’s mastery of this emotion — the song hits a fulcrum point between the sadness of a relationship’s deterioration and the life-affirming determination to make the magic happen again. If there is cognitive dissonance in the concept, it is obliterated by the swelling house beats, courtesy of Diplo, and the powerhouse vocal performance. Power, dominance, absolute faith in an abstract notion of heaven-on-Earth-through-love, all convincingly hammered into the audience’s collective craniums by a hair-raising act of songcraft.

 

Madonna has a long history of being obsessed with the occupation of matador, as evidenced by the videos for both “Take A Bow†and “You’ll Seeâ€, a logical conclusion to her infatuation with all things Spanish that likely itself resulted from her immersion in NYC Puerto Rican culture that permeated so much of her earlier work (a number of her early singles are said to have been penned while pining for various Puerto Rican boys she would spy around the city whilst in her above-referenced street urchin phase). The twist in her current tour, during “Living For Loveâ€, is that finally Madonna herself is the matador rather than pining for one — a significant shift from loving someone with a dangerous occupation to having the dangerous occupation oneself, with the minotaur/bull of the tour production a stand-in for the existential horror that is “living for love†knowing that it may indeed be unattainable.

 

Prior to donning the jewel-encrusted matador pants for her triumphant runthrough of “Living For Loveâ€, Madonna had just completed a run of tunes that in many ways represents the quicksand miasma that love has come to mean to her triumphant public persona. Sex, adoration, fidelity, falling so deeply that there is no light anymore: in Madonna’s vivid lucid dreaming, love is a cave that one spelunks into until the only options are escape or death. The mini-set began with “Body Shopâ€, another Rebel Heart number, wherein Madonna relates her own body’s sexuality to that of a car, a Dali-esque trompe in line with, say, Deep Purple’s “Highway Star†or Van Halen’s “Panamaâ€. “You can keep it overnight/You can do whatever you like/Working overtimeâ€, she growls lustily, with a bevy of dancers in greasy mechanic outfits, not unlike Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl†video except she’s Christy Brinkley pretending to be a car. You can hear Madonna’s royal status peering into the tune: she is herself clearly a hard worker, but pining for someone who works overtime is a clear lust for crossing class lines in search of a working class paramour whose drab uniform she can get dirty with her automotive fluids — it’s almost like a J.G. Ballard concept of pop music, confusing crude machinery with raw lust.

 

Madonna and her crew didn’t stay in this fantasy for long — first she did an abrupt switch to the ’50s recidivism of 1986’s “True Blueâ€, a gorgeous ode to being forever in thrall to an ideal lover, written for then-husband Sean Penn before harrowing accounts of domestic abuse led to an acrimonious split a few years later; then a lengthy excursion into primo early-’90s single “Deeper and Deeperâ€, a heartfelt disco anthem that could be about almost anything: a lost weekend of romance, an unending spiritual quest for meaning in a shallow, venal world, coming out as gay, or really almost anything that involves being immersed in something deep and expansive. Next she indulged in the jilted psychodrama of “Love Don’t Live Here Anymoreâ€, basking in rejection and abandonment on an impromptu spiral staircase where she appeared to push a proxy lover off of a balcony.

 

As the staircase disappeared and her dancers scurried away, we heard the throbbing pulse of her breakthrough 1984 smash “Like A Virgin†— pounding and predatory, Madonna flung herself to the floor during the chorus, humping and rolling, microphone in hand. Just minutes before she had been flanked by some of the finest backup dancers in the world — but freed from the intricate choreographic mousetrap that is her typical stock-in-trade, she enthusiastically bounced around the floor, gyrating and thrusting in a way that was singularly liberating. Even in the middle of a hockey stadium filled to capacity with nearly twenty thousand screaming fans, Madonna so clearly relishes being able to close her eyes and dance as if she is the only person in the room; she never really seems free-er than when she can let it go in her own private world.

 

And what’s odd about that is that Madonna doesn’t seem like much of a private world person — among musical artists of her stature, it really is remarkable just how transparent she is about her life, her feelings, her loves and her struggles, especially in her songs. Saturday night’s show couldn’t help but spotlight the melancholy ambivalence the superstar clearly has about the realistic possibility for her to find a way to unite her strong desire for love with her eternal yearning for spiritual enlightenment. Which, put into layman’s terms, means that she has become, at 57, a decidedly cynical pop diva.

 

After a rip-roaring run-through of “Material Girlâ€, staged kind of like a 21st century Cotton Club, which featured Madonna in wedding garb tossing a bouquet into the audience, Madonna singled out a married couple near the stage, adressing the husband: “When you married this woman, I hope you gave her the three rings, did you give her the three rings of marriage? First, the engagement ring, then the wedding ring, and after that, a lifetime of suffer-ring.â€

 

Later in the show, Madonna would emerge in a spotlight, solo with guitar in hand, to sing a plaintive run-through of Edith Piaf’s 1945 standard “La Vie En Roseâ€; a melancholy number about love having the ability to temporarily blind one to the sadness of the world, “Rose†is thematically similar to “Like A Virginâ€. If Madonna seemed to come alive when able to focus inward on her solitary self, perhaps it’s because her career-long message, of the joy and sadness of choosing to live for love, is one that has oftentimes left her alone with nothing but her faith in that love. “Les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent/Heureux, heureux à en mourirâ€, as the Piaf song goes: “My troubles, my grief are removed/I’m content enough to die.â€

 

Edith Piaf lived an all-too-brief life filled with enough horror, sadness and tragedy to neuter her ungodly fame and the world’s adoration; and although Madonna’s life has in many ways been a walk in the park compared to Piaf’s war-ravaged mortal coil trip, it’s clear that she sees, in Piaf’s defiance in the face of romantic tragedy an inspiration. On Saturday, Madonna chose, more than usual, to indulge in her bittersweet romantic muse; after an opening salvo that saw her and her troupe conflating Catholic ritual with sexual fire in a manner that seemed utterly Madonna-esque to an extreme, she shifted gears, dialed down the attempts at shock and awe, and put her heart on display to a capacity audience ravenous for blood.

 

“I want to start a revolution of love!†Madonna proclaimed, positioning herself, as she has so many times before, as the ultimate erotic politician, aiming to mobilize the powerful force she has over an audience to evince some kind of change. What is her ultimate goal here: Awareness? Activism? To rule the world? Perhaps… or maybe it is just to find a way to universalize her own narrative, to use her power of song and dance to, at least for a brief time, quell the naysayers while also proving that love is possible even if not easy for her on a personal level. Even if mass art is mind control and music is but a tool to coerce human beings to work harder and in tighter rhythm for the benefit of their overlords, it is still occasionally possible for a genuine human message to come through even on the large bandwidth signals of mass pop culture. Madonna’s campaign for human dignity through spiritual pain and the ecstasy of dance is one such missive, and it’s clear that she will continue sending through this message until she finally merges with the infinite; we won’t know how lost we are until we no longer have her shining light to guide us.

 

[Breathless 5,286]

I found this one very interesting:

 

"It’s hard to choose,†she acknowledges. “Sometimes I have to let go of things I love because they just don’t fit, they don’t sound right, they don’t go with the theme. Or I go, ‘Oh, I did that the last three shows. Even though I love that song, let’s do something new.’ Y’know, I tend to like my more abstract, less commercial songs, but I realize I have to have songs that people know, that people want to sing along to and are familiar with. So I have to balance that out and not just do a creative show that’s going to please me. I’ll have one song that I’m really sure I want to do, and then suddenly I listen to an older song and go, ‘Nope, that’s the one. That’s it,’ and I get rid of the new one, even though I love it and even though I’ve never performed it and am dying to,†Madonna explains. “So I have to be quite brutal sometimes and cut s--- out — sorry to swear. It’s hard."

 

http://www.macombdaily.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150928/madonnas-rebel-heart-beats-strong-on-latest-tour

Yup! After all these years she finally gets it loool! :lol:

[RebelHeartbreak 411]

Yup! After all these years she finally gets it loool! :lol:

She's always gotten it. Post-GIrlie Show tours have been pretty consistent....Self-indulgent, followed by user-friendly. DWT-RIT, CT-SST, MDNA-RHT.

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour Hits Motor City: 'Detroit Is Making a Comeback, People'

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6715317/madonna-detroit-live-review-homecoming-show-2015?utm_source=twitter

Madonna may have ruffled some hometown feathers when she called the Detroit area "provincial" earlier this year on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show, but she made it clear she was happy to be back on Thursday night, when her Rebel Heart Tour stopped at the city's Joe Louis Arena.

 

"Motor City -- the hometown girl is back!" she declared towards the start of the two-hour and 10-minute show, and later she told the crowd that, "Detroit made me who I am today" before talking about her involvement with entrepreneur and philanthropist Dan Gilbert -- owner of Rock Financial, Quicken Loans and the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers -- in women's empowerment and youth boxing programs as well as "some new schools we're building." 

 

Though she acknowledged the city's recent financial problems and bankruptcy, Madonna announced that "Detroit is making a comeback people, so watch out. We got heart, baby. We're in the heart of America. With all of its heart and all of this love we are gonna build this city back up. Believe that!" 

 

Madonna -- who was born in Bay City, Mich., and raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Rochester -- also gave shout-outs to her father Silvio "Tony" Ciccone, and to daughter Lourdes, who both attended Thursday's show. She dedicated "Rebel Heart" to her dad, thanking him "for making me so strong and instilling this drive in me to survive." And before her version of Edith Piaf's "La vie en rose," Madonna credited Lourdes -- a second-year student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor -- with inspiring her to pick up the ukulele, which Madonna played on the song, and also noted that Lourdes both plays the ukulele and speaks French better than her mom. 

 

Madonna also used her hometown connection for some light-hearted references during the concert. After "Body Shop," a sequence set in an auto repair garage, she noted that, "If anybody can understand the trials and tribulations of working in the body shop, it's the Motor City. If it's got tits or tires, it's gonna give you trouble." At another juncture she told the crowd, "There's a lot going on up here -- not bad for a small-town girl from Detroit." And complaining about a non-existent time limit for the show -- "They said I have two hours -- get in, do you stuff, get out" -- Madonna grumbled, "Yeah, bitch, I'm from Detroit, so I should get some extra time up here on stage, right? Yeah!" She also added an acoustic version of her 1998 single "Frozen" to the setlist especially for Thursday's show.

 

Prior to the tour launch, Madonna refined what she meant about the area being "provincial" -- a remark which drew an open letter from Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan Barnett defending the area. "I appreciate my provincial upbringing," she told the suburban newspaper the Oakland Press. "To me it's really important that I came from the Midwest, with my father and people that I was surrounded with, very strong work ethic and my practical approach to work, and not a lot of frills. I don't think I would be as creative as I am if I'd grown up surrounded by everything at my fingertips. The fact that I came from a small town in the Midwest has a lot to do with the kind of open notebook that I had to start my journey of creativity."

[Breathless 5,286]

Ha ha love it!!

 

"They said I have two hours -- get in, do you stuff, get out" -- Madonna grumbled, "Yeah, bitch, I'm from Detroit, so I should get some extra time up here on stage, right? Yeah!" She also added an acoustic version of her 1998 single "Frozen" to the setlist especially for Thursday's show.

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna brings spectacle — and new affection — to Detroit

http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/brian-mccollum/2015/10/02/madonna-detroit-joe-louis-concert-review/73186940/

After three decades of this, you thought Madonna might start taking it easy?

 

Certainly not this Madonna, the one who brought ageless energy, flamboyance and flash Thursday night to a packed Joe Louis Arena, homecoming stop on the pop queen's Rebel Heart Tour. These days, the 57-year-old star seems eager to drive home a point: In a world brimming with pop contenders, there's still only one of her.

 

With her father and daughter looking on, Madonna also served up the most Detroit-centric show we've ever seen from an artist who for years has been accused of spurning her roots. There were pep talks about the city's resilience, celebrations of the city's comeback ("Watch out!"), even a shout-out to developer and "incredible guy" Dan Gilbert.

 

The spectacle had started with a big helping of new "Rebel Heart" fare to go with Madonna's latest foray into erotic religious imagery, her male dancers costumed as cross-bearing knights and their female counterparts as pole-dancing nuns. From there on through the euphoric "Holiday" encore, the two-hour-plus show kept up the brisk pace — a whirl of set changes, outfits that quickly went from lavish to skimpy, and tight, intricate dance numbers that often found their way down the lengthy catwalk.

 

In a defiant assertion of her relevance, Madonna has long used her tours to emphasize her latest music, and Thursday was no different: The set was loaded with "Rebel Heart" material, and when she did tap the older stuff, it got unapologetically reinvented. She strapped on a guitar to dial up the riff wattage of 1983's "Burning Up," and turned "Dress You Up" into a colorful, festive number complete with some rumba and a conga line. She and guitarist Monte Pittman doubled on ukuleles for "True Blue," and teamed up again with acoustic guitars on "Who's That Girl." "Like a Virgin" was stripped into a spare, throbbing number in a rare scene that saw Madonna alone on the stage, a shared moment of intimate nostalgia between artist and audience.

 

Elsewhere, the classics got nipped and tucked inside other numbers, leaving fans with brief tastes of songs like "Vogue," "Into the Groove" and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore."

 

Thursday brought a lean-and-lithe Madonna who balanced seriously intense performances with a lighthearted, sometimes mischievous spirit. For all the sizzle — the dazzling set pieces, the splashy visuals, the eye-popping interludes by her supremely skilled dance crew — it was a show that planted some genuine heart in the proceedings.

 

That was certainly the mood as she deposited ample Detroit devotion throughout. More than a year after providing financial support to several community organizations, Madonna name-checked two of them (the Empowerment Plan and Downtown Boxing Gym) from the Joe Louis stage, and spoke enthusiastically about her working relationship with Gilbert, the Quicken Loans magnate and downtown developer.

 

"Detroit made me who I am today, so I want to say thank you with these next few songs," she said while easing into a stretch that included "Rebel Heart," dedicated to her dad somewhere out in the crowd, 84-year-old Silvio Ciccone.

 

She also veered from her tour's stock set list to present a Detroit exclusive: a gentle version of 1998's "Frozen." The Motor City is "the heart of America," she explained, thus transforming the song's open-your-heart lyrics into a plea to the country to unlock Detroit's potential.

Still, it's hard to suss out precisely where Madonna stands on the topic her roots, given her recent dismissive remarks about Rochester Hills, the town where she actually grew up. A cynic might say she's out to have it both ways: scorning her native suburban culture while embracing the concept of "Detroit" now that it's finally cool.

 

But it's hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if Madonna wants to dive into the comeback of Detroit — a place she continually referenced as "we" — she'll be met with open arms, and should be. A city that has taken a fall "can only go up," she said Thursday night, "and I'm very proud to be part of that going-up process."

 

Daughter Lourdes Leon, in her second year at the University of Michigan, got her own personal tribute from Mom onstage.

Addressing the 18-year-old by her nickname Lola, Madonna gushed as she sat down with a ukulele for a winsome performance of Edith Piaf's French pop classic "La Vie en Rose." Lola, she said, was "the first person to teach me about love," and to top it off, was better at singing and speaking French.

 

"Thank you, Lola," she said. "You are my princess."

[groovyguy 63,864]

Concert review: Madonna is pure Detroit

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2015/10/02/concert-review-madonna-is-pure-detroit

Though Madonna has dissed her Michigan roots lately, the Queen of Pop stood onstage at Joe Louis Arena Thursday night as part of her Rebel Heart tour and declared to her 20,000-odd fans in attendance "Detroit made me who I am today." 

While superfan Duane the Brand New Dog and I debated how much time the Bay City-born and Rochester Hills-raised singer actually spent dancing underneath the disco ball at Menjo's before fleeing Michigan for New York City, when analyzing her body of work it's easy to see how Madonna is pure Detroit.

There were subtle nods in her Joe Louis performance â€” perhaps the way she decided to recast her performance of her hit "Like a Virgin" as a techno song. But the Detroit influence bubbled up in other ways, too. After performing "Body Shop" on top of a garage-themed set, Madonna told the crowd, "If anyone can understand the trials and tribulations of working at a body shop, it's the Motor City." 

Later, after sizing up one of her back up dancers (a hunky black dude), she said, "Detroit has some good looking guys. Why did I leave?"

(Then there's the rampant references to Catholicism in her work. You can talk the girl out of Catholic school, but you can't take the Catholic school out of the girl.)

Madonna played a career-spanning set of 27, including stripped-down acoustic versions. "They told me I have two hours, so get in, get out," she told the crowd, pausing for comedic effect. "Umm, bitch, I'm from Detroit!"

Toward the end of her set, the 57-year-old singer dedicated a song to daughter Lourdes Leon, who currently attends U-M Ann Arbor. She also said her father was in attendance, and thanked him for making her a "rebel heart."

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna strikes gold with Rebel Heart Tour in Atlantic City

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/life/madonna-strikes-gold-with-rebel-heart-tour-in-atlantic-city/article_3fc96166-6a47-11e5-b6c7-871a3cac967a.html

A storm descended on Atlantic City Saturday night, and it didn’t have anything to do with rain or winds.

 

Madonna lit up Boardwalk Hall in lights, pyrotechnics and a team of extremely talented dancers. Nothing less was expected from the Queen of Pop on this stop of her U.S. leg of Rebel Heart Tour, presented by Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

 

People streamed into the hall wearing rain boots, heavy jackets and umbrellas, but were undeterred in their devotion to the singer. The crowd filled in on the floor around the cross and heart runway that extended the stage a couple hundred feet.

 

Madonna opened the show performing “Iconic†off her new album. She descended from the ceiling in a black cage while Mike Tyson, former professional boxer, appeared on a huge screen behind the singer. She made a dramatic opening with an entourage of samurai warrior dancers.

 

She might not move as swiftly as a 20-something anymore, but by the way she was lifted and spun in the air by dancers, you would think Madge had a never ending supply of energy. And theatrics.

 

“She looks just as gorgeous now as she did then,†said Lynn Lanza, of Hammonton, who came to the concert with her friend Sue Perna and their daughters, Aspen and Gianna.

 

Classic hits were mixed in among a heavy tour set-list. The crowd got the loudest when the singer did an acoustic version of “True Blue†and sang along to all the words of the 1984-hit, “Like A Virgin.â€

 

The number of stage, outfit and prop changes was enough to keep anyone entertained, even if some of her most recent songs escaped crowd members. The concert was more than a concert—it was a show with multiple acts and never-ending movement.

 

The Material Girl might have sung with a good layer of voiceover, but nobody seemed to care when watching the skill that went into the choreographed numbers. Earlier in the show, while performing “Holy Water,†a dozen half-naked nuns danced provocatively alongside the singer and recreated a risqué version of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.â€

 

During “Body Shop,†another song from her most recent album, the stage was equipped with a car, gas pump, tire racks and what else? Sweaty, sexy auto body mechanics on their backs on rolling dollies, which Madonna then used as human scooters.

 

“I love you too, Atlantic City,†she said between songs. “Are you having a good time?â€

 

Boardwalk Hall looked like it was filled to the brim, even if tickets weren’t sold out before the night’s event. One of the most unique parts of the night happened when Madonna played a ukulele and sang “La vie en rose†in French, which garnered her loud applause and cheers.

 

The singer closed the show by coming out for an encore performance to“Holiday" draped in an American flag and star cape.

 

"Thank you Atlantic City. Thank you New Jersey. Thank you to everyone who came out, you were a great crowd. We love you. Goodnight," Madonna said.

 

You might not know all the words to her new songs and she might not move the way she did 30 years ago, but her Rebel Heart Tour stop in Atlantic City was something to see. She moves on to perform in Toronto on Monday.

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madge We Salute You: Madonna At Barclays Center

http://www.baeblemusic.com/musicblog/10-2-2015/madge-we-salute-you-madonna-at-barclays-center.html

The first movie that I can ever remember watching that wasn't specifically meant for children was Grease. If you know me at all, this probably won't surprise you, but that movie was my favorite til I was about 15 years old and saw Pulp Fiction and Annie Hall for the first time. Grease is Problematic with a capital P -- primarily the rampant misogynistic undercurrents throughout the whole film -- but it's not difficult to understand why so many folks love it -- and musicals/musical theater more generally. Good for you if you're just naturally content and pleased with the exact presentation of your life, but for the rest of us, we're insecure. We're attracted to the idea of being bigger than ourselves. We want to be free of our anxieties and insecurities and hang-ups and fear. Danny Zuko is sensitive, masculine swagger defined. Sandy is the (and I apologize for this segway in advance) Madonna and the whore (not using that word derogatorily here. Just acknowledging that is precisely the archetypal dichotomy the film was going for) all in one by the end of the film. And that impossible amalgamation -- at least when she first appeared on the scene in the early 80s -- has always defined Madonna the pop icon. Madonna is woman in the mythic sense. She is sex. She is vulnerability. She is power. She is control. She is pleasure. Someone will pipe in and say "well, what about her music?" It can be pretty f***Ing great too, but you can't talk about Madonna's music without also bringing up Madonna, the cultural legend. They are inextricably separated. Madonna has the mythic allure generally reserved for Beatles or members of the Forever 27 Club. And Madonna knows this. Are her 2000s/2010s albums as good as her 80s/90s output? F*** no. But at this point, that's irrelevant. Madonna stopped by Brooklyn's Barclays Center as the latest stop on her sold out Rebel Heart Tour and delivered nearly two and a half hours of pure sex, adrenaline, and fantasy. And even if I knew maybe four songs she played the whole night, I couldn't deny the onslaught of sensory overload that kept my eyes glued to the stage from start to finish -- well except for the bit where this incredibly intoxicated couple were breaking up and getting back together every ten minutes behind me. That was miserable. If you've never been to one of Madonna's recent concerts (and I hadn't before that night), it's like a Broadway show on Molly and the show's being co-directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and the showrunners of Game of Thrones. The show begins with an army of half-dressed men carrying enormous staves marching in military formation til Madonna descends from the rafters in a cage. This is Cirque Du Soleil for hedonistic American excess. There are men flying across the stage on hyper flexible pole vaults. Back-up dancers that are half-nun/half-stripper are gyrating against poles. There aren't just costume changes (although there are a ton of those); there are major set changes including a body shop and an old style jazz stage and more minimalist production when it calls for it. Even if you don't like Madonna's music, a Madonna concert is worth it for stage production nerds that just have their minds boggled by the sheer logistics of the performance. And that's why we love Madonna. Nobody is arguing that the Madonna we're seeing on stage is precisely who the real Madonna is but that's not the point. She's created a fantasy that we all need. She's created a fantasy that helps us escape even momentarily the ever-crushing existential despair that is life. It's why legions of women have loved her for 30 years. It's why queer men have loved her for 30 years. She's a radical blow against the cishet patriarchy because we don't have to be defined by who we are or what society thinks we have to be. If this sounds like I didn't engage with the music of the night, it's cause I can't. I didn't know 80% of the songs she played. But I can't stress enough how irrelevant that was to the whole Madonna experience. So, Madge, we salute you. 

[stfan97 2,845]

^ So basically they lived under a rock for the last 3 decades and recognized LAV, Music, Material Girl and Holiday. 

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna Takes Her ‘Rebel Heart’ Tour To Atlantic City

http://radio.com/2015/10/04/madonna-rebel-heart-tour-atlantic-city/#.VhJ7R_1MMJo.twitter

Madonna looks back, but on her own terms. And she also leans heavily, rightfully so, on her latest album, "Rebel Heart."

 

“Are you here to take risks?†Madonna posed this question to a packed crowd at her concert Saturday Night (October 3), noting that they were, after all, in Atlantic City (the show took place at Boardwalk Hall). Whether or not the audience were feeling risky — and many of them surely were not — Madonna certainly was.

 

At this point in her career, she could play to that crowd, and do it in her sleep: it would be the easiest thing in the world for her to do a greatest hits show, and add a perfunctory song or four from her latest album, throw in a few dance routines, and let the money roll in.

 

But bitch, she’s Madonna.

 

Her new album Rebel Heart is more than just a centerpiece around which she builds a tour and marketing campaign. Her new album is her artistic statement of the moment. Any older songsthat happen to make the setlist, make it because they fit in to the narrative she’s building around her album. It almost feels like her classics have to audition for the show, along with her dancers and backing band. Nothing’s there unless it fits.

 

She’s been categorized, of course, as a pop artist, which is understandable because she’s logged an insane amount of top 40 hits over her career. But when it comes to the way she structures her show, she’s more like Bruce Springsteen or U2. It’s about the message of the moment, not about fulfilling the fans wishes. There’s no song she “has to†play.

(Maria Ives for Radio.com) 

And, in fact, you could argue that she’s a bit more daring than her rock peers: when she plays a classic, it’s generally in a totally different arrangement from the original. So, “Burnin’ Up†becomes a hard rock jam featuring a face melting guitar solo by Madonna herself. “True Blue†is almost doo-wop, driven by Madonna’s ukelele playing. Then there’s a Latin take on “Dress You Up†(which dove into “Into the Groove†and “Lucky Starâ€). “Who’s That Girl†on the other hand,  was done acoustic duo-style. Some of these performances serve as reminders that Madonna could have taken any number of artistic paths and crushed it. If, say, she had wanted to front a rock band, she would have been classic rock radio fixture by now. Had she gone the acoustic route, she’d be an NPR perennial.

(Maria Ives for Radio.com) 

This was, as it happens, my first Madonna concert. Madonna’s always struck me as someone who is notoriously not nostalgic, which makes sense: she always seems ready to conquer the world, and the pop charts, every time she unleashes a new record. And the pop charts are about singles, not box sets. But last night, she seemed to enjoy playing her hits, probably because it was strictly on her own terms. No matter the song, you never felt like she was playing anything in a perfunctory way.

(Maria Ives for Radio.com) 

And as seamlessly as she slips in and out of eras and genres, she does the same with visual themes that ranged from Asian to Latin to very American: a car repair shop circa Grease and a Cotton Club era nightspot. It was an amazing spectacle to experience. The dancers also killed it in different styles, occasionally veering into Cirque du Soleil turf. The show was visually stunning; like U2, each song had it’s own visual design and concept. (When U2’s longtime manager retired, they signed with Madonna’s manager  Oseary, which makes total sense; clearly he’s a guy who can handle insanely ambitious clients; those two tours have raised the bar for production spectacles that feel intimate and have heart.)

(Maria Ives for Radio.com) 

I’ve seen, and reviewed, a number of concerts by legends with decade-spanning careers. And so it’s worth mentioning that very few of them are able to lean on a new album in concert as heavily as Madonna did last night; in fact, five of the six first songs are from Rebel Heart. And while some of her fans from her early ’80s era may have felt alienated during some of those songs with their EDM-centric production by the likes of Diplo and Avicii, much of the audience knew every word to every song, regardless of era. Anthems like “Bitch I’m Madonna†and “Unapologetic Bitch†felt like new rallying cries for much of the crowd (and that’s regardless of gender, by the way: lots of men were wearing their new “Bitch I’m Madonna†t-shirts, including a fan that was invited onstage during “Unapologetic Bitchâ€).

(Maria Ives for Radio.com) 

Other songs from the album that provided highlights included the power ballad “Ghosttown,†“Heartbreak City†(which saw Madonna and one of her dancers on a spiral staircase, almost connecting but just missing, mirroring the lyrics) and the album’s acoustic guitar-propelled title track. On the later, when she sang “Never look back, it’s a waste of time/I said, ‘Oh yeah, this is me/And I’m right here where I wanna be,'†it felt like a bit of a mantra for herself and her show. Although maybe those lyrics aren’t completely accurate: last night, it felt like she actually did enjoy looking back, since it was on her own terms.

 

But the crowd ate up every lyric she sang, roared for every word she said to them, and cheered for every last dance move and every last gesture, So the second part of that lyric rang especially true: there’s no doubt that playing to huge crowds is surely right where she wants to be. Hopefully she wants to do it for a long time to come: I’m already looking forward to seeing what she does on her next tour.

 

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna’s most ambitious tour yet: review

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/2015/10/06/madonna-most-ambitious-tour-yet-review.html

Charismatic singer puts on physically intense, highly theatrical two-hour show at Air Canada Centre Monday night.

By: Nick Krewen Music, Published on Tue Oct 06 2015

Madonna

4 Stars

AIr Canada Centre. Monday, Oct. 5, 2015.

 

At 57, Madonna is still wears her Rebel Heart on her sleeve.

 

The provocative Miss Ciccone, who has made a career out of pushing buttons and boundaries, continued to do so during a physically intense, highly theatrical two-hour show at the Air Canada Centre Monday night.

 

For the first of two sell-out shows in front of an adoring crowd of 14,000, the just-christened nominee for the Songwriters Hall of Fame did what she does best: entertain and titillate.

 

After descending from a cage in gear that resembled an ancient overlord during “Iconic,†a new track from Rebel Heart, her purest pop album in ages, she went to work blurring the lines of religion and sex with “Holy Water,†featuring gyrating dancers dressed as nuns pole-dancing around giant swords, and Madonna at the centre of the action.

 

A few minutes later she had transformed the stage into an auto body shop, delivering a ukulele-driven version of “True Blue.â€

 

No matter what she did, the charismatic singer, songwriter and dancer constantly proved that she has lost none of her edge.

 

This is probably the blonde’s most ambitious tour yet, and maybe even her most rewarding.

[groovyguy 63,864]

Madonna puts on rebellious show for Toronto fans

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/10/05/live-coverage-madonna-brings-rebel-heart-tour-to-toronto

TORONTO – Madonna is a rebel at heart and always will be.

 

No matter she’s now a middle-aged, twice-divorced single mother of four.

 

The 57-year-old Material Girl, promoting her 2015 Rebel Heart album with yet another big production touring show of the same name, proved she still has the power to provoke, mingling sexuality and religion – as has long been her way – when she arrived at the Air Canada Centre on Monday night for the first of two back-to-back shows.

 

Would you believe white lace panty-wearing nuns on stripper poles for the song, Holy Water, which eventually morphed into her old dance hit, Vogue, featuring the rest of her dancers acting out a Last Supper scene?

Madonna followed that up by straddling a priest during Devil Pray.

 

And that was just the first half-hour of a two-hour-and-10-minute show that featured a surprise appearance by a short-haired Nelly Furtado towards the end of the night on Unapologetic Bitch before the encore number Holiday.

 

Performing in front of a sold out crowd of 13,500, Madge’s eye-popping stage included an enormous red lit catwalk in the shape of a cross, arrow and heart that took over almost the entire arena floor.

 

The show began with striking visuals on a huge video screen – Mike Tyson naked inside a cage while Madonna writhed around in a white sequined dress evoking the Material Girl of old.

 

Then the real Madge descended in a cage decked out in Asian-inspired glorious red and black flowing robes while as many as 20 dancers marched around carrying crosses and danced alongside her for the show opening number Iconic.

 

“Hello Toronto! Are you with me?’†yelled Madonna, who was backed by a seven piece band.

 

The answer appeared to be a full-throated yes.

 

Another Rebel Heart song, Bitch I’m Madonna – featuring Nicki Minaj rapping on the video screen – followed before she broke out her first oldie but goodie, Burning Up, while playing electric guitar, sometimes on her knees on that catwalk.

 

“Come on Toronto,†she said, seeming a little bit impatient. “Let’s start to heat things up. Are you shy?â€

 

She and her dancers certainly were not as they dug right into the S&M inspired Body Shop whose background of cars, tires and chains, evoked an auto shop-meets-dungeon.

 

“Goodness gracious! Have you ever seen so many gorgeous people in your life?†said Madonna.

 

In a word, no.

 

Madge sure can pickup ‘em when it comes to dancers as the tall, thin and graceful Flamenco dudes more than proved during the Spanish-flavoured standout segment of Living For Love, La Isla Bonita, Dress You Up/Get Into The Groove/Lucky Star while she wore both a bullfighters outfit and a beautiful dress with black shawl and black hat.

 

There was also a cool-looking spiral staircase that appeared at the end of the catwalk for Heartbreak City but I really liked how she playfully danced around to Like A Virgin afterwards.

 

This Madonna is a smiling, more laid back version of her former perfectionist self and it really suits her.

“I love my job,†she said at one point.

 

And when she played acoustic guitar for Who’s That Girl she said afterward: “I’m still not sure.â€

 

Also good was the title track for Rebel Heart, and the final segment set in a ‘20s Parisian jazz club consisting of Music (which ended with her walking down the catwalk in a bridal veil and carrying a white bouquet which she eventually threw into the crowd at a male couple), Candy Shop, and Material Girl, before going acoustic one last time and singing La vie en rose while playing a ukulele.

 

You couldn’t have told me that would have happened at a Madonna concert 20 years ago.

[groovyguy 63,864]

11 Classic Madonna Moments From Her 'Rebel Heart Tour'

Are we dreaming??

http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=73498

Though Madonna's latest spectacle, "Rebel Heart Tour," spotlights her 13th studio album of the same name, the concert queen still reached into her back pocket and pulled out a swoon-worthy collection of classics. Ones she hasn't touched in years - and an exclusive addition just for her fellow Detroiters.

 

"Hometown girl is back!" Madonna proudly declared on Oct. 1 in Detroit.

 

And, oh yes, she was. The icon's stop at Joe Louis Arena could only be described as the stuff of dreams, a delicious fusion of old and new, writhing nuns and blissed-out fun. "Rebel Heart" was all sweet... not sticky. And nostalgic.

Gays, we have so much to be thankful for.

 

True Blue

 

"Baby, I love you," Madonna gushed, dipping into her back catalog for this adorable 1985 relic. Stripped of its pop sheen, "True Blue" became a finger-snappin', hand-clappin' campfire sing-along, with Madonna plucking away at a ukulele. Yes, baby, we love you too.

 

Deeper and Deeper

 

In 2004, for the "Re-Invention World Tour," she took her great disco rave from 1992's "Erotica" to the cabaret, quieting it down for a lounge-style slowie. Not this time. For "Rebel Heart," "Deeper and Deeper" retained its original pulse, dizzying the crowd of queers with its dance spins as Madge and her crew worked the heart-capped catwalk with a voguish hustle.

 

Burning Up

 

Flame bursts boomed from behind Madonna on a towering backdrop, but the diva herself was the one bringing the heat. As she punched her electric guitar, transforming this 1983 fan favorite into a rockin' rush, someone probably should've called 911.

 

Like a Virgin

 

Bitch, she's Madonna. Owning the stage like a boss during a solo hip-hop take on "Like a Virgin," Madonna bounced her booty during a ravishing display of agelessness - proof that Pilates and full-powered Beyonce-type fans are a girl's best friends.

 

 

La Isla Bonita

 

Toro, toro! No, there wasn't a bull, and this wasn't "Take a Bow" (sigh). Hand to pelvis, Madonna moved to the Spanish vibes of "La Isla Bonita," showing off her slow mo gyrations amidst her festively-attired stage gang who came together for a performance that was muy bien.

 

Dress You Up Medley

 

If Madonna wants to spoil us, who are we to argue? Not only did "Dress You Up" (in full!) make the cut, but the diva went deep into the '80s for "Into the Groove" and "Lucky Star," essentially giving life to all basking in her presence. #Humanitarian

 

Who's that Girl

 

Dusting off the title song from her 1987 film, "Who's that Girl," Madonna gave this ditty a guitar-guided makeover - nearly 30 years after last performing it on tour! Despite the fact that Madonna was actually there, donning gypsy attire and taking our collective breath away, it was hard to tell if this was real life.

 

Frozen

 

This used to be her playground, which Madonna enthused during her hometown stop, proclaiming that, "Detroit made me who I am today." And she didn't stop there. She swapped set-list staple "Ghost Town" for "Frozen," her stunning "Ray of Light"-era trip to the dark side, stripped to merely the rawness of acoustic guitar and a vocal that left everyone, well, you guessed it: frozen.

 

Material Girl

 

Raise your hand if you wet yourself during this one. Beyond the obvious fact that "Material Girl" sits atop Madonna's smoldering hit heap, the way she folded it into "Rebel Heart" - simple, chic, "Great Gatsby"-inspired - was pure blast-from-the-past pleasure.

 

Love Don't Live Here Anymore

 

After shoving a faux lover down a spiral staircase at the end of "Heartbreak City," Madonna caused a ruckus when she launched into her showstopping ballad "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," from 1984's "Like a Virgin." It was just a snippet, a tease - because, you know, she's Madonna.

 

Holiday

 

It didn't take this, the encore, to know that Madonna had let her hair down again, ditching brooding theatrics for the essence of early Madonna: frilly fun. "Rebel Heart Tour" was a two-hour-plus celebration of Madonna's career, and it all came to a boisterous, confetti-filled head with "Holiday."

[survivalartist 6,644]

https://nowtoronto.com/music/concert-reviews/madonna-tries-to-make-Nelly-Furtado-eat-a-banana/

 

The idea that pop music can inspire a revolution is one that Madonna is sticking with on her Rebel Heart Tour.

Of course, in Madonna’s world Madonna is the revolution, and so Rebel Heart opens with a video montage of the pop icon as a caged martyr, looking blonde, bothered and smeared with blood. “Die for what you believe in,†her vocal-fried narration commands, though later in the show she quoted Socrates to explain that she is not always certain of herself: “An unexamined life is not worth living.â€

Much of this tour is dedicated to re-examining aspects of Madonna’s career that many in the room – judging from the demographic in attendance – should be familiar with by now: Cabaret Dancer, Bad Catholic, 50s Greaser, Lover Of The Spanish Guitar Solo, Her Asian-Fusion Look From The Late 90s.

A fitfully vocal crowd ensured that Madonna’s performance vacillated between impeccably choreographed routines and an insatiable thirst for affection (“You are some quiet motherfuckersâ€).

The show opened with a fascist Catholic bondage segment set to Rebel Heart album cut Iconic that eventually culminated in the concert’s most sublime moment of pop-arena ridiculousness: Madonna riding atop a spinning pole dancer who was dressed in a nun-habit-bra-ruffled-panties combo to a trappy rework of Vogue.

Other sublime moments: a performance of Burning Up with Madonna on guitar, True Blue on ukulele, a straight-up take on disco-y Deeper And Deeper, a bongo-and-maracas singalong to La Isla Bonita, an interpretive-dance-battle on a spiral staircase that ended in ballad Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.

There were no confrontational sequences like the Guantanamo Bay or gun-violence-inspired segments from her last tour, though Devil Pray was accompanied by footage of evangelicals and syringes that inferred psychedelic links between drugs and feverish spirituality.

As usual, Madonna mercilessly tinkered with the arrangements to her biggest hits, reworking Material Girl and Like A Virgin with rumbling 808s, tinny hi-hats and aggressive drums in line with the booming EDM aesthetic of this year’s Rebel Heart. The audience sang along as if nothing was amiss, but it seemed like only the cry-facey fans sitting front row around the sword-shaped runway stage were belting out the new songs that comprised half the set list.

There were also a lot of ballads that gave Madonna a chance to sit on the stage and sing. Her voice sounded good with little accompaniment, but she also spent too much time bantering and engaging in mocking exchanges with audience members that slowed momentum. She's been dabbling in stand-up of late and flexed her improv muscles at set’s end.

The opportunity came when she brought up hometown pop star Nelly Furtado to dance to set-closer Unapologetic Bitch. Furtado is married to Madonna producer Demacio “Demo†Castellon so she joked that she was his “second wife†and then, in a moment of hilarious awkwardness, she tried to persuade the confused-looking Furtado to eat (or improvise in other ways with) a banana. Then the show abruptly ended. Then she came back and did Holiday and all was well again.

The Rebel Heart Tour is more about acrobatic feats and fun-filled nostalgia and less about being a rebel, which Madonna defined conservatively as being able to live with self-imposed “restrictions†and knowing how to “pick and choose†when to start up trouble, which, for whatever reason, she has chosen not to do this time around.

kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie

A little on Demo Castellon's work with "4 Minutes"

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul08/articles/it_demo.htm

Madonna's popularity shows no sign of flagging, thanks in part to her ability to seek out cutting-edge production talent. Producer and mixer Demo Castellon explains how he shaped her latest chart-topper.

Paul Tingen

Photo: Jeremy LewisMadonna will be 50 this year, yet she still manages to keep her finger on the pulse of the youth-orientated music market. Her recent single '4 Minutes' was a number one in more than two dozen countries around the world, and made her the artist with the most top 10 hits in the history of American music. She also broke records in the UK, where '4 Minutes' was her 61st Top 10 hit and her 13th number one.

Her continuing success has been brought about by well-chosen collaborations with musicians and producers, and for her new album, Hard Candy, she turned for several of the tracks to Timbaland, arguably the biggest hitmaker of the 21st century so far. Following the disco/dance music of Confessions On A Dance Floor (2005), Hard Candy is Madonna's take on the hip-hop/R&B wave that's been dominating the charts in recent years. '4 Minutes' features Timberland on vocals as well as the producer's trademark clattering drum programming, cheerleading vocals, and catchy minor-key synth lines.

Also involved in the making of the Timbaland tracks on Hard Candy were regular cohorts such as Nate 'Danja' Hills, Justin Timberlake, Marcella Araica (featured in February 2008's Inside Track), and Demacio 'Demo' Castellon, who has worked with Timbaland since 2002, with credits including Wyclef Jean, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Rihanna, Fergie and Nelly Furtado. While Danja and Timberlake helped out on the writing, playing and production front, Araica and Castellon engineered. Castellon's credits on the album also include programming, scratching, mixing, remixing, and additional production. He performed all but the last two duties on '4 Minutes'.

The Mozart Of Our Times

"I wasn't there for the first set of sessions for Madonna's album," says Demo, "because I was working on another project, but I was lucky enough to go in for the second set of sessions. When I arrived, about 65 percent of the song was pretty much there, everything from the drums to the basic keyboard lines. I recorded the rest, and I also did some programming, particularly in the intro and the end. But Tim is the creative force behind everything we do. To me he's the Mozart of our times. It's a different adventure every day, just sitting there watching him you can't help but think 'Damn, he's good!' It's very collaborative. I just try to add to his genius as best as I can. He's like Batman with me being Robin: I take his lead."

The recording sessions for '4 Minutes' took place at SARM Studio 3 in West London, on a 72-channel SSL 9080. "We recorded straight into Pro Tools, 44.1/24-bit," recalls Castellon. "I'm quite happy with that. I don't go by theory, I go with what sounds good to my ears. I can hear the difference between 16 and 24 bits, but I can't hear the difference between 96k and 44.1k. I don't think the average consumer can hear it either. And when you're working 96/24 the files just get ridiculously big."

At SARM, Timbaland and Danja used their trusted Akai MPC3000 and Ensoniq ASR10 sampling drum machines, Yamaha Motif workstation and several soft synths to build the backing track for '4 Minutes'. "I think the horn samples came from the Motif, but I'm not sure," explains Castellon. "There were dedicated analogue keyboards and the rest were soft synths. But we're always experimenting and we're always using whatever equipment we have in the studio we work in. We may have our preferences, but we're always into trying new things. That's why our stuff sounds different to that of everybody else. We're constantly flying around the world — I like to say that my home base is American Airlines seat 3A — and we work in many different studios. We'll use whatever mic pres are there to see what happens. And we customise the sounds we develop before they go into Pro Tools, so they sound exactly the way we want them to.

"We also don't use Pro Tools in the way most people do. We may use plug-ins here and there, but nowhere near what other people do. Most of the processing is analogue outside of the box. I like certain plug-ins and I think they can be really cool, but I stick to a small group of them, like Metaflanger and D-Verb, and almost all the Waves plug-ins. Pretty much every studio has the Waves plug–ins, and since I never know where I'm going to work, I prefer to stick to them. I think plug-ins look really cool, but the thing is, to my ears they all sound the same. They don't have a very identifiable sound. But each piece of outboard gear does have its own sound. I'm probably separating myself from the rest of the pack in saying this, because I know a lot of my peers stick to their guns when it comes to plug-ins, but to each his own. Some guys can make Pro Tools and the plug-ins sound great. Other guys still work on a cassette deck or with DATs. It's whatever works for you."

The mixing of'4 Minutes' was done

at the Hit Factory (formerly Criteria Studios) in Miami, on a 96-channel SSL J-series desk. "My favourite desk is actually the Neve VR60," comments Castellon. "I think it fits my style. I love the sound of it and the way I can hit the levels. I can overdrive it and it sounds great. But I'm not picky in what I use. I like the SSL too, there's nothing bad about it. It's definitely a Cadillac among the mixing desks and I've done a lot of mixes on them. But my favorite mixes were all done on a Neve. I'm also not a mixing-in-the-box guy. I'm from the old platter. Some guys like to do it, and I don't knock it, because they can get a great sound out of it. But I can't do it. I like touching knobs. Sitting behind a computer and messing with a mouse is not as much fun to me. When you play with a computer you can feel like you're at home doing some office work. Sitting behind a large desk is much more inspiring." "

'4 Minutes'

Written by Madonna, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake & Danja

Produced by Timbaland, Danja & Justin Timberlake

'4 Minutes' Written by Madonna, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake & Danja

Produced by Timbaland, Danja & Justin Timberlake

The backing track for '4 Minutes' consists mainly of brass, synths, and percussion. If this sounds relatively simple, the reality is different, asserts Castellon. "The Session is actually much bigger than most people would think, because Tim and Danja take a lot of pride in designing their own sounds. Sometimes what sounds like one sound is eight different sounds layered on top of each other. A lot of the background parts can be stacked several times. The drums and percussion on '4 Minutes' are 23 stereo tracks, so 46 tracks in total, there were 16 stereo tracks of brass, and so on. The whole session panned out to about 100 tracks, and I took 80 outputs from Pro Tools to the SSL, so there was some submixing in Pro Tools. But for the most part it was straight across the board.

"I did the level rides on the CM Labs Motormix controller, because I did not want to use SSL automation. I was jumping between mixes, and I did not want to worry about the SSL computer messing up my blends on a recall, which has happened to me. With some consoles, when you kick on the automation, sometimes the faders start to go haywire and mess up my blends. If I'd only been working on one song, I would have used the J-series automation, because I really like it, but in this situation it felt like playing with fire. So I used the Pro Tools automation, which is probably the easiest automation there is. I did the level rides on the small Motormix controller that I usually carry with me. It's nothing special, just a bank of eight faders, connected to Pro Tools via Ethernet.

"I then ran everything through the SSL, on which I did EQ, compression and panning. It was also important for me to use the desk, because I wanted everything to run through analogue circuitry, for summing purposes. Of course, I also connected the outboard effects to the SSL. As I said, I prefer outboard effects, so I used few plug–ins during mixing. Almost all plug-ins would have been used at the recording stage. One additional reason for this is that I didn't know where the track would be mixed, so I needed to make sure that the plug-ins I was using would be available wherever I went. It made sense for me to use very few."

Given the massive amount of backing tracks and the fact that many of the parts are very busy, it's easy to imagine that one of the main challenges in mixing '4 Minutes' was making sure that the music didn't overwhelm the vocals. Castellon readily confirms this and explains that it led him to an unusual approach. "I started with the vocals, then I added in the music, and the drums were last. That's unusual for me, even though I don't really have a set way of mixing. It all depends on the song. Sometimes I'll start with what's closest to me on the mixing desk. I will always begin a mix with cleaning up the Session, doing crossfades, making sure there's no headphone bleed, or pops. I hate pops. I spend a lot of time making sure everything is smooth and clean.

Few plug-ins were used for the mix of '4 Minutes', partly because Demo Castellon prefers the sound of outboard gear, and partly to ensure that the mix would be portable between studios."When I opened up the session of '4 Minutes', there was so much going on that I knew right away that the hard part would be to make sure that the vocals would cut through and were right in the pocket. Beginning with working on the vocals was the only way to achieve this. After that I formed all the other parts around the vocals. The other challenge was to make sure that everything in the track sounded clear and that you could hear every instrument, every syllable, every breath. Also, I do almost always work linear in time on a track. It's easier, because when you're done, you're done. So I keep working on section after section, until I get to the end of the track and then I know the whole mix is pretty close."

• [*]Vocals: SSL EQ & compression, Yamaha REV5, Roland Dimension D, MXR flanger, Lexicon PCM42 & PCM70, Waves Metaflanger & Renaissance Compressor, Eventide H3500, TC3000, Pioneer CDJ1000
  

"I started working with the vocals in the order in which they appeared on the track, so I began with Timbaland's intro vocals. Then I worked on Madonna's vocal, and when that sounded cool I went onto Justin's. I tried to get the vocals as close as possible to the way I wanted them in the final mix. The vocal became my point of reference, and I needed to make sure it sounded as good as possible. While working on the vocal I would occasionally put the kick drum or the horns or the synths next to them, to see how they sounded in context.

"On Tim's vocals I used desk EQ, taking out some bottom end, and light desk compression, 6:1 maximum. He sometimes got really loud, and I made sure I caught the vocal before it clipped. I also put on a small hall reverb to complement the room sound from his vocal mic. When you heard the track solo you could hear the room, and I wanted to emphasise that a little more. For this I used a Yamaha REV5 on his main intro vocals and a Roland Dimension D on his ad libs. I used the same settings on Tim's voice throughout the song.

"There's also a flanging effect from an MXR and a small slap delay coming from a Lexicon PCM42. I added a chorus effect from the Waves Metaflanger plug-in to that slap delay to give it a different sound. It's easy to use the telephone effect that we often use on Tim [coming from a "20-year old little red box", the exact nature of which Castellon refuses to divulge], but in this case I didn't want to use that. So I was messing around, and tried the PCM42, and liked it, but it wasn't distinctive enough. When I then added the Metaflanger it made it more unique. The distortion on Tim's background vocals? He did that himself. It's the way he plays with the mic. It's kind of weird, he knows how to mimic sound so good that he can create pretty much anything with his voice. So he did the vocal effects himself. I just added a little bit of the same reverb that I had used on his main vocals.

"On Madonna's vocals I added some high mids on the desk EQ, and again desk compression, 2:1 ratio, nothing serious. I didn't use any outboard EQ or compression anywhere in the track, it was all from the SSL. I added an eighth-note delay from the PCM42, and a reverb from the Eventide H3500 for the verse and the TC3000 for the hook. The delay was designed to give her voice some space. I think this was all I used. There may have been some effects when her vocal was recorded, but they would have been printed back.

"I treated Justin pretty much in the same way, with some desk EQ, taking out some low-mids, and desk compression, 4:1 ratio. In addition, I used a Lexicon PCM70 with a small chorus effect on Justin, and on the first verse, where he goes 'Oooh', I loaded his vocal onto a CD and then played it back using the Pioneer CDJ1000, transforming it like a DJ. The EQ on the vocals was used to make the transitions between the three singers smooth. The compression on all three of them was just to make sure nothing jumped out at you. Making the transition from Tim to Madonna to Justin was difficult, because they're different singers, with different styles and timbres, and one is a woman. These vocals were as different as it gets. I wanted to make sure that the transition between them was smooth and flawless. It wasn't my aim to make the three vocals sound the same, but I did want to make them sound more 'brother and sister'–like. All compression was applied on the submixes, on the groups coming back. So I also added some Waves Renaissance compressor on the THC, the hook vocal comp containing all the vocals in the hook."

• [*]Brass & keyboards: SSL EQ
  

"The brass was keyboard samples, probably played by Tim. There were trumpets, trombones, I think there even was a tuba. I treated all the 32 tracks individually, simply beginning with the first track on the track listing, getting it to where I wanted it, and then treating and adding the rest one by one. I didn't add reverb or any other effects, just some desk EQ, and the rest was working with levels and panning, getting the right blend. In fact, I didn't add any effects to the music at all, because if I had, I would have lost the vocals. The tracks sounded good the way they were and that made my life a lot easier.

"You can tell the difference between a great producer and an average producer by the way they create their sounds, the way they do sound design. These guys are the best, and know how to create their sounds. In the case of '4 Minutes', Tim had a vision from the beginning of how things should go, especially sonically. He's a real producer. He doesn't look only at the music, he looks at the sounds as well. He's also a great engineer and he has an incredible ear and he knows exactly how to piece things together in the stereo spectrum. He knew how he wanted things to sound, and that made it really easy for me on the sonic side of things. All I had to do was make sure that everything was clean and it all cut through.

"I call everything that's not the vocals or the brass 'miscellaneous' in my Session. There's too much stuff to keep track of, there's even a flute sample, and several synths, including the synth bass. You don't really hear all the individual keyboard parts, as many are stacked — the main thing you hear is the main keyboard line and the bass. But together with the vocals and the horns, it was a lot of material. This meant that I had to figure out the spacing. Doing this was the biggest thing in this song. I spent a lot of time on this, bringing this track up a little bit and bringing that track down a little bit, and so on. Again, there were no effects, just a little bit of mild desk EQ to make things fit. And again, these guys are the best, so the tracks sounded great as they were, I didn't need to change much. The main thing was to make sure that I left enough space for the drums and the percussion."

• [*]Drums & percussion: SSL EQ & compression, Waves Renaissance Compressor, Focusrite D2
  

"What Tim and Danja do with drums and percussion is phenomenal. The only problem is maybe that it sounds too good sometimes and that I may have too much of it. So I may have to turn down things a little bit. They loop certain patterns and then they add things from there. I added just some desk EQ and also some desk compression, to get a tighter feel and make sure it all fit together. Before sending it to the desk, I added some Renaissance compression to the kick to get the level that I wanted. As I said, plug-ins don't have a sound, to my ears, so the Renaissance just helped me to keep the level in check without altering the sound.

"There's also a Focusrite D2 EQ on the kick on one place in the hook. There was one particular kick sound there that clashed with the other tracks, so Tim replaced it with another kick that had a very different note and sound. Using the D2 allowed me to match the sound of that new kick drum to the other kick drum sounds. I'm really impressed with how that came out, because I remember doing it, but listening to the track I can't tell the difference. Once the drums and percussion were added that was it. They fitted into the only space that was left. Luckily everything came together in the end. I don't think the mix would have sounded the same if I had worked in the opposite way, starting with the drums and working up towards the vocals."

Get Loud

"Mixing '4 Minutes' was a matter of keeping things simple," concludes Demo. "We were on a little bit of a time constraint, because Madonna had a deadline by which she wanted everything done. I therefore gave up some mix luxuries to make sure I could turn it in on time. It's one reason why I didn't plug in loads of outboard gear. This being a Madonna song, I pretty much didn't let anyone else touch it, so it was almost all me. The song took me a full day of work to mix, and after that I left it for two days, and then went back to it for some fine-tuning. A mix can take me four hours or four days, it depends on the song. In some cases it can be very finicky to make changes, and every time I listen to it I hear it in a different way. With this song the effects were easy, but the balancing was quite tough.

"I mixed back into Pro Tools, 24/44.1, and loaded WAV files up on a drive, and took them to Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound in New York for mastering. I always try to be there for the mastering of a track I mixed. The mastering wars? Haha! Tim and I are partly to blame for that! We made some records that were clearly very loud and this became a bit of a trend-setter. Of course it can cut the dynamics on some records, and you definitely get fatigue listening to records that loud for a long time. But it's what people want to hear. Whether you want to do this depends on the kind of music. If you like that sound, then great. If you're making a jazz record you're not going to make it as loud as a pop record. You're not going to make a blues record louder than a heavy metal record. Hip-hop is the new popular music now, and pop has to be loud!".

What's In A Name?

The main Edit window for the '4 Minutes' Session.The Pro Tools Edit window for the '4 Minutes' Session is a bit of a challenge to read. "I don't worry too much about labelling," admits Demo Castellon, "because I don't have the time for it. Usually my groups are not even labelled, and they'll just be called 'Group 1', 'Group 2', and so on. If I labelled everything, it would take me three hours for each Session, and there's no sonic benefit to be derived from it. At the same time, I don't like my tracks being called 'Audio 1', 'Audio 2', or something, so I try to give them some kind of name.

"If you look at the Edit Window, halfway down the tracks window you'll see 'Vcls' and further down 'THC'. Everything in between is the vocal tracks, with names starting with 'T' being Timbaland, 'M' for Madonna, and 'J' for Justin, of course. 'MBn' is Madonna Bounce and her different parts are 'M2B', 'M3B' and 'M4B'; 'pvD1' and 'pD2' are the PCM42 delays on Madonna's vocal that I fed back into Pro Tools. 'JTBn' is Justin Bounce and 'THC' is a subgroup for all the vocals, on which I had the Renaissance Compressor (I didn't use the E6 that's given there). 'H' or 'HK' stands for 'Hook'.

"Just underneath 'THC' is a track called 'PTE', which stands for the premix Pro Tools effects that were all printed back on that track. Marcella [Araica, who recorded most of the Session] did this at my request. Printing these effects frees up the DSP and speeds up the session. Underneath that are 'Effects Balance 1' and 'Effects Balance 2' and the rest of the effects tracks that I printed, again, to free the DSP. Everything above the 'Vcls' track is the actual music. For instance, 'C01' is Clock Bounce 01, '201' Snare 2 Bounce 01, 'T01' TD Snare Bounce 01, 'R01' Ride Bounce 01, 'B02' Bell Bounce 02, and so on."

Is Auto-Tune Cheating?

Unlike some engineers, Demo Castellon is happy to admit to using pitch correction on Madonna's vocal on '4 Minutes', yet in the same breath, Castellon declares himself a strong opponent of vocal tuning. So what's going on? "I pride myself on rarely using tuning," states Castellon. "I fight tooth and nail against doing it. I can make anyone sound like whoever, even Frank Sinatra, but I think that it is cheating to tune vocals. Some people do lots of tuning, and I'm cool with that, but it's not the way I like to work. We pride ourselves on the way we do things. When you work with us, we have high expectations. We're not going to sit there and just let you get by. If you're a singer, you should be able to sing, and if you can't, you should not be singing. And Madonna doesn't need tuning. I'm blessed that I get to work with the best in the industry. It makes my job a lot easier.

"Madonna and Justin can sing in the pocket, whereas many singers these days don't even know what the pocket is. In the '4 Minutes' session there was some tuning on Madonna's vocals and on Justin's vocals, not because they were singing out of tune, but because Timbaland had a vision for how the track was supposed to sound. We used Auto-Tune or Melodyne because we wanted a certain seamless flow between the two singers. We were being really perfectionist about this, and decided to fix a few notes. In a couple of cases one singer dropped slightly under a note on one word and the other may have been a little over, and we wanted all the notes to flow together, and so they were tuned. Little things like this add their own style. Today I could not tell you where it is, because I don't know, and I would not be able to hear it. One of my engineers did the tuning.

"A lot of people will make singers and musicians do endless takes and then they'll comp and fix things. We don't work that way. We're much more linear. Of course there's comping going on, but it's being done while we record. Usually we do a take, and we may punch in a word or clean up a syllable, but after that we move on. If tuning is done at all, it happens just before I start mixing, and it'll be done by one of my guys."

[survivalartist 6,644]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilana-rapp/madonna---i-have-question_b_8263252.html

 

Madonna -- I Have Questions for You About Your Rebel Heart Tour

Posted: 10/08/2015 9:19 am EDT Updated: 4 hours ago

 

Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour stage at Madison Square Garden on September 16, 2015

Madonna -- The Queen of Questions.

I've always wondered how musical tours work.

Have you ever been so excited that the top of the "excitement" meter blows off and you're super calm? And then you start to worry because something ALWAYS goes wrong...?

That's exactly how I felt when I found out I was actually going to MAKE IT to see Madonna in concert 25 years after I saw her live at her Blond Ambition tour.

Even though I was on the train, ON TIME, heading to Madison Square Garden in New York City to see Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour, the world around me was a blur. Nothing was going wrong, which turned the anxiety level up a notch -- because until I was sitting IN my stadium seat, something COULD go wrong.

But nothing did. That's because Madonna is a perfectionist.

Madonna, here are my burning questions...

QUESTION #1:

It was brilliant to have comedian Amy Schumer open for Madonna. Who actually comes up with the short list of people to open for such big acts? Who has the final say? Like, did Madonna herself ask for Amy or did one of Madonna's people come up with the idea? Someone, please tell me how it works!

By the way, Amy Schumer KILLED it. She stayed on longer than her allotted time since Madonna wasn't ready yet. Or was that planned?

QUESTION #2:

So there I was, sitting all by myself next to a guy sitting all by himself. (Some things you just HAVE to do by yourself.) Next thing I know, people in another section are screaming but I couldn't figure out why. I had to go to trusty Twitter and bam! J.Lo was in the house! (I found out later that Ariana Grande was also there.)

Did J.Lo have to purchase a ticket like everyone else or did her camp somehow get her a ticket? How do these things work? I didn't hear Madonna acknowledge J.Lo or Ariana Grande, so did Madonna know ahead of time that they were in the audience?

QUESTION #3:

The set, as simple as it was, was extraordinary, complete with "secret" openings to slip underneath the stage. Perfect for those quick costume changes and drinks of water.

As I was sitting in my seat waiting for Amy Schumer to come on, I was watching the setup. On either side of the stage, two guys were hoisted up into the sky on what appeared to be a chair. I quickly called my utility friend, Debbie, who told me that they are lighting people who somehow manage to stay up there throughout the whole show -- how do they go to the bathroom?! Actually, I don't want to know.

So how about these questions instead:

How long does it take to build the same set over and over again at different venues? How much manpower is needed? And what REALLY goes on underneath the stage?

What questions do YOU have about musical tours?

 

[survivalartist 6,644]

Monte's Periscope vid: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1YpKkXjwzWwGj

 

http://blog.thecurrent.org/2015/10/prince-serenades-madonna-at-late-night-paisley-park-gig/

 

Prince serenades Madonna at late-night Paisley Park gig

 

by Andrea Swensson Â· October 9, 2015

REVIEW 7

via Prince on Facebook

I had shown up to Paisley Park around 11:30 p.m., having been summoned there only hours earlier with the promise that something “extra-special†might go down. As the 33 of us who were gathered there did our best to stay upright, sway to DJ KISS’s mix of Prince and ’80s pop tunes, and keep our wits about us, and as the clock crept past 1:30 a.m., I was just about to start counting the crowd again and contemplating the strength of that word mightwhen a flurry of security guards with walkie-talkies started buzzing around and a door next to the stage swung open.Thirty-three civilians showed up to Paisley Park late last night. I know there were 33 of us because I ended up having plenty of time to count each and every one of us from left to right, then again from right to left and all the way up to the stage, which was littered with dozens of guitar pedals, two keyboard rigs, a drum set, and Prince’s signature glyph microphone.

A steady stream of people started filing into the venue, and it took me a couple of blinks to realize that the first woman and the head of the pack was Madonna. She is a petite little powerhouse of a figure, and was dressed in a sharp navy trench coat-style cape with her hair neatly woven into a braid that fell down her right shoulder, like a pop star’s rendition of Little Red Riding Hood. Her bright lipstick and dark eyeliner appeared flawless, and as she scanned the strange scene—33 civilians dancing haphazardly, undoubtedly looking tired from all the waiting and the late hour, and her own hits blasting over the sound system—she looked so calm and coiffed that you would have never guessed that she had just finished performing a two-hour show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Xcel Energy Center.

It turns out that injecting Madonna’s entire professional dance troupe into a party is a surefire way to liven it up, and as more and more of the pop icon’s touring crew filtered in, a fully choreographed dance party soon broke out in the middle of the room. It was incredibly surreal standing on the sidelines attempting to groove to the music while what looked like a professional music video shoot sprawled out before us, but all of a sudden the energy in the place had been cranked to 11 and it was all we could do to try to soak up the crew’s ecstatic vibe.

Madonna was ushered into a roped-off section of the room and then disappeared, undoubtedly to have a few private moments with Prince while her team blew off a little steam on the dance floor. By 2:15 a.m. she had returned to the scene and was followed in short order by Prince, who stood near the back of the dance floor draped in a floor-length hooded sweater and smirked at the energetic dancers who were frolicking around the room.

As soon as Prince appeared the small crowd started pressing toward the stage, and even after Madonna’s tour buses had all been unloaded into Paisley Park there were still only roughly 60 people there to take in the impending show. Most of the people in attendance were standing within a couple yards of the band, and Prince seemed a little uncomfortable playing to such an intimate audience.

“You better keep dancing,†he instructed us, sitting at an organ and leading a new configuration of his band through a swampy, funky new song. 3RDEYEGIRL guitarist Donna Grantis was joined by a drummer Kirk Johnson and bassist Dwayne MonoNeon Thomas, Jr., who had more jazz and funk sensibilities than Grantis’s more hard-driving 3RDEYEGIRL bandmates Ida Neilsen and Hannah Ford Welton (who was dancing in the audience with her husband, Josh). The change in musicianship allowed Prince to deconstruct his songs into more complex, moody arrangements, tracing back to his roots in late ’70s jazz and funk.

As if to show off the band’s newly discovered chemistry, Prince followed up a rip-roaring rendition of “Guitar†with a lengthy, solo-filled jam to the Bill Withers song “Use Me Up.†After giving Grantis and his new bassist a turn at soloing, Prince slowed the song down and morphed it into a spacey, dreamy interlude, then tore through an impressive and complex piano solo that sounded like it was inspired in equal measure by Thelonious Monk and Jimi Hendrix.

When Prince launched into the next song, “Ain’t About to Stop,†off his latest album HITNRUN Phase One, I decided to try to discretely scan the room to see where Madonna was taking in the show. I had expected her to hang back a bit, or maybe sitting in her roped-off area, but once I stepped a little closer to the stage I realized that she was not only in the front row, but had perched on the edge of the stage at Prince’s feet, looking up at him adoringly as he sang.

There is a face that people make when they are watching Prince play guitar; it’s a gleeful expression that combines the joy of going down a roller coaster with the realization that you are witnessing a moment that might never be recreated by another being that lives on this beautiful Earth. It turns out Madonna also makes that face when she is watching Prince play. As the band stretched out into another jam and Prince ripped into a soul-levitating guitar solo, her mouth relaxed into an awestruck gape, revealing a shiny gold grill underneath her perfect red lipstick.

Prince, too, seemed a little awestruck by Madge, appearing nervous as he flitted around the stage to different instruments and taking great care to get the lighting, sound, and chord changes just right. It completely shifted the energy at the Park, which usually pulls like a magnet toward Prince’s spot in the room, and it was a rare chance to see two megastars share an intimate moment and a series of knowing smiles.

After the sixth song of the set, Prince leaned down and whispered something back and forth with Madonna, and then hopped back up to his keyboards and simply said, “Cool.†With that, Madonna made her way out of the building and Prince was left alone with his band and small group of adoring fans, and he delivered simmering renditions of “1000 X’s and O’s†and “X’s Face†before hopping off stage and handing things back to the DJ.

Sensing that we were well past 3 a.m. at that point, I started to make my way toward the door, but my friend and #1 Prince fan Heidi Vader later informed me that Prince returned to play two more short sets and even invited some of his fans up on stage to sing and dance along. Or did any of that really happen? On nights like these, it’s hard to tell.

Prince set list

Stare
Guitar
Use Me (Bill Withers)
Ain’t About to Stop
Pick Out My Clothes
1000 X’s and O’x
X’s Face

Free Yourself

Sign O the Times
Work to Do (Average White Band)