Ha, funnily enough these past few weeks I've been thinking about what a potential Madonna tour in support of Bedtime stories might have looked like in 1995 and wrote down my ideas. So allow me to present to you:
The Sweet Dreams Tour
The setlist
Act 1 – Slumber party
Survival
Keep it together
Angel
Don’t stop
Act 2 – Love songs
Forbidden love
Rain/I’ll remember
True blue/Cherish
Secret
Act 3 – Jungle fever
Fever intro (with excerpts of Secret garden)
Erotica
Bedtime story
Vogue
Act 4 – Express yourself, don’t repress yourself
Human nature
Inside of me
Like a virgin
Express yourself
Human nature (reprise)
Encore
Holiday
Take a bow
The synopsis
As the band plays an extended intro to Survival, the simple stage is slowly lit up, consisting of a central platform made up of three concentric circles, a protruding semicircular part in the front and space on the side for the band. A translucent curtain with glittering stars decorates the back as a bed slowly begins to rise from under the circular platform. It emerges with Madonna lying on it, wearing a very short baby blue robe with feathery sleeves, neck and hem, and a pair of high heeled sandals. She sings a faithful rendition of the album version with Nikki and Donna backing her up.
As the beat from the alternate single mix of Keep it together kicks in, a group of dancers barges in with pillows, the ladies wearing robes similar to Madonna’s, the fellas in pajama bottoms. Madonna sings the song while performing a choreography with the pillows, with key points getting the appropriate visuals (i.e. a faux pillow fight to “and all the heartache that they brought to me”). Nikki and Donna join in. At the end, everyone bands together and the lights fade out.
Angel is rearranged into a smooth RnB version with its 80s synths upgraded into the “starlight” effect typical of the 90s. Madonna sings it to a male dancer and they perform a choreography together. He unfastens her robe to reveal some very saucy lingerie underneath.
The act ends with Don’t stop. We’re talking full on slumber party vibes – group choreography, audience singalong, the works. As the song ends Madonna climbs back on the bed, says “good night” and disappears below the stage while the dancers finish the performance.
Act two is set in a boudoir, all soft pink hues, translucent curtains and soft textures. Over an instrumental intro of faint percussion and ethereal keys, a dancer in a suit walks in, looking around, obviously searching for something. The sax of Forbidden love comes in and Madonna comes from behind the curtain, in a candy pink outfit with a corset and long transparent robe trailing behind her. She acts out a scene with the dancer, pulling him close and pushing him away, as she sings the song. At the end he leaves, leaving Madonna on her knees, nakedly singing “heaven forgive me, never forbid me, love should always feel like this” as the music fades, ending the song a capella.
A tide of ambient sound announces the arrival of Rain, as Madonna stands back up and sings the song with Nikki and Donna. After the first chorus the key shifts and Madonna’s humming tips us off that she’s launching into I’ll remember. Again harmonizing with Nikki and Donna, she delivers a vocally convincing performance.
As the fluffy, bubbly opening chords of True blue start to play, the dancers join Madonna on stage in outfits in shades of cotton candy pink and blue, dancing joyfully. Halfway through the song morphs into Cherish which serves as a big singalong moment. As the song comes to a close and all the dancers leave the stage, Madonna sings the second chorus of Something to remember alone (“We weren’t meant to be/At least not in this lifetime/But you gave me/Something to remember/I hear you still say ‘love yourself’”). The lights go dark as the final piano notes of the song fade into silence.
For the final performance of the act, Madonna sings the last love song – to herself. Secret is staged as her standing in front of a mirror, singing the words as if she was talking to herself, bringing home the point that “happiness lies in your own hand”. Monitors on the side of the stage show us her mirror reflection. It’s a lightly choreographed but effective solo turn, Madonna singing without backup. As the extended outro plays, she leaves the stage the same way she walked in and her boudoir descends under the stage.
Act three begins with an intro based on Fever with elements of Secret garden worked into it. The arrangement is very up-tempo and percussive, with an electronic Afro-beat vibe. The stage is bathed in a green glow as a male dancer walks around in awe. A new curtain with tree shapes is in the back of the stage. A large flower emerges from below into the center of the circular platform. The dancer parts the petals and it opens, revealing Madonna in a skintight leather outfit, thigh high boots and long platinum blond wig with green highlights.
The Afro-beat vibe stays for Erotica, where Madonna seemingly controls vines that wrap around the dancer’s body, limbs and neck tightly. He writhes in pleasure – or pain, it’s not clear – as Madonna slowly walks around him, moving her arms as if ordering the vines to twist his body into different positions. The version of the song is very tribal techno and upbeat.
After some botanical S&M, Madonna climbs up on the platform and the flower begins to glow, attracting the other dancers. We get a tour-de-force dance version of Bedtime story, where Madonna, as if she was some futuristic druid, commands everyone to “get unconscious”.
The segment ends with a very ambient techno take on Vogue that makes the song more hypnotic and minor key. Madonna and her crew still do the typically impressive choreography, but the moves are more snakelike than angular. The performance ends with Madonna returning to the flower with the petals once again closing around her, and as it descends “I’ll never explain again” from Bedtime story is played on the speakers.
Madonna starts the final act confidently strutting out on stage in a very revealing outfit as a saucy saxophone plays. Suddenly a loud record scratch cuts the music short and a voice is heard shouting “Calm down grandma!” as a nod to the double page spread in the October ’93 issue of Smash Hits. Human nature starts and male dancers dressed in police uniform rush to the stage, covering Madonna up with bands that read “Sl!t”, “B!tch”, “Wh!re”, “Tr!mp” and other choice expletives. She remains defiant but they overpower her and push her back to the circular platform, and before she can finish the song a loud window crash can be heard, symbolizing her cracking under the pressure of the media. She kneels then lies down as loud derisive laughter echoes throughout the arena.
The laughter soon dies down, and the plush, gentle tones of Inside of me fill the air, as a golden light shines on Madonna from above. Contextually it makes perfect sense, as the song shows her finding strength in her mother’s memory whenever the world tries to bring her down. She looks up and begins to sing, slowly regaining her confidence. She ends the song standing up, and after the final vocal line she boldly walks down the stairs, stripping off the insults others have tagged her with while an extended outro of the song plays.
For Like a virgin the male dancers dressed in cop uniforms return to the stage, but with her regained confidence Madonna keeps them at bay. The performance emphasizes the theme of liberation present in the lyrics (“You made me feel like I’ve nothing to hide”), and little by little the men begin to loosen up and undress. When the last chorus comes along they’re shirtless and eager, joining Madonna for a group choreography.
When Express yourself kicks off, the female dancers enter the stage, and Madonna now turns her attention to them, schooling them on what to look for in a man. The choreography focusses on moves that assert dominance and physical ability, and Madonna and the ladies show they can stand toe to toe with the male dancers who flaunt their street moves. As the last chorus comes in everyone joins for a group dance and singalong with the audience.
After the last “Express yourself!” the beat of Human nature suddenly kicks in and Madonna finishes the song, the same dancers who derided her at the start now joining in for the ride. The music stops, the lights go off, and a sole spotlight shines down on her. She ends the performance and the main part of the show by saying “Absolutely no regrets”, putting down the mic and walking away into the dark.
For the encore the stage turns into a masquerade ball, with Madonna and her dancers coming together for an ebullient, 90s dance happy take on Holiday.
As Holiday ends, the party winds down, and under the cold light of day (or rather the stage lights) the dancers begin to leave the stage one by one. Madonna begins to slow dance with one of the dancers as Take a bow starts. As they dance she unmasks him, in line with the lyrics of the song, and then rejects him. For the culmination (“…you’d break my heart”), the music drops out and flower petals begin to rain down. Madonna finishes the song alone on stage, sings the last “say goodbye” a capella and, aptly enough, takes a bow and disappears below the stage.
I'd like to do drawings of every performance to visually convey the outfits and staging, but that's a project that'll have to wait.
