17 Best Moments from the Premiere – Billboard

You’ll see a seam or two on opening night. When Madonna pulled out her guitar to play “Burning Up”—which she told the crowd was the first song she ever sang on stage in New York City, at a CBGB concert, no less—the microphone decided to immediately cut out. Despite the glitch, Madge played the song to the end like a pro. “Sorry, these things happen,” she said. It might not sound like the most exciting event, but in a way it was – after all, what better way to evoke a punk bar than to fight your way through the sound problems?

While the technical team was fixing the problems, M invited Bob the Drag Queen to have some fun. She began telling him about her early bad days in New York, recalling that she “dated men who took showers” while living in her band’s rehearsal space. After the story, she summed it up briefly: “So yeah, blowjob in the shower.” With pauses. “I can already see this headline. Well, we all have a past.”

After a joyful “Celebration” on a stage designed to resemble Paradise Garage, one of Madonna’s dancers fell to the ground, lifeless. She covered him with a sheet as if he had died—a fitting connection, given that “Holiday” served as an anthem of salvation and respite for the LGBT community in the ’80s when it was devastated by HIV/AIDS. And of course, her next song was a tribute to the lives lost during this crisis.

Performing in an open-air rectangle that floated in the air, Madonna sang “Live to Tell” as the faces of those who died during the AIDS crisis (including Keith Haring, Herb Ritts, Sylvester and Freddie Mercury). It was impossible not to wonder if, in this context, the man lying in the song’s lyrics was Reagan, who lied by default when it came to the AIDS crisis, which he simply refused to acknowledge.

As shirtless male dancers wearing leather masks writhed around a spinning zoetrope, Madonna performed one of the night’s biggest hits in “Like a Prayer.” She also spiced it up, peppering the performance with snippets of Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” and adding snippets of her own “Act of Contrition.” The exclamation point to the excellent medley was the exuberant guitar solo of the late Prince.

When Madonna performed at the Brit Awards in 2015, an incident with her cape during her performance of “Living for Love” caused her to fall off the stage. This time at the O2, as a snippet of ‘Living for Love’ blasted from the speakers, there wasn’t a single cape in sight. Consider the song – and the O2 stage – restored.

For such a triumphant and commanding tour as this one, it is only right that one of the numbers will include boxing choreography. In “Erotica,” Madonna took to the ring surrounded by glitter-gloved dancers, dancing like butterflies and stinging like bees, performing a voluptuous, dark classic.

The Holiday Tour is, in many ways, a love letter to Madonna, and Madonna defiantly took that self-love to its natural conclusion during the brilliant return of her Blond Ambition Tour. Virgin” on this tour – at one point under threat of arrest by Canadian police), Madonna cuddled up to a dancer dressed like herself, Blond Ambition-inspired, ponytail and all.

Directing a dancing hand towards her crotch, Madge feigned pleasure from her past self as the sharp strings of “Papa Don’t Preach” permeated the sound system. Hey, if you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anyone else?

For the first time since 1993, Madonna performed “Justify My Love” (one of 12 songs to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100), complete with Busby Berkeley-style choreography. After that, she gave another surprise – a piece of her version of the smoky jazz classic “Fever” from Erotica album. Shortly after, the video insert featured another rarity, “The Beast Within,” her remix of “Justify My Love” with spoken word lyrics taken from the biblical Book of Revelation. Shout out to the fan in front who knew every word this biblical bully said. Now This revelation.

Of course, Madonna’s children will be musical, but even so, watching her daughter Mercy James sit down at the piano and effortlessly tickle the ivories during “Bad Girl” (a song Madonna hasn’t sung live in 30 years) was damn nice. impressive. Good.

“Vogue” was a multi-layered tribute to her past, her family and her strange inspirations.

On a three-tiered stage (reminiscent of the cake from Madonna’s Like a Virgin at the 1984 VMAs), Bob the Drag Queen led a parade of dancers, performing some of Beyoncé’s lines from “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix”). » Photos and footage taken against the backdrop of the Stonewall riots; LGBTQ trailblazers who helped achieve greater acceptance in the community such as Marsha P. Johnson; And Paris is burningA cult documentary about Harlem’s ball culture.

Vogue’s live performance even had a ballroom flavor. Bob played the loud-mouthed emcee while the Celebration Tour dancers performed on the runway and Madonna presided as judge (naturally), flashing 10s or “beats” as needed.

At the premiere, Madonna wasn’t alone as a judge—her daughter Lourdes sat next to her, showing off dozens of dancers and even getting a lap dance from one of them. And the family affair didn’t end there – the last person to appear before the judges was another of Madonna’s daughters, Esther, who demolished the house. No surprise – her house mother knows a thing or two, after all.

After Esther’s performance in Vogue, twin sister Stella joined Mother Madonna on stage, dancing along with her mom during “Don’t Tell Me” in full cowgirl attire. The song ended with a fake shootout between Madonna and Bob (as a rodeo clown), but the former made it clear that it was all for play. “Don’t waste your time on guns, sir,” she said in a cartoonish Wild West accent.

Madonna hasn’t sung “Mother and Father” since 2004, and given AmericanLifeDespite its controversial reputation, people didn’t expect to hear this song on the Celebration Tour. have you surpassed that?) and hits an emotional, emphatic money note at the end when she sings about giving up pain. Even more impressive was that her son David Banda accompanied her on acoustic guitar throughout the number and even shared some of the choreography with her.

The family romance went on all night as Madonna released a short version A ray of light a rarity – presumably only for the premiere. “Today is my daughter Lola’s birthday,” she said. “I promised I wouldn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday.'” This worked to our advantage – instead Madonna sang a sample of “Little Star”, a song she wrote for Lourdes when she was still a child, and sang it for a very long time. chapel. Deep or not, the premiere audience knew the words, so when she asked the crowd to sing along, it wasn’t a problem.

Despite their broken relationship with the public, Madonna paid tribute to the late Sinead O’Connor by showing off a photo of herself during her “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” performance, which ended with chants of “don’t be afraid.”

There was no disagreement between them, but in the early 90s Madonna took slight offense when O’Connor tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II. SNL, and O’Connor accused Madonna of making “offensive” comments. Despite this, in the passage about living without fear, Madonna clearly thought Sinead deserved inclusion – there’s no argument there.

A montage of memories of Madonna in the media—the good, the bad and the ugly—concluded with an audio excerpt from Madonna’s speech at the 2016 Billboard Women in Music Gala, where she was honored as Woman of the Year: “Getting old is gone… I guess , the most controversial thing I’ve ever done is stay here.” I am honored to be included in the story of her story.

Wearing a mirrorball costume, Madonna performed another fan favorite that she hasn’t sung in a while: “Bedtime Story,” her minimalist trance tune co-written with Björk. It sounded amazing when she sang it on a stage that rose into the air, allowing her to jump onto that floating rectangle and perform a soaring pop tune for all time.

Performing from the same airy rectangle she used for “Live to Tell,” Madonna gave us “Ray of Light” in a wonderful version of “Sasha Ultra Violet Mix.” It’s hard to sing, but she didn’t offend the audience with a shortened version – we got the full “Light” in all its splendor. Even if she didn’t hit that stratospheric note you hear on the studio version, her live vocals were pretty close to the original—which is wildly impressive for someone who dealt with Reaper earlier this summer.

The verdict is in: Madonna is back.