He’s always resisted playing the “greatest hits” tour card, understanding it as surrendering to nostalgia, but at this point in the game, with four decades of experience, hits to give away and sell, 65 birthdays and six children accumulated, madonna She’s the universal pop matriarch capable of allowing him to step aside to show off the inheritance. Such was the case this Wednesday at the first of their two concerts in Sant Jordi (the only dates in Spain); a series of hits with catwalks and a dash of melancholy for happy extravagance.
Let’s forget the cartoon, that pixelated Madonna and the scalpel flesh that looks like it’s fighting against time. The first song of the night is ‘Nothing matters’This work, which she dedicated to her little daughter Lourdes in 1998, was like a manifesto for adults: According to the lyrics, when she was young, she only cared about having fun and “living selfishly”, an order that motherhood disrupted. Madonna, alone in the shadows on the large circular stage, lighting the fuse in her long black nun’s gown and liturgical crown one hour and twenty minutes late. The wait became even more colorful with the booing from the public. In the absence of explanations or apologies.
New York in the 80s
As soon as the show started, as it usually does, the anger was left behind. The script of the ‘celebration tour’ displayed a chronological dynamic, with the first act dedicated to the ‘remake’ of the eighties: From the noise of ‘everyone’, puts the focus on an ‘Into the Grove’ wrapped in the sounds of New York’s beginnings. Swaying with a youthful attitude, performing the feat of singing (or pretending to sing) and running at the same time, Madonna was surrounded by a contingent dressed in the wild fashions of 1984. The podium labyrinth and the video screens that extend and retract from there. one subject to another.
Ms Ciccone spoke He will invite us to a show that he presents as “the story of my life”, reminding us of those first steps in New York “a million years ago”. And ready to add some rock to ‘Burning up’, he set off for Barcelona, electric guitar at the ready, with a resounding ‘I love this city’. From there to ‘Open your heart’ and a smiling ‘Holiday’ under the mirror ball. It’s one of the simplest and most effective songs in his repertoire, with a nod to Chic’s ‘I Want Your Love’.
sex and religion
Madonna’s personal interpretation of this classical religion emerged in ‘Like a Prayer’, in a grocery store with monastery choirs, hooded monks and half-naked bodies entwined with crosses so large that It lacked the impact of the final ‘crescendo’ but He gave the prince a souvenirAnother proponent of the dialogue between sex and God. And from there we went to ‘Erotica’, which she sang in a bathrobe between three boxing rings, and met with a version of herself who recreated the bed scene from 1990’s ‘Blonde Ambition Tour’.
His 2005 song “Hung up”, featuring Abba’s “sample”, became a generation-wide sensation at the time. And what can we say about the sensual house of ‘Vogue’? There were cycle changes due to the ballad ‘Bad girl’, played by daughter Mercy James on the piano, and a parliament in favor of “radical hospitality” and “welcoming the stranger”. And Madonna raised her voice ‘I will Survive’Gloria Gaynor’s hit was Evita for a few minutes, reminiscent of another lost colleague, Michael Jackson, marrying ‘Billie Jean’ with ‘Like a Virgin.’
mother figure
Demand for pop landmarks was at a premium, although Madonna may have left a few in her bedroom: This tour featured titles like “Material girl”, “Who is that girl”, “True Blue”, “Express yourself” or “Music” no . And there’s no sign of their last album, ‘Madame X’. Instead, some numbers have gone a bit under the radar, such as ‘Mom and Dad’, which was inspired by the loss of his mother when he was just five years old.
Using final lettersor ‘Beautiful island’ or ‘Ray of light’, Greeted like manna by a multi-generational audience, Madonna dominated and came to appreciate those who labeled her a temporary toy in the ’80s. And the story continues.