madonna tour opening

Who Is Opening Madonna’s ‘The Celebration Tour?’

Madonna’s miraculous medical recovery brought a new meaning to The Celebration Tour’s name. Initially, it was a party to honor her musical legacy as she performed some of her biggest hits, including “ Like A Virgin .” For the singer and ticketholders, it’s a gathering to show gratitude for life. So, who’s the lucky entertainer taking the stage at The Celebration Tour as the official opener?

Who is Opening Madonna’s The Celebration Tour ?

Instead of tapping another musician as the opening act, Madonna found someone who could do it all. The official opener of her The Celebration Tour is activist, recording artist, comedian, media personality, and drag performer Bob The Drag Queen. The Columbus, Georgia native is wildly known as the season eight winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race reality competition show. Since snatching the crown, Bob has starred in several comedy specials, including Woke Man in a Dress. Bob co-hosted HBO’s We’re Here alongside Eureka O’Hara and Shangela Laquifa Wadley.

Back in March, Bob was added to the tour by Madonna to protest Nashville’s anti-drag legislation . “The oppression of the LGBTQ+ is not only unacceptable and inhumane; it’s creating an unsafe environment; it makes America a dangerous place for our most vulnerable citizens, especially trans women of color. Also, these so-called laws to protect our children are unfounded and pathetic. Anyone with half a brain knows not to f*ck with a drag queen. Bob and I will see you from the stage in Nashville, where we will celebrate the beauty that is the queer community,” wrote Madonna in a statement.

Unfortunately, Madonna fell ill shortly after, and the tour was ultimately postponed. Now, she’s back on the road, and so is Bob.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bob/ Caldwell Tidicue (@bobthedragqueen)

What Are The Remaining Show Dates For Madonna’s The Celebration Tour ?

12/16/2023 — Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center (previously MSG) * 12/18/2023 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena 12/19/2023 — Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena 01/08/2024 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden 01/09/2024 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden 01/11/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena 01/12/2024 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena 01/15/2024 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena 01/18/2024 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre 01/20/2024 — Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre 01/22/2024 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden Arena 01/23/2024 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden Arena 01/25/2024 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center 01/29/2024 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden Arena 02/01/2024 — Chicago, IL @ United Center 02/02/2024 — Chicago, IL @ United Center 02/05/2024 — Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena 02/08/2024 — Cleveland, OH @ Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse 02/13/2024 — Saint Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center 02/17/2024 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena 02/18/2024 — Seattle,WA @ Climate Pledge Arena 02/21/2024 — Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena 02/24/2024 — Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center 02/27/2024 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center 02/28/2024 — San Francisco,CA @ Chase Center 03/01/2024 — Las Vegas,NV @ T-Mobile Arena 03/02/2024 — Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena 03/04/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum (previously Crypto.com Arena) * 03/05/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum (previously Crypto.com Arena) * 03/07/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum (previously Crypto.com Arena) * 03/09/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum (previously Crypto.com Arena) * 03/11/2024 — Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum 03/13/2024 — Palm Desert, CA @ Acrisure Arena 03/16/2024 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center 03/19/2024 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena 03/24/2024 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center 03/25/2024 — Dallas. TX @ American Airlines Center 03/28/2024 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center 03/29/2024 — Houston, TX @ Toyota Center 01/04/2024 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena 04/04/2024 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena 04/06/2024 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center 04/07/2024 — Miami, FL @ Kaseya Center 04/14/2024 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center 04/15/2024 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center 04/20/2024 — Mexico City, MX @ Palacio De Los Deportes 04/21/2024 — Mexico City, MX @ Palacio De Los Deportes 04/23/2024 — Mexico City, MX @ Palacio De Los Deportes 04/24/2024 — Mexico City, MX @ Palacio De Los Deportes

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Madonna The Celebration Tour setlist: All 28 songs played by Queen of Pop revealed

16 October 2023, 11:04

By Tom Eames

What songs does Madonna perform on The Celebration Tour? Here's the official setlist and every song included in the epic live show.

Listen to this article

Madonna is back on the road with her Celebration Tour , a retrospective of her four-decade-long career in music.

The pop icon kicked off the tour on October 14 at London's O2 Arena, the first of six sold-out shows at the venue. Fans were treated to a dazzling spectacle of songs, costumes, dancers, and special guests.

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But what songs did Madonna perform on the opening night of her tour? Here's a rundown of the setlist so far, though there's always a chance it may change throughout the tour.

The setlist featured over 25 songs, spanning Madonna's entire discography from her 1983 debut album to her latest release Madame X .

Warning: Spoilers below!

Madonna Carpool Karaoke

This is the full 28 song Celebration Tour setlist, in order, based on shows in London:

- Intro skit with Bob the Drag Queen, including elements of 'Lucky Star', 'Celebration' and 'Material Girl'

1. Nothing Really Matters 2. Everybody (contains elements of 'Where's the Party') 3. Into the Groove 4. Burning Up 5. Open Your Heart (contains elements of 'Live to Tell') 6. Holiday

- 'The Storm' interlude (contains elements of 'In This Life')

7. Live to Tell

- 'The Ritual' interlude (contains elements of 'Girl Gone Wild')

8. Like a Prayer (contains elements of 'Girl Gone Wild', 'Act of Contrition' and 'Unholy' by Sam Smith )

- The Sacrifice/Erotic interlude (contains elements of 'Living for Love', 'Erotica', 'Justify My Love' and 'Fever'

9. Erotica (contains elements of 'Papa Don't Preach') 10. Justify My Love / Fever 11. Hung Up 12. Bad Girl

- Ballroom interlude (contains elements of 'Up Down Suite', 'Vogue' and 'Break My Soul')

13. Vogue 14. Human Nature 15. Crazy for You

- The Beast Within interlude

16. Die Another Day 17. Don't Tell Me 18. Mother and Father 19. Little Star 20. I Will Survive (cover) 21. La Isla Bonita 22. Don't Cry for Me Argentina

- Madonna interlude (contains elements 'I Don't Search I Find')

23. Bedtime Story 24. Ray of Light 25. Rain

26. Like a Virgin (contains Michael Jackson tribute including 'Billie Jean') 27. Bitch I'm Madonna / Give Me All Your Luvin' 28. Celebration / Music

Madonna’s The Celebration Tour is set to continue until April 2024, visiting various cities in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Australia.

Fans can expect some changes in the setlist as Madonna likes to surprise her audience with different songs and guests.

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Madonna Celebrates Four Decades of Hits With Career-Spanning Spectacle

After a health-related delay, the pop superstar launched her Celebration Tour in London with a performance devoted to her full catalog of hits.

By Derrick Bryson Taylor and Ben Sisario

Derrick Bryson Taylor reported from London, and Ben Sisario from New York.

They wore pearls with crucifixes, lace gloves, tulle skirts and body-sculpting corsets. Some even crimped their hair and drew on fake beauty moles, while others wore simple white T-shirts with only the letter M on the back. Spanning generations, the concertgoers arriving at the O2 Arena in London used Saturday night as an opportunity to dress in their favorite Madonna era, even if that was decades before they were born.

Madonna, 65, is on the road for the first time since 2020 with her global Celebration Tour, a stage spectacle touching on more than 40 of her hits across four decades. The show opened at the O2, a 20,000-capacity arena, three months after its planned first date, following a health scare for the pop icon. In June, Madonna was hospitalized shortly before the tour’s scheduled debut in Canada. At the time, her manager said she had a “ serious bacterial infection ” that resulted in the singer staying in an intensive care unit for several days.

Madonna swore that the tour — her first devoted to her full catalog of hits, rather than to a specific album release — would go on. In recent weeks, she has filled her Instagram account with tantalizing , and very on-brand, images from rehearsals, showing her dressed in a lacy black bustier, practicing onstage steps and resting her fishnet-clad knees .

Fans waited out a 30-minute delay before Madonna arrived onstage in London, opening with a medley of hits before acknowledging the challenges that had led to the moment. “How did I make it this far? Because of you,” she said, adding, “But I will take a bit of credit, too.”

It was clear from the beginning that this concert would be as much a journey through Madonna’s career as it would a bona fide dance party. Set on an elaborate stage that jutted out into the audience, several hanging retractable screens showed images of the singer. At other times, they displayed powerful portraits, as when she launched into “Live to Tell” and the screens displayed images of Freddie Mercury, Arthur Ashe and more people who died from AIDS.

For more than two hours, with the help of her dancers and some of her six children, Madonna blazed through her catalog of songs, singing several hits like “Holiday,” “Like a Prayer,” “Hung Up,” “Ray of Light” and “Bad Girl.” Her costumes were sexy, religious and futuristic.

Though the show had been in the works for months, it was not without technical difficulties. Early on, Madonna paused the show so the sound could be reset. She entertained the audience during the delay by speaking at length about her rise to stardom while technicians worked behind the scenes. Later in the show, between songs, Madonna expressed concern for those affected by violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip. “It breaks my heart to see children suffering, teenagers suffering, elderly people suffering, all of it is heartbreaking,” she said. “Even though our hearts are broken, our spirits cannot be broken.”

Madonna also reflected on her health struggles this year. “I forgot five days of my life, or my death,” she said. “I don’t really know where I was, but the angels were protecting me.

“If you want to know my secret, and you want to know how I pull through and how I survive, I thought, ‘I’ve got to be there for my children. I have to survive for them,’” she said. She then led the crowd in a singalong of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

The 24 performers onstage notably did not include a live band: Stuart Price, the tour’s musical director, told the BBC that “the original recordings are our stars.” The stage, which encompasses 4,400 square feet, was designed to echo Manhattan neighborhoods, as well as the wedding cake from Madonna’s 1984 MTV Video Music Awards performance of “Like a Virgin.” During the show, she is swept across the venue in a square-framed box 30 feet off the ground.

Carla Nobre, 38, of Nottingham said that seeing Madonna in concert had been on her bucket list, but that she had been disappointed with the performance.“There was too much talking,” she said.

Jenni Purple, 54, from the southern coast of England said the concert, which was her first time seeing Madonna live, had been “absolutely incredible.” “I loved all the medleys, I loved the costumes, I loved all the dances,” she said with a broad smile. “Everything was just mind-blowing.”

In the past, Madonna’s tours have been news-making events tied as much to her latest music as to her cycle of stylistic reinventions. But Celebration is essentially the pop superstar’s Eras Tour , as Taylor Swift has styled her latest outing: a staged romp through decades of hit songs and signature looks, giving fans a chance to relive her career as a stages-of-life experience. (Seventeen of Madonna’s previous costumes were recreated for the tour, and some of the merchandise for sale includes replicas from past treks.)

With her Virgin Tour in 1985, Madonna introduced herself as a punk-glam dance star whose every crucifix pendant or flap of denim was zealously adopted by fans. Who’s That Girl (1987) and Blond Ambition (1990) grew increasingly elaborate as Madonna pushed the fashion envelope with looks like Jean Paul Gaultier’s memorable cone bra and set the bar for bold, imaginative pop megatours. The Girlie Show (1993), in which Madonna appeared as a dominatrix, was the accompaniment to a period of daringly explicit material like her “Sex” book and “Justify My Love” video, which was banned from MTV.

After an eight-year absence from the road, Drowned World (2001) reintroduced Madonna as a new mother, an electro-pop heroine and an acolyte of kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism. In more recent years, her Confessions Tour (2006) cast her in late-70s disco style, and Rebel Heart (2015-16) found her playing guitar, in addition to executing the complex choreography for which she is known. Her most recent tour, Madame X, which was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, saw Madonna looking to reinvent her stage performance once again in a more intimate, almost cabaret form, mostly eschewing arenas for spaces like the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

For Madonna, the 78-date Celebration Tour is a chance to assert her star power in a year when live music has been dominated by Swift and Beyoncé — women who, like Madonna before them, have used talent and deep media savvy to remake pop stardom in their own image. In July, Beyoncé acknowledged the debt, when Madonna, making one of her first public appearances after her hospitalization, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in New Jersey. “Big shout-out to the queen,” Beyoncé called out during a performance of the “Queens Remix” of her song “Break My Soul,” which blends in Madonna’s 1990 smash “Vogue” — another hit that mined, and honored, gay dance culture of that period.

Madonna returned the acknowledgment on Saturday, playing a bit of the same remix during an interstitial moment.

When Madonna’s latest tour was announced in January, it immediately became one of the year’s big-ticket events — and yielded a micro-flood of hot takes about the singer’s age. But the tour appears to be far from sold out; Ticketmaster still shows many seats available at some major venues like Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where Madonna will start the North American leg of the tour with three shows in December.

Back in 2009, Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour set box-office records when it sold more than $400 million in tickets. Since then, the economics of live music have exploded; Beyoncé has already well exceeded that amount with her Renaissance shows, and Swift may well sell close to $2 billion in tickets by the time her Eras Tour is completed.

Legacy has clearly been on Madonna’s mind lately. Last month, the 1989 Pepsi commercial that introduced her song “Like a Prayer” — before it was pulled amid outrage over its music video, which featured an interracial kiss and the singer dancing in front of burning crosses — was finally aired again during the MTV Video Music Awards.

Madonna, who had been paid $5 million for the promotion — and kept the money — said on social media : “So began my illustrious career as an artist refusing to compromise my artistic integrity.” She added, “Thank you @pepsi for finally realizing the genius of our collaboration. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”

It was clearly on fans’ minds as well. Aisha and Maia Letamendia Moore, 17-year-old twins from southern England, near Brighton, wore looks that drew on the Vogue and Like a Virgin eras. “I think she’s such an influence,” Maia said. “She did so many things that were so controversial. She wasn’t scared to do it, she wasn’t scared what people would say.”

Others mentioned rumors that Celebration could be Madonna’s last tour. Helen Dawson, 47, who said she first saw Madonna during the Who’s That Girl Tour in 1987, would abide no such thought. “Never, she won’t give up,” Ms. Dawson said. “This is just a new celebration, a new era.”

Derrick Bryson Taylor is a general assignment reporter. He previously worked at The New York Post’s PageSix.com and Essence magazine. More about Derrick Bryson Taylor

Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He has been writing for The Times since 1998. More about Ben Sisario

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Madonna finally gets into the groove for her career-spanning Celebration tour. Here are 12 of the best photos from opening night in London.

• Madonna kicked off her highly-anticipated Celebration tour in London on Saturday.
• The tour was delayed by three months after the singer, 65, was hospitalized in June.
• Madonna played more than 40 of her hits. Here are the best photos from the concert.

Madonna kicked off her Celebration tour in London on Saturday, after being forced to reschedule due to health problems in June.

Source: Insider

She opened with her 1998 hit "Nothing Really Matters," dressed in a black kimono, similar to the Gaultier-designed one she wore in the song's music video.

The three-tiered circular stage was reminiscent of the mini wedding cake stage she used during her performance of "Like A Virgin" at the 1984 MTV Awards.

Source: YouTube

At one point the show had to be paused due to a technical difficulty with the sound. Madonna kept the audience entertained by sharing stories from the early days of her career.

Source: The New York Times

She performed "Live To Tell" while honoring friends she has lots to AIDS, including her former manager Martin Burgoyne and Queen's Freddie Mercury.

Source: Twitter

The star also discussed her health struggles this year, which saw her spend several days in an ICU, before launching into a cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."

Madonna performed one song in a boxing ring as two dancers staged a faux-fight, which many think is a nod to her boxing coach boyfriend Josh Popper.

Source: People

During "Like A Virgin," Madonna performed an explicit routine with her dancers.

Some dancers were dressed as the singer from different eras of her career, including one that recreated her "Blond Ambition" look and another that wore a pink "Hung Up"-style leotard.

Source: BBC

Madonna's daughter Lourdes Leon, 27, made an appearance onstage during "Vogue" to score the singer's backup dancers out of 10.

Elsewhere, she was joined by her adopted daughter Mercy James, 17, for the piano ballad "Bad Girl." David, 17, and Stella, 11, also joined their mom on stage at other points.

Madonna ended the show with a medley of anthems "Bitch, I'm Madonna" and "Celebration" and a speech about sexism and ageism in the music industry.

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Madonna's 'Celebration Tour' Setlist Revealed After Opening Night - See It, Photos & Videos Here!

Madonna has officially kickstarted her Celebration Tour , and it was well worth the wait!

The 65-year-old Queen of Pop took the stage on Saturday night (October 14) at The O2 Arena in London, England for the first date of her long-awaited tour. The start date is several months later than expected after Madonna was hospitalized earlier this year for a serious bacterial infection.

With a discography that spans 40 years, there were so many songs that fans were hoping to hear from the superstar as she travels the country.

Now that opening night has come and gone, we can reveal that she delivered an evening full of beloved hits and two surprise covers!

Head inside to check out the setlist from opening night of Madonna’s Celebration Tour…

@justjared @madonna kicks off the #CelebrationTour ♬ original sound – Just Jared

Madonna ‘s setlist for opening night included 28 songs, some of which had not been performed onstage in decades. She opened the evening by resurrecting “Nothing Really Matters” and then worked through so many other bops and bangers.

Notable numbers included “Hung Up,” “Die Another Day,” “Crazy for You,” “Ray of Light” and “Like a Prayer.” Before closing out the show with the double-hitter that is “B-tch I’m Madonna” and “Celebration,” Madonna also performed some covers.

First was a rendition of the classic “Fever.” She also delivered a guitar-led rendition of Gloria Gaynor ‘s “I Will Survive.”

During the show, Madonna revealed that she feared for her life while hospitalized. Here’s what saved her.

See all of the dates for Madonna ‘s Celebration Tour .

Scroll through Madonna’s setlist below…

**This set list is representative of the first show and might not be completely accurate for every show.

@justjared @madonna performing on the opening night of #CelebrationTour ♬ original sound – Just Jared

1. Celebration Intro / Nothing Really Matters 2. Everybody 3. Into the Groove 4. Burning Up 5. Open Your Heart 6. Holiday 7. Live to Tell 8. Like a Prayer 9. Act of Living For Love/The 90′s (Interlude) 10. Erotica/Papa Don’t Preach 11. Justify My Love / Fever – Eddie Cooley Cover 12. Hung Up on Tokischa 13. Bad Girl 14. Vogue (Estere’s Ball) 15. Human Nature / Crazy for You 16. The Beast Within (Interlude) 17. Die Another Day 18. Don’t Tell Me 19. Mother and Father 20. I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor Cover / La Isla Bonita / Don’t Cry for Me Argentina 21. I Don’t Search I Find (Interlude) 22. Bedtime Story 23. Ray of Light 24. Rain 25. Billie Jean vs. Like a Virgin 26. B-tch I’m Madonna / Give Me All Your Luvin

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Inside madonna’s ‘celebration tour’ — according to opener bob the drag queen.

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Bob the Drag Queen — the popular Season 8 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2016 — has been opening for another queen, Madonna, on her “ Celebration Tour” that kicks off its US leg at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Wednesday night.

But when he first met the Queen of Pop — while hosting her New York Pride show at Terminal 5 in June 2022 — she was hardly a royal diva.

“I mean, I wish I could have a story like, ‘She spat in my face and called me a bitch,’ but she didn’t,” Bob, 37, told The Post with a laugh. “She was a really cool lady. She’s pretty normal.”

Of course, what Madonna Louise Ciccone has done over the last four decades — since releasing her self-titled debut album on July 27, 1983 — has been anything but normal.

Bitch, she’s Madonna.

And Bob — who identifies as nonbinary and goes by Caldwell Tidicue out of drag — has been hyping up the crowd for the 65-year-old icon to take the stage since the “ Celebration Tour” launched in London in October.

“Just the fact that Madonna is able to touch so many people 40 years into her career . . . is amazing,” he said. “We did six shows at the O2 arena [in London], sold out every single time, and that says something.”

(And Wednesday’s concert is just the first of six NYC shows: Madonna will be back at Barclays Center on Thursday and Saturday, and she’ll play Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden Jan. 22, 23 and 29.)

But while charged with getting the Madonna masses into the groove for a night of hit after hit, Bob isn’t worried that he’ll F it up.

“I feel like I should feel nervous, but I’m just not,” he said. “If I’m in a room that’s packed with 100 people because that’s all it can fit, it’s interesting to me how similar it feels to being in a room packed with 20,000 people . . . The excitement for me isn’t really about how many people are there  — it’s about the energy of the people in the room.”

Still, it takes Bob a good two hours to get into hair, makeup and corset to make his grand entrance in a Marie Antoinette costume that replicates the one Madonna famously wore to perform “Vogue” at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards .

“Getting in the garment itself is maybe, like 10 minutes,” said Bob. “Putting on the makeup is a longer process, for sure.”

But Bob isn’t done once Madonna hits the stage. He returns in a “sad clown outfit” when the singer performs her 1986 hit “Live To Tell” in a moving remembrance of those lost to AIDS.

“We actually did it on World AIDS Day, which was really kind of wild,” he said of the Dec. 1 concert in Amsterdam. “It means a lot every single time we do it, but to do it on World AIDS Day was really like a make-the-hairs-on-your-arm-stand-up experience.”

Bob also hits the runway as the ballroom emcee during “Vogue” — the 1990 smash that has been a staple of any Madonna tour — in a glittering black tuxedo.

“This is a real tribute to the ballroom scene and to the riotous nature of New York City nightlife and the Stonewall riots and just . . . all of it,” he said. “And I just love that we get to have a ball and that we have the iconic voice of [ballroom legend] Kevin Jz Prodigy on the track. What an honor to have Kevin’s voice there.”

Bob also gives Madonna’s 11-year-old daughter Estere 10’s across the board for the way she works the runway during “Vogue” for her mother — and surprise-guest judges that have included everyone from her siblings Lourdes Leon and Rocco Ritchie to designers Donatella Versace and Jean Paul Gaultier to other “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alums Aquaria and Miss Fame.

“She’s amazing,” he said. “Estere is truly a phenomenal performer — and at such a young age. And what a sweet, sweet, sweet kid.”

Three of Madonna’s other children — David Banda, 18, on guitar; Mercy James, 17, on piano; and Stella, Estere’s twin, hoofing it up on “Don’t Tell Me” — also make the “Celebration Tour” a family affair. “They’re real stars,” said Bob.

And his stage banter with Madonna reveals a more personal side of the superstar.

“It’s fun to have a little back and forth with Madonna,” he said. “She likes to have fun and improv, and she gets really silly onstage.”

But things turned somber for all of the “Celebration Tour” team when a serious bacterial infection sent Madonna to the ICU in June and forced a postponement of the trek that was originally supposed to begin in July.

“It was very scary actually, quite terrifying,” said Bob. “But obviously she’s, like, the definition of a survivor .

“I’m glad that she’s [still] here,” he added.

And now — after his first concert experience with Madonna eight years ago — Bob gets to have the fiercest of full-circle moments on Wednesday night.

“I went to go see ‘Rebel Heart’ at Barclays,” he said of the tour for Madge’s 2015 album. “So I’m going to be performing with her where I first saw her.”

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Madonna Unveils Dates for ‘Celebration’ World Tour, Featuring ‘Four Decades of Mega Hits’

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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As expected, Madonna  has announced dates for “Madonna: The Celebration Tour,” in a viral video with a wink to her 1990 film “Truth or Dare.” The video features Judd Apatow, Jack Black, Lil Wayne, Diplo, Bob the Drag Queen, Kate Berlant, Larry Owens, Meg Stalter, Eric Andre and culminates with Amy Schumer daring Madonna to go on tour and perform her four decades of mega hits.

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“I am excited to explore as many songs as possible in hopes to give my fans the show they have been waiting for,” Madonna says in the announcement. 

Bob the Drag Queen (a.k.a. Caldwell Tidicue) will be the special guest on all dates of the tour.  

Tickets go on sale starting Friday, January 20th at 10am local time at madonna.com/tour. Citi is the official card of the tour. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning today (January 17) at 2 p.m. local time through January 19 at 6 p.m. local time through the Citi Entertainment program.

Legacy members of Madonna’s Official Fan Club will have a pre-sale opportunity beginning on January 17 at 12 p.m. ET through January 18 at 5 p.m. ET for all North America based shows and from 9 a.m. GMT/ 10 a.m. CET to 5 p.m. GMT/ 6 p.m. CET on January 18 for U.K. and European shows.

THE CELEBRATION TOUR NORTH AMERICAN DATES:  

Sat Jul 15 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena 

Sat Jul 22 – Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center 

Tue Jul 25 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena 

Thu Jul 27 – Tulsa, OK – BOK Center 

Sun Jul 30 – St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center 

Wed Aug 02 – Cleveland, OH – Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse 

Sat Aug 05 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena 

Mon. Aug 07 – Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena 

Wed Aug 09 – Chicago, IL – United Center 

Sun Aug 13 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena 

Sat Aug 19 – Montreal, QC – Centre Bell 

Wed Aug 23 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden 

Thu Aug 24 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden 

Wed Aug 30 – Boston, MA – TD Garden 

Sat Sep 02 – Washington, DC – Capital One Arena 

Tue Sep 05 – Atlanta, GA – State Farm Arena 

Thu Sep 07 – Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena 

Sat Sep 09 – Miami, FL – Miami-Dade Arena 

Wed Sep 13 – Houston, TX – Toyota Center 

Mon Sep 18 – Dallas, TX – American Airlines Center 

Thu Sep 21 – Austin, TX – Moody Center ATX 

Wed Sep 27 – Los Angeles, CA – Crypto.com Arena 

Wed Oct 04 – San Francisco, CA – Chase Center 

Sat Oct 07 – Las Vegas, NV – T-Mobile Arena 

THE CELEBRATION TOUR EUROPE DATES:  

Sat Oct 14 – London, UK – The O2 

Sat Oct 21 – Antwerp, BE – Sportpaleis 

Wed. Oct. 25 – Copenhagen, DK – Royal Arena 

Sat Oct 28 – Stockholm, SE – Tele2 

Wed Nov 01 – Barcelona, ES – Palau Sant Jordi 

Mon Nov 06 – Lisbon, PT – Altice Arena 

Sun Nov 12 – Paris, FR – Accor Arena 

Mon Nov 13 – Paris, FR – Accor Arena 

Wed Nov 15 – Cologne, DE – Lanxess Arena 

Thu Nov 23 – Milan, IT – Mediolanum Forum 

Tue Nov 28 – Berlin, DE – Mercedes-Benz Arena 

Fri Dec 1 – Amsterdam, NL – Ziggo Dome 

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Madonna returns to Austin after 40 years with sweaty, sexy Celebration Tour at Moody Center

“It took 40 years to invite me back,” Madonna told an Austin audience on Sunday night. “Should I take that personally?”

The Queen of Pop indeed last performed in the Live Music Capital in 1985 at the Erwin Center. Strange, but true (blue).  Perhaps the mistress of reinvention, ever looking for the new, waited until that venue was demolished and she could pack in two nights at Moody Center . She’ll perform again on Monday.

Regardless, Austin has missed a lot of Madonna over four decades. That made her retrospective Celebration Tour all the more spectacular — and if the cradle of weird can appreciate anything, it's a spectacle. 

Madonna postponed her original September dates following a health scare, and pent-up fan pride runneth over. Before the show, material girls and leather daddies filed through the corridors of the arena. Blonde Ambition-era high ponytails mingled with “Lucky Star” hair bows. Local drag artists like Brigitte Bandit — in full “Like a Virgin” regalia — posed for photos a few steps away from a Trisha Yearwood-branded nacho stand. On the floor, a group of middle-aged ladies in tulle skirts and fishnet gloves chatted next to a row of bears in decades-old concert tees. Accessorization was key. If you forgot your chunky silver cross pendant, hopefully someone could lend you their riding crop.

The air conditioner took the night off. The show had an 8:30 p.m. start time, but the main event didn’t get going until 10:30 p.m., when tour emcee Bob the Drag Queen emerged wearing the rosy contents of Marie Antoinette’s closet. 

“It’s showtime,” Bob said with a tongue pop. 

Her Madgesty lived up to her name, appearing as a holy apparition, much more exciting than her namesake’s various cameos on pieces of toast. Cloaked in a dark kimono with giant sleeve cutouts, Madonna donned a headpiece equal parts crown and halo to sing late-’90s techno earworm “Nothing Really Matters.”  A giant lighting rig circled above like an even larger hat from heaven. It’s right there in the name, folks.

“Nothing takes the past away/ Like the future,” she sang. The song made a fitting icebreaker for the mother of all pop music: “Everything I give you/ All comes back to me.”

Then it was off to the time machine — though as the star admitted later in the show, the setlist made emotional sense, if not always the chronological kind. First stop: Danceteria. Madonna conjured her early 1980s it-girl era with “Everybody” and “Into the Groove.” Dancers swarmed around her in thrift store finery and spotted the singer in a backbend. There was a lot of crotch work.

“I’m about to share the story of my life with you,” Madonna said during the first of several rambling, prickly stretches of crowd work that skirted right up to coherence but instead opted for a middle finger. Joined by a masked dancer dressed as her past self, she asked if everyone knew what a metaphor was. An audience member asked who her next boyfriend would be. “My next boyfriend is me,” she cracked.

Then, Madonna offered a sage bit of advice for the next two hours: “Embrace the confusion.”

The singer astral projected into CBGB with an electric guitar as her guide, shredding through “Burning Up” and spewing Budweiser at the front rows. (Shout out to the stage tech responsible for wiping up Ms. Ciccone’s beer spit immediately afterward.) 

So much of Sunday’s party hinged on awe-inspiring choreography. For “Open Your Heart,” Madonna and company made iconic use of a few chairs and the laps that went on top of them. For “Holiday,” the singer and her crew became a many-headed disco hydra massed around a mirror ball the size of New Jersey.

A trip through time also invited sorrow. At the end of “Holiday,” a dancer fell to the ground as Madonna gazed mournfully. She entered a floating picture frame rigged to the ceiling, one of the night’s most oft-used set pieces, for a gorgeous rendition of “Live to Tell.” Around her, photos memorialized icons lost to AIDS — Freddie Mercury, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Arthur Ashe, Cookie Mueller and more. An affecting vigil from a pioneering activist.

But this was a Madonna show, so then shirtless men in lace gimp masks came out to writhe around glowing crosses. Robed monks, rosary beads, a Catholic censer and a snippet of Sam Smith’s “Unholy” helped usher in “Like a Prayer.” One of her most controversial pop culture moments, the song played like a thumping salute to sacrilege and gymnastics.

Madonna put on a Marlene Dietrich wig and thrusted her way into the 1990s: “Erotica,” “Justify My Love” and “Bad Girl.” In the middle there, she squeezed in 2005’s “Hung Up,” which might have felt like an awkward fit for that act if not for the fleet of topless dancers.

Of course, Madonna couldn’t curate her legacy without two things: cone bras and “Vogue.” Bob the Drag Queen took the stage with a glittery bowler hat and a houndstooth fan to take Austin to the ballroom. Clips of the tour’s “Vogue” segment have gone viral for months, and it was just as joyful in person. A conically breasted Madonna always welcomes a special guest to help her judge a cavalcade of runway looks. For Sunday’s show, she brought up drag superstar Trixie Mattel , and the pair gave their 10s and chops as appropriate. A gay ol’ time.

The dancers weren’t the only ones falling into dips on stage. The setlist meandered a bit after Ginger Rogers danced on air and Rita Hayworth gave good face. “Human Nature” and “Crazy For You” led into James Bond theme “Die Another Day,” a song this reviewer appreciates for nostalgic reasons but admits is an oddball cut for a four-decade hit parade. If you longed to see Madonna dressed like a character from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain” while dropping mainstream music’s foremost reference to Sigmund Freud, congrats.

The wide-brimmed hats kept coming. Madonna stripped to full cowgirl leathers, boot-scooted and strummed out “Don’t Tell Me” from the “Music” album. For “Mother Father,” she brought out son David Banda to sing and play guitar. (She also welcomed daughters Mercy and Estere onstage to perform during “Bad Girl” and “Vogue,” respectively.)

“People don’t get tired in Texas, do they?” Madonna asked after picking up her fallen cowboy hat with her foot. More freewheeling Madge moments: bragging on the kids, talking about forgiving herself for mistakes, berating an audience member for not lighting up his phone upon her command. 

“It’s so important you understand the concept of light,” she said while vamping about darkness and such. Madonna led the “boys and girls and theys and thems” in a campfire singalong to an acoustic “Express Yourself.” 

During “La Isla Bonita,” she projected jumbo photos of cultural revolutionaries like Sinead O’Connor, Che Guevara and Martin Luther King Jr. Not sure what the thematic connection between song and imagery was, but RIP Malcolm X — you would have loved dreaming of San Pedro, I guess.

As Madonna rounded the home stretch, she changed into a pink wig and textured silver catsuit that evoked Jane Lynch performing “Super Bass” on that one episode of “Glee.” Nevermind the sartorial critique: As Madonna soared above the arena in her aerial frame and doused the crowd in lasers during “Ray of Light,” she truly was goddess of her universe.

“Take a Bow” led into a questionable amount of time devoted to a Michael Jackson tribute. But there wasn’t much time to marinate on that, as Madonna stormed the stage flanked by her cadre of dancers, all dressed in recreations of some of her most famous looks. The finale: “Bitch I’m Madonna,” of course. 

Super Bowl Madonna strutted next to “Frozen” Madonna. If you’d sealed an Austin fan in a cryogenic tube for the decades since the pop icon last came to town, the multiversal procession might have driven them to madness.

But, then again … the American-Statesman’s review of Madonna’s 1985 show praised the “slick, polished, contemporary Las Vegas-style production.” The critic also wrote: “Madonna may be considered by some music critics as a fleeting pop star and her penchant for lingerie and erotic posturing understandably irritates feminists. Nevertheless, Madonna is a formidable, timely talent.” 

Erotic posturing. Formidable talent. She might be the living avatar of reinvention, but Madonna never lost her own plot. That’s something worth waiting 40 years to celebrate.

Eric Webb is an award-winning culture writer based in Austin. Find him at www.ericwebb.me .

• The Celebration Tour

The Celebration Tour By The Numbers

by MadonnaTribe · October 13, 2023

On the eve of the opening night of Madonna ’s highly anticipated new tour tomorrow night at the O2 Arena in London, Live Nation released a juicy breakdown of The Celebration Tour by the numbers.

The most thrilling part is about what fans should expect the Madonna stage to be like: covering a surface of 4,400 square ft / 410 mq, The Celebration Tour stage is the largest for any of her tours and the ispiration for its design come from the grid of the Manhattan Island in New York City.

The mysterious maps from the online ticket vendors have been analized in-depth by the fans in the past months and we know learn that the set up will include five different stages: Uptown , Downtown , Midtown , East and West .

We will have to wait until tomorrow night to find out what the illuminated portal frame that transports Madonna 30 foot / 9  meters off the ground around the arena looks like. It is designed to act as a time machine that symbolizes looking into the past, present and towards the future and will allow her to move at 1.5 foot / 45 centimeters per second, 80 foot / 24 meters across and 130 foot / 40 meters down the length of the arena .

As many of you have guessed, the three-layered circular stage that you find where the traditional main stage would be is a nod to the wedding cake of Madonna’s original VMA performance.

3600 square ft / 334 mq of projection imagery make this the most amount of video ever used in a Madonna show.

The catwalks have a combined lenght of 230 foot / 76 meters and will get Madonna 105 foot / 32 meters far into the venue.

Madonna worked with Lewis James as the Creative Director for The Celebration Tour . The press release also confirms Jamie King as the show director – at his eigth tour with Madonna and the return of Stuart Price as the musical director for the fourth time. Bob The Drag Quee n is indeed part of the show – not simply a support act – and twenty-four onstage performers will also be joined by four of Madonna’s children. Last but not least, seventeen archived costumes have been recreated for the show.

Here is The Celebration Tour by the numbers:

• 4 Decades of unstoppable hits – prepare to dance your ass off!
• 13th Culture shaping tour.
• 1 Extraordinary drag queen.
• 8th Tour partnering with director Jamie King.
• 24 Onstage performers.
• 1 Stuart Price reunion.
• 4,400 square ft. of stage, the largest for any Madonna tour. Inspired by the grid of Manhattan with Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, East and West stages.
• 8 Humidifiers in Madonna’s dressing room.1 Bottle of MDNA Rose Mist Spray in each quick-change space.
• 3 Traveling mobile gyms.
• 15 Countries.
• 50 Merch items including vintage recreations of iconic items from previous tours such as the Blond Ambition Bomber Jacket.
• 45 Wardrobe trunks.
• 1 Queen sized Madonna flag outside the O2 (naturally).
• 6 Sold out nights in London.
• 3 Layered circular stage where the traditional main stage would be, inspired by the wedding cake of Madonna’s original VMA performance.
• 3 Physical therapists.
• 4 of Madonna’s children on stage.
• 40 Pairs of boxing gloves.
• 230 Ft. of combined length of catwalk that gets Madonna 105ft far into the venue.
• 14 Spotlights for Madonna and over 600 intelligent lights to light the stage and arena with over 8800 lighting cues.
• 17 Archived costumes recreated.
• 4 Rehearsal venues.
• 80 Tons of production equipment.
• 330 Million albums sold, still the best-selling female artist of all time.
• 3600 Square ft. of projection imagery to the show. The most amount of video ever used in a Madonna show.
• 200+ Traveling crew – 25 in the costume department alone.
• 30 Ft. off the ground Madonna is transported around the arena in an illuminated portal frame that acts as a time machine allowing her to move at 1.5ft per second, 80ft across and 130ft down the length of the arena designed to symbolize looking into the past, present and towards the future.
• 3700 Amps of show power.

…and only ONE Madonna .

Tags: Madonna The Celebration Tour

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Madonna’s Celebration tour is a messy victory lap that needs more razzle-dazzle

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You have to respect Madonna’s idea of a nostalgia trip.

Standing onstage before an adoring audience of thousands Monday night at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, the pop icon flashed back 40-something years to the evening in the early 1980s when she debuted her song “Burning Up” for a smaller and more hostile crowd at New York’s legendary CBGB.

“People were screaming at me, ‘Show us your tits!’” she recalled. “And at the time, I didn’t have any tits because I wasn’t eating.” She laughed. “Being broke and homeless and friendless and jobless and foodless and anorexic — it was not a vibe.”

Monday’s concert was the first of five at the Forum on Madonna’s Celebration Tour — a career-spanning road show meant to “tell you the story of my life,” as she put it not long into the two-hour-and-15-minute performance. In the age of Taylor Swift’s world-conquering Eras Tour, that retrospective framing can seem like the obvious choice for a musician with a catalog as deep as Madonna’s.

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Yet the 65-year-old singer has always resisted a play-the-hits approach in favor of showcasing her latest work (as in the intimate theater dates she did in 2019 and 2020 behind her most recent studio album, “ Madame X ”). So it made sense that she felt a bit of explanation was in order.

“I hope you can handle it,” she told her fans, “’cause just imagine: I had to live it.”

Only a churl would deny Madonna the right to a victory lap, so monumental is her standing in pop history — not just as a maker of indelible songs and genre-defining videos but also as a cultural pathbreaker whose commitment to feminist and queer ideals continues to open lanes in the mainstream even now.

“You can all thank me for allowing you to have the courage to come out,” she said Monday, which is certainly one way to describe the work of ally-ship that’s long distinguished her career.

For a tour called Celebration, though, this show — with more than two dozen of Madonna’s songs divided into seven acts — was curiously short on joy; again and again, she brought the crowd’s attention to the indignities as opposed to the victories of her ascent, as in the CBGB anecdote or in a little skit before “Holiday” in which she acted out being turned away by a doorman at the Paradise Garage.

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Late in the night, she spoke for a few minutes about the “near-death experience” she suffered last summer that forced her to postpone the tour’s launch and left her nearly unable to walk from her house to her backyard.

“I know that sounds insane, but it was difficult then,” she said. “I didn’t know when I could get up again and when I could be myself again and when I would have my energy back.”

That she was telling us this from a stage — and with her trusted doctor in the house, she pointed out — was, of course, its own triumph. Yet Madonna’s performance rarely tapped into the sense of abandon you’d hope would accompany such a win. The result was easy to admire but not always easy to love.

Overly moody arrangements of once-ebullient hits like “Hung Up,” “Ray of Light” and “Like a Prayer” didn’t help; nor did the baffling decision to forgo all-timers such as “Music,” “Borderline,” “Secret” and “Lucky Star” to make room for the likes of Madonna’s forgettable Bond theme, “Die Another Day.” “Like a Virgin” was part of the show but only as a prerecorded mash-up with Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” that played as digital silhouettes of the two superstars were projected onto a screen. (As costume-change distractions went, it beat the vaguely pagan fire ritual undertaken by several of her dancers.)

Could you say that the life story Madonna promised to tell cohered Monday with any discernible logic? Not in a show that inexplicably jammed together the pugnacious “Human Nature” and the yearning “Crazy for You.” That’s not a problem, per se: A pop concert is a theater of personality and craft, not one of plot or character development. But a narrative this messy needed more razzle-dazzle.

Madonna being Madonna, she couldn’t help but dole out some during a few moments at the Forum. “Vogue” was a high point that had her dancers (including one of the singer’s daughters) competing in a rowdy ballroom tableau judged by Madonna and comedian Eric André. “Live to Tell” was a moving tribute to people who’d died of AIDS complications; “Take a Bow” was another gorgeous ballad, with Madonna’s strongest vocal of the night.

And then there was her surprising acoustic rendition of “Express Yourself,” for which she tweaked the song’s familiar intro — “Come on girls, do you believe in love?” — to include “boys,” “theys” and “thems.” On record, “Express Yourself” is a battering ram of industrial-funk encouragement; it exhorts the listener to create his or her own destiny. Here, as Madonna sang and strummed a guitar, the song seemed to acknowledge the cost of that process while urging us on all the same.

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Madonna setlist from Celebrations Tour in Dallas, March 24, 2024. First of two shows

M adonna performed the first of two shows on Sunday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Here is the setlist from the Celebrations Tour show.

Nothing Really Matters

Into the Groove

Open Your Heart

Live to Tell

Like a Prayer

Justify My Love

Human Nature

Crazy for You

Die Another Day

Don’t Tell Me

Mother and Father

Express Yourself

La Isla Bonita

Don’t Cry for Me Argentina

Bedtime Story

Ray of Light

Bitch I’m Madonna

©2024 Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Visit star-telegram.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

• Manage Account

Every Madonna Tour, Ranked

Looking back on the Queen of Pop's groundbreaking concerts over the years.

By Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani

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In 1974, at the age of 15, Madonna snuck out of her father’s house in suburban Detroit to attend David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs Tour. She was summarily grounded for the summer, but the punishment was worth it. “I don’t think that I breathed for two hours. It was the most amazing show that I’d ever seen,” Madonna said during a speech inducting the Thin White Duke into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Madonna’s first two tours, 1985’s Virgin Tour and 1987’s Who’s That Girl World Tour, served as experiment labs for the burgeoning superstar. In 1990, her Blond Ambition World Tour revolutionized the pop concert. Drawing inspiration from Bowie’s theatricality, Prince’s cheeky flamboyance and Michael Jackson’s stage command, she offered audiences an immersive experience that went beyond conventional live performance.

Each of Madonna’s subsequent tours have pushed the boundaries even further, embracing technology for multimedia (and multi-sensory) presentations of her music. On the heels of her own induction into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2008, the singer’s Sticky & Sweet Tour became the highest grossing tour for a female artist in history – a record she held until 2023, when it was finally eclipsed by Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, according to Billboard Boxscore.

Madonna could have hung up her corset long ago and she would still be one of the most successful live acts of all time. But she continues to push herself – and us. Her latest trek, the career-spanning Celebration Tour, will wrap up with a historic free show at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on May 4. The concert will be broadcast live on TV Globo and will likely see Madonna performing for her biggest audience to date – more than 40 years into her career.

To get in on the celebration, we’ve ranked all 12 of Madonna’s boundary-busting tours.

The Virgin Tour (1985)

Madonna’s very first tour was propelled, like most things related to the queen, almost entirely on the strength of her sheer force of will — and, of course, her raw talent. A magnetic and skilled performer (that toss and catch of the tambourine!), Madonna sprinted through a relatively short setlist culled largely from her first two albums, dancing and belting out hits like “Into the Groove” and “Burning Up” like her rent was due yesterday. But she didn’t need to worry about paying the bills for long: When the tour kicked off in April 1985, she was playing modest theaters; two months later, she was performing to a sold-out crowd of Madonna wannabes at Madison Square Garden.

Who’s That Girl World Tour (1987)

Compared to the Virgin Tour just two years earlier, Madonna stepped up the production values, choreography and theatricality for her first world (and stadium) tour. Dramatic performances of “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Live to Tell” and her then-most recent No. 1 on the Hot 100, “Who’s That Girl,” hinted at what was to come on future tours in terms of spectacle and ambition. Though it was only her second tour, Who’s That Girl would become the last of Madonna’s shows to resemble a conventional pop-rock concert.

Re-Invention World Tour (2004)

Coming off of the commercial disappointment of her 2003 album American Life , Madonna returned to the place she’s always thrived: the stage. The Re-Invention Tour was nothing she hadn’t done before or wouldn’t do better in the future, but — for the first time in years — she was embracing her past, performing rocked-out renditions of early hits “Burning Up” and “Material Girl” with electric guitar in hand, and even reinventing a few fan favorites like “Hanky Panky” and “Deeper and Deeper.” As for the queen herself, she was in top form both vocally and physically.

Madame X Tour (2019-2020)

Part jukebox musical, part avant-garde performance art and part standup special, the Madame X Tour revolved around a James Baldwin quote… and a typewriter. Yes, Madame X is a stenographer. The tour took place in theaters and opera houses instead of the usual arenas, offering a more intimate and interactive experience. Highlights included a jazzy version of “Human Nature,” a neo-noir restaging of “Vogue” and a crowd sing-along to the resistance anthem “I Rise.”

Rebel Heart Tour (2015-2016)

A blend of Cirque du Soleil, Broadway and burlesque, the Rebel Heart Tour saw dancers swinging on 10-foot stilts, dressed as nuns on stripper poles and sliding down giant LED screens. As for Madonna, she seemed more at ease on stage than ever, playing the coy chanteuse a la Blond Ambition and strumming the ukulele to “True Blue” – the first time she’d performed the song in nearly three decades. In fact, Rebel Heart was heavier on the hits than any tour since Re-Invention, including a Latin-infused medley of classics “Dress You Up,” “Into the Groove” and “Lucky Star,” as well as a modern twist on “Material Girl.”

Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-2009)

After a first act that didn’t quite live up to the lofty standards Madonna had previously set, the Sticky & Sweet Tour eventually hit its stride. The ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Rave’ segments in particular – including an electrifying rendition of “La Isla Bonita” featuring Ukrainian group Kolpakov Trio and a heavy metal version of “Hung Up,” which ended with Madonna shredding her guitar to Pantera’s “A New Level” – were as exhilarating as any of her previous tours’ best moments.

The Celebration Tour (2023-2024)

Madonna’s latest tour is the sight and sound of a legend fully embracing her legacy. With no new album to promote, the setlist is packed with so many iconic songs – including a handful she’s never performed on tour before, such as “Bedtime Story” and “Bad Girl” – that more than a dozen of her 28 top 5 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 had to be omitted. A musical recounting of the Queen of Pop’s life and career, the Celebration Tour touches on her rise to fame in New York, the AIDS crisis (via a stirring rendition of “Live to Tell”), the media backlash she suffered in the early ‘90s and her spiritual rebirth, in which she rises like an AI phoenix on a glowing cube and — quicker than a ray of light — soars above the crowd. Masterful.

Drowned World Tour (2001)

Pioneered by bands like U2, live concerts had moved closer to multimedia presentations in the years since The Girlie Show in 1993, and Madonna fully embraced the artistic potential that new technology allowed. For her first tour in eight years, Madonna pulled out all of the stops: smoke machines, acrobatic stunts, line-dancing, even Japanese anime. And with only a handful of older songs making the cut – including tour staples “Holiday” and “Human Nature” – she proved she was still laser-focused on the present… and the future.

The MDNA Tour (2012)

Coming on the heels of Madonna’s iconic halftime performance at Super Bowl XLVI, the maximalist MDNA Tour was one of her most ambitious, employing elaborate stage combat, slacklining, Tetris-style cubes that rose 16 feet above the stage and a backdrop of eight rotating video screens. It was also one of her most intense shows. At 54, Madonna was in peak form, performing intricate choreography in spiked stilettos nonstop for two hours straight. The only chance she had to take a breath was during a surprisingly poignant piano version of “Like a Virgin” … after which the air was literally squeezed from her lungs by a corset being tightened around her. 

The Girlie Show (1993)

Inspired by cabaret and classic Hollywood musicals, The Girlie Show was a visual tour-de-force. The second act, dubbed ‘Studio 54,’ rivaled the ‘Religious’ segment from Blond Ambition for sheer catharsis, with the freedom of the orgiastic disco era (“Deeper and Deeper”) juxtaposed with the subsequent AIDS crisis (“In This Life”), as well as a captivating fever dream of choreography set to a remix of “Justify My Love.” Madonna was in fine voice throughout, growling her way through “Express Yourself” and harmonizing beautifully on “Rain.” She’s never had a better live band, either — and even mused about collaborating with them on an album, though it sadly never materialized.

Blond Ambition World Tour (1990)

With its elaborate costumes (courtesy of French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier), Broadway-style sets (designed by Madonna’s brother Christopher Ciccone) and quasi-narrative arc, the Blond Ambition Tour is the blueprint – the mother of the modern pop concert. The show infamously found Madonna exorcising herself of the guilt of her Catholic upbringing. The ‘Religious’ segment, which began with the singer simulating masturbation and ended with her facing the judgment of the male authority figures in her life (her father, the Pope, God), is among the most audaciously conceived and impeccably executed moments of stagecraft in touring history.

Confessions Tour (2006)

The Confessions Tour snags the top spot on our list for two reasons. First, it served as a culmination of everything Madonna had learned from Blond Ambition through Re-Invention, combining spectacle, drama and good ol’ fashioned performance mojo. Like its namesake, 2005’s Grammy-winning Confessions on a Dance Floor , the show struck a deft balance between dance-party hedonism and intimate introspection. Madonna’s 2000 Hot 100 chart-topper “Music” was transformed into a roller-disco fantasia, while a haunting rendition of “Live to Tell” saw the veteran provocateur suspended from a giant disco-fied cross in order to shine a light on the plight of AIDS in Africa.

Most importantly, Confessions was Madonna’s most cohesive and consistently thrilling show to date. Musical director Stuart Price skillfully arranged and remixed early hits like “Erotica” and “Like a Virgin” to fit the Eurodisco aesthetic of Confessions . Plus, each act of the show was a visual and aural smorgasbord, from the opening equestrian segment, which found Madonna emerging from a giant glitter ball and commanding a stripper-poll-cum-carousel-horse, to the extended finale, which mashed up “Lucky Star” and “Hung Up” into a nearly 15-minute explosion of ear and eye candy.

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Madonna Remains a Prickly Pop Disruptor at Moody Center

First of two nights drives home madge’s four-decade ubiquity, by carys anderson , 1:32pm, mon. apr. 15, 2024.

About two hours into the first of two Austin stops on her Celebration Tour, an exasperated Madonna explained to the Moody Center on Sunday the reasoning for her retrospective show: “I’m trying to tell you the story of my life.”

Not through words. She’d tried that earlier, when she introduced a spooky dancer wearing a mannequin-like mask, who was meant to stand in for the Madonna of years’ past. Deeming the crowd’s interest in the artsy installation unsatisfactory, she sighed, “Do you know what a metaphor is?”

When words failed, the Queen of Pop better traversed her history with spectacle, sexuality, and self-assuredness. After all, those were the tools that sustained a four-decade-long career. And as for lost metaphors, perhaps that muted crowd welcome originated from a challenging lead-up.

Venue information advertised an 8:30pm start time, but that really cued the beginning of a DJ set by opener Honey Dijon. Unmoved by a recent lawsuit claiming her late starts constitute “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive trade practices,” Madonna appeared, after a lively introduction by announcer Bob the Drag Queen, at 10:30pm. And, yes – despite complaints at other shows , the AC was off, giving the spacious, usually frigid basketball arena the sweltering feel of a packed nightclub.

Thankfully, Madonna followed up with confidence. “By the end of the show, you’ll be impressed by me,” she swore, and moved on, kicking into “Into the Groove” and “Holiday.”

Following those initial classics, Madonna often opted to mix several songs, relying heavily on interpolations and abridged versions to check every hit off the setlist. This shortening offered some disappointments: “Material Girl” was relegated to an instrumental opening song, a few notes of “Papa Don’t Preach” came and went without vocals, and “Music” was skipped altogether. Rather than singing “Like a Virgin” herself, Madge paired the studio recording with Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” for an Eighties-MTV costume change interlude.

These mashups at least highlighted the singer’s continuing eye for elaborate set design – and her troupe of dancers, who, of course, were all women, queer people, and people of color. Monks and (brown) Jesuses adorned the rotating stage during “Like a Prayer,” while blue lasers created three boxing rings for an “Erotica” medley. During the 1995 trance track “Bedtime Story” (notably co-written by Björk), Madonna – who at turns wore long waves, a bleached Blond Ambition-era bob, and a pink wig – boxed herself in between four green-screen walls, which made it look like she was swimming through cyberspace.

The original gay icon seemed happier to get raunchy with her ragtag live crew than interact with her audience. Combining “Erotica” with “Justify My Love,” the ABBA-sampling “Hung Up,” and “Bad Girl,” the singer surrounded herself with a handful of women in suits, who quickly removed their jackets to dance completely topless. She flashed her biggest smile of the night during highlight “Vogue,” which broke down into a ballroom section where she and the night’s special guest, Drag Race alum Trixie Mattel, acted as judges – and recipients of simulated oral sex.

More than hired guns, Madame X’s team also featured three of her children, including 18-year-old Mercy, on piano; 18-year-old David, on guitar; and 11-year-old Estere, who DJ’d before voguing along with the dancers.

The singer’s LGTBQIA allyship continued when she turned 1986’s “Live to Tell” into a tribute to those lost during the AIDS epidemic. As she sang the ballad, drop-down screens projected the faces of departed figures like Keith Haring, Freddie Mercury, and Eazy-E. Later, wearing a pride flag like a cape, she stood next to a sidekick whose bare back spelled out the singer’s longtime slogan in big black letters: “No Fear.”

Heavy cosmetic surgery and a tour-postponing health scare in 2023 inspired conversations about Madonna’s well-being. Onstage, the 65-year-old, wearing a knee brace, admitted, “I’m tired tonight,” and left the most intricate choreography to her dancers. Though some tracks were pitched down to adapt to live vocals, the singer’s backing tracks were clearly mixed higher than her microphone throughout the show. Still, she sang alone during an acoustic performance of “Express Yourself,” which she strummed while donning a brown corset and cowboy hat.

As if to prove that – yes, everything the pop girlies are doing today, Madonna did first – the singer preceded it with her own country song, “Don’t Tell Me,” which dates back to 2000.

The show ended with EDM number “Bitch I’m Madonna,” where a slew of dancers drove home the artist’s ubiquity by wearing her most iconic outfits – including her “Like a Virgin” wedding dress and A League of Their Own baseball uniform. After the final trap beats rang out, she unceremoniously disappeared below the stage, no encore in sight.

“Ray of Light” – which Madonna sang just two songs prior, moving through the air in a box above the crowd like a go-go dancer – would’ve made for a more triumphant closer. Still, wrapping up just shy of 1am, the Celebration Tour proved a sufficiently ecstatic trip through the decades. Late in the game, a video compiled 40 years of the singer’s controversies, splicing clips of naysayers with shots of all the pop stars who have followed in her footsteps.

Though her impromptu dialogue didn’t always land, one soundbite reverberating in the video summed up all of Madonna’s musings: “I think the most controversial thing I’ve ever done is to stick around.”

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

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Raoul Hernandez, Nov. 17, 2008

April 19, 2024

Madonna , Celebration Tour , Honey Dijon , Trixie Mattel , Moody Center , Bob the Drag Queen

Matthew Rettenmund / SplashNews

Madonna has long used her platform to uplift the LGBTQ+ community, and at her latest concert, she paid tribute to the victims of the horrific 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

The Queen of Pop invited survivors and loved ones of those killed in the June 2016 shooting to the Miami tour stop of her Celebration Tour at the Kaseya Center on Tuesday, April 9. During the show, the Material Girl, 65, spoke passionately about those affected by the tragedy, which killed 49 innocent people .

"I want to draw attention to that moment because nightclubs and music and dance are what bring us together. They shouldn’t be places or things that we do that bring us sadness and tragedy and murder and death and pain and suffering and trauma. But unfortunately human beings are still stuck in some kind of a rut," said Madonna.

Kevin Mazur/WireImage 

"I will always stand for the gays, always, because the gays have always stood for me," she told the crowd, describing the tragic event as "the worst terror attack since 9/11."

As Madonna addressed the survivors and their families, she began to get choked up and admitted to feeling "emotional" about the moment. "I make dance music. My job is to bring people together, to make people dance, to make people happy, to not judge. This s--- is not supposed to happen. Don’t forget about it," she said.

The "Music" singer then shouted out several survivors and highlighted the shooting's impact on their lives, including lost friends, gunshot injuries and mental health struggles.

"When are we gonna learn? That's a rhetorical question, but I'm telling you we all take part in this — you know why? Because we all judge each other," she continued. "We think we’re so elevated, we think we’ve seen it all, we've done it all, but even I speak evil to other people. Even I judge."

Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Madonna added, "We’re all guilty of discrimination in one way or another, therefore we are, on a global level, contributing to these crimes of hate. Therefore, I ask you all to remember your responsibility, and I ask you all to remember you have the ability to shine light in the world and to make a difference."

After she was handed a guitar, the Grammy winner began to cry, as she asked the audience to turn on their phone flashlights.

"Light up this room, so we are all reminded that their lives were not taken in vain, and that we are reminded that every one of us has the ability to shine our own light on each other and share it with the world, share it with our friends, share it with our families, share it with our loved ones, share it with the people we don’t understand, share it with the people we think are our enemies because at the end of the day, we don’t have any f---ing enemies! We are our own enemies. Please remember that," concluded Madonna.

Following the speech, she performed an emotional acoustic cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."

Throughout The Celebration Tour, Madge has integrated the show with touching tributes — from montages that reflect on those she's lost within her own family, like her mother , to musicians who have died.

During her performance of the 1986 classic "Live to Tell," she specifically takes a moment to reflect upon on people like Keith Haring, Freddie Mercury and many others who died from AIDS.

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While the show thoughtfully addresses various tragedies, it is also as much a celebration of the queer community who have uplifted Madonna's career and inspired her over the years, as it is a career retrospective.

The "Hung Up" singer launched her Celebration Tour to acclaim last October at London's O2 Arena. The show, which features a two-hour set, marked the hitmaker's return to the stage following  her hospitalization in summer 2023  due to a  serious bacterial infection .

Since setting out on the tour, the music legend has garnered attention for the show's spectacle and various surprises. During the "Vogue" portion of the set, she's brought out a myriad of special guests, including FKA Twigs , Kylie Minogue , Pamela Anderson and Julia Garner and Julia Fox , who were both rumored to appear in her long-awaited biopic, which is currently on pause , among many others.

Madonna kicked off the U.S. leg of her tour in late 2023 with several shows in New York City and Washington D.C. in December. In 2024, she got back out on the road to resume the rest of the North American dates, which continue in the States until April 15 before she heads to Mexico City for five shows at the end of the month.

Next month on May 4, the "Like a Prayer" singer will officially say farewell to The Celebration Tour with a massive send-off show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . She'll be concluding the tour with a historic, free concert at Copacabana Beach at the Belmond Copacabana Palace Hotel.

The concert is sponsored by Itaú Apresenta and "will be free of charge as a thank you to her fans for celebration more than four decades of her music over the course of the epic global run of the tour," according to a press release.

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Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is hauntingly brilliant, even the 15 surprise songs

Taylor Swift ’s vulnerability is her superpower.

From the glorified diary entries of her 2006 debut to her 2024 album of the year Grammy winner “Midnights," she has proudly worn her heart on her sleeve.

That heart is bloodied and battered, but ultimately beating on “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift’s 11th studio album that she surprise announced while collecting the first of two more Grammys in February.

Then came a bigger surprise when, at 2 a.m. Friday, Swift declared that "TTPD" was really a double album, with "The Anthology" tacked onto the the title and the addition of 15 songs to join the initual 16.

These 31 pensive pop tracks are the antithesis to “Lover.” Heartbreak and misery wrapped in melody. Rainbows faded into sepia tone. An era endured not enjoyed.

"TTPD" is bookended with a prologue – a poem by Stevie Nicks – and an epilogue framed as Swift’s summary report as the chairman of The Tortured Poets Department (Chaos, “leads the caged beast to do the most curious things,” she writes).

As she grapples with blame for the fizzling of a six-year relationship, she isn’t worried about pride. Former boyfriend Joe Alwyn is the obvious unnamed antagonist in most songs ("The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived"), though Swift shoulders plenty of culpability ("The Tortured Poets Department" title track).

With these songs, Swift pulls listeners into the depths of misery catalyzed by a public breakup while she staged the biggest concert tour in history. It's an exploration of extremes told with intimate details. Is this her “Tapestry" ? Her “Blue" ? Her “Like A Prayer" ?

Maybe the old guard still isn’t ready to anoint Swift to the echelon of Carole King and Joni Mitchell (Madonna? Absolutely). But “TTPD” springboards off Swift’s vibrant storytelling on “Folklore” and “Evermore” and spotlights the open-hearted confidence she presented on those musically minimalist albums.

Swifties can exhaust themselves excavating lyrical clues in the F-bomb-dropping “Down Bad” (“If I can’t have him, I might die”) and surmise if “But Daddy I Love Him” is funny or cruel (“I’m having his baby. No I’m not, but you should see your faces”), but it hardly matters.

Like the most successful artists in history – The Beatles and Beyoncé, perhaps – Swift is untouchable. Critic proof. Adored whether she unveils a masterpiece or a stopgap collection of songs.

“TTPD” falls closer to masterpiece territory, if not musically – similar cadences and production from Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner coat many songs with the same sheen – then lyrically.

It’s a bonafide headphones album, best experienced in the quiet to fully absorb the sadness and exasperation in Swift’s voice when she sings in the resentful “So Long, London,” (“I’m pissed off you let me give you all that youth for free”) and her ache on the melancholy piano ballad “Loml,” which will make your heart feel raked over with nails.

What guests does Taylor Swift have on her new album?

Post Malone is dancing closely to the fire known as "Call John Legend For a Feature" with his high-profile drops not only on Swift’s album, but Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.”

While he offered a pedestrian contribution with Beyoncé, Posty fares better on “Fortnight,” the opening song on “TTPD” which he co-wrote with Swift and Antonoff.

A gentle thrumming in the background cushions Swift's darkly funny lyrics (“I was a functioning alcoholic ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic”) while Post Malone dips into the mesmerizing rhythm with some sweet vocals.

It’s also one of two songs to namedrop Florida. But the second, “ Florida!!! ,” co-written by and co-starring Florence Welch, is the standout, with Swift and Welch trading vocals over a stomping backbeat that is both cinematic and purposeful.

More: Taylor Swift name-drops Patti Smith and Dylan Thomas on new song. Here’s why

While it’s impossible to out-lyricize Swift, Welch nudges impressively close with her self-penned contribution: “Barricaded in the bathroom with a bottle of wine, well, me and my ghosts had a hell of a time.”

These two are ideal companions, musically and philosophically.

‘I Can Do it With a Broken Heart’ is one of Swift’s best Trojan horses

Synths flutter, an electro-pop beat pulses and the melody is structured as one of Swift’s trademark glistening pop gems.

But then the lyrics of “I Can Do it With a Broken Heart” kick in and Swift travels through the most potent psychological exploration of “the show must go on” since Smokey Robinson and The Miracles described “The Tears of a Clown” in 1967.

“I’m a real tough kid,” Swift sings, defiant as ever. “They said baby, gotta fake it til you make it … and I did.”

With humor and grace, Swift unfurls the anguish she hid while remaining very visible the past year, including blasting through an awe-inspiring three-hour show several nights a week on her world-spanning Eras Tour. But the song achieves liftoff with the dichotomy of Swift’s honeyed voice and her chant-singing, “I’m so depressed, I act like it’s my birthday, every day.”

It’s a clever entry into the complexity of mental health, and Swift, she of limitless ambition, flips her sorrow into something constructive, a Superwoman unbowed by pesky things like misery.

“I cry a lot but I am so productive,” she chirps, tongue firmly in cheek. “It’s an art … you know you’re good when you can do it with a broken heart.”

The capper is Swift declaring, “I’m miserable and no one even knows it!” as she laughs through the end of the song. But after recognizing what she’s endured, even her giggles lacerate.

More: All 11 of Taylor Swift's No. 1 songs ranked ahead of her 11th album release

Who is Clara Bow?

The final song on “TTPD” is named for a 1920s-era silent film star and the layers run deep (paging all excavating Swifties!)

Is the choice of an actress who was seen and not heard on film a metaphor for her life with Alwyn, a cornerstone of which was privacy?

Or, as Swift sings from an observational post, does she merely resemble the alluring dark-lipsticked 20 th century star?

The wispy ballad finds Swift mimicking the words she (possibly) heard in her upstart years, such as “You look like Stevie Nicks ,” before the storyline comes full circle with a new rookie being told, “You look like Taylor Swift … you’ve got edge, she never did.”

It’s meta, yes, but Swift often subscribes to glancing back to lunge forward – always saturated in poetic sensitivity.

What is ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’?

The 15 additional songs Swift dropped a mere two hours after providing an emotional wallop with the first batch include four of the tracks already announced as bonuses: “The Manuscript,” “The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog.”

Among the others, Swift is especially pointed on the gently swelling acoustic guitar-based “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus,” a song that seemingly references her fling with Matty Healy (she laments being unable to save someone who “needed drugs” and was always just out of reach).

Her strongest vitriol, however, is reserved for “Thank you, Aimee,” which fans surmise digs into her feud with Kim Kardashian . But Swift is bold and forthright when schooling “Aimee” about her success in spite of criticisms – a familiar, if still welcome, page from Swift’s playbook.

A trio of “name” songs – “Cassandra,” “Peter” and “Robin” – are all winsome ballads couched in pretty piano melodies. “Peter” is especially endearing with its waltzing rhythm and Swift’s warm vocals on this ode to a childhood friend (“The goddess of timing once found us beguiling,” she sings).

But a highlight is the bouncy “So High School,” which finds Swift singing and strumming guitar with the breezy glow of ‘ 90s-era Sheryl Crow. Is her focal point current paramour Travis Kelce ? Lyrics including “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle” and “I feel so high school every time I look at you,” are significant indications. But more importantly, the song pulls Swift out of the sludge and into the sun.