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If a Madonna stub seems to sticket out like a sore thumb among my pantheon of paper gods it can be explained by my allure to over-the-top pomp and circumstance. The circumstance (in this case) was Super Bowl XLVI; the pomp came courtesy of Madonna’s bombastic thirteen-minute half-time extravaganza, a massive choreographed pop-explosion set against a backdrop of cheerleaders, rappers, acrobats, a marching band, a gospel choir and legions of Roman soldiers, all at the bid of the decidedly un-virgin like Queen of Pop, Madonna Louise Ciccone.
I don’t remember where I watched the Super Bowl that year, but I’m guessing I was bored enough with the game and enough beers in by half-time to find Madonna’s set disproportionately interesting, and when her tour got announced the next day I was still euphoric (hung over?) enough to jump on tickets for the Ottawa date, scheduled for September 10th, 2012.
The opening act was a DJ of some note named Paul Oakenfold; apparently he was a big deal in the ’80’s. To me it was a guy standing behind a table playing records, and though I can’t imagine why anyone would pay him to be there I must admit I liked the records he was playing.
(I’ll take a brief moment here and compare DJ’s to those canvases I see at galleries around the world that are painted entirely white or entirely green or entirely red and sell for entirely too much money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars. I will never say that these artists are doing virtually nothing or that they have no talent despite the fact that it appears exactly thusly; too many respectable people agree that there is something important and worthwhile in these works. In truth, it can only be that I am too ignorant of the medium to see the the worth in the work.)
I tell you, when Madonna hits the stage she really hits it. When the lights came up to begin her set the stage was full of men laying around in a mock-up of a bedroom. Madonna came out brandishing a machine gun and proceeded to shoot every man in sight point-blank, singing “Gonna kill my lover, gonna shoot him in the head…” over and over through her cliché headset microphone while blood splatter splashed huge on the big screens behind her and a mindless pop rhythm looped through the booming speakers. I’m sure she was making some sort of statement and whatever she was saying had a string of exclamation points at the end.
It was merely shocking at first, but as the carnage went on and on for the entire number I became more and more aghast. At least it distracted me from the emptiness of the music. A little.
My mind is a smear as to whether or not Madonna kept up her murderous ways beyond the first song but she probably did; the next couple of numbers were titled Revolver and Gang Bang. Appropriate I suppose that she followed them up with Papa Don’t Preach, the first song of the night that I recognized. (That said, all of her hits had been rearranged, and while some of it was at least refreshing, the mindlessness of the new material made the reworkings also seem somewhat mindless.
There were several times when Madonna left the stage altogether, leaving us with a couple of dozen choreographed dancers flailing along to recorded music. Perhaps it was an homage to Paul Oakenfold?
Overall I could easily have saved my sixty bucks, but I did enjoy hearing those songs that are inextricably wound peripherally into the soundtrack of my high school years, though they were few: Vogue, Like A Prayer, and the fore-referenced Like a Virgin*.
Actually, Like A Prayer was great. The show-closer was the most concert-like number of the night and was the only thing she did that was unquestionably damn good musically. If the whole show had been more like that I would be gushing right now. I don’t begrudge her for doing her own thing – she’s come up with and presents a very interesting 105 minutes and more power to her – but as a big live music fan and a casual Madonna fan I would have enjoyed a more musical and less “artistic” show.
Though my ticket cost $47 ($61.25 with all charges in), most of the tickets in the 22,000 seater were priced at $350 each, $375 with charges added. I feel like I got my moneys worth or came at least close. I hope all the ladies in the pricey seats feel the same.
(A bonus: This was the easiest bathroom scene I’ve ever seen. There was one other guy in the cavernous latrine when I went before the show started. Gender-wise, it was like being at a Rush concert in reverse.)
*This is the first time I’ve noticed that two of her biggest songs start with “Like A…” Maybe she feels ‘like a’ lot of things. Like a Madonna, like a Roman queen, like a rampaging assassin, like a highly respected pop star that can still rake in the big bucks, even after all these years.
Maybe even a little like a canvas painted just a bit off-white that somehow sells for $300,000, which is probably about what Madonna makes in a night. And that can’t be a coincidence.
Todd Man Out 