Just wondering why her "Damita Jo" tour was cancelled...when Madonna's album bombed she got out there with her most extravagant and first greatest hits show yet. You'd think Janet would have wanted to do the same thing...get out there and remind everyone what they loved about her in the first place--then she straight up cancels?!

It makes me think she has no confidence that she can still sell out an arena, which is sad. But who knows if she still can? I remember her last 2 tours: "Velvet Rope" was called a "monster stiff" in Rolling Stone back in 98; "All For You" had to add a second leg in 2002 to re-coup some losses, and the Hawaii stadium from the DVD didn't even sell out...

Does it mean Jan can't draw a decent crowd of 10,000 in the major cities anymore? Will the next tour be 'amphitheatres'? 'Theatres'? Hope not.

actually, if memory serves me right, the "added" dates were to make up for dates cancelled or postponed due to illness. I don't know what shows you were at but janet's all for you tour in philly was sold out. i also went ot the velvet rope tour and it was A-may-zing! i liked it far more than all for you!

i agree that she made a mistake by not touring after damita jo. madonna did the right thing by getting out there and getting to work. the press of a good tour is invaluable! look what it did for prince! and i am willing to put money down that madonna's next record will be a HUGE success (in part because the public's last memory of madge is no longer american life but the tour and subsequent interviews). janet will still have to overcome the damita jo flop, though i think she'll do just fine.

i'm also pretty sure she'll do arenas and amphitheatres. velvet rope did quite a few amphitheatres and she was incredibly popular then so i don't think it necessarily comes down to how popular she is. janet is a top selling artist. people love her and they locve to see her perform. she'll be back in no time.












/

I saw Janet twice on the AFY tour, and neither date was sold out. Same with the Velvet Rope show. Infact, we got our tickets for TVR the night before the show, and we were actually moved into better seats right beforehand.

Granted, Pittsburgh (and State College) isn't the biggest music market, either. Prince didn't sell out Mellon Arena on his last pass, and REM played to a half full theater in November. However, U2 sold out Mellon Arena as soon as tickets went on sale, and when I saw Bon Jovi () at State College, they sold out too.

SassyBritches said:

This isn't 100% true, I don't think. My city was one of the ones that she postponed due to illness. She was supposed to play in July or August, and she ended up coming in October or November.

She took another pass through with newly added dates in early January/Feburary and then ended up in Hawaii for the finale.

I think people go to see Madonna because it's Madonna and she just puts on a damn good show and it's different.

I think people will go see Janet but I definitely hope there's something a little new and different. I've been going since she was performing with the circus and some elements are a bit repetitive. TVR was nice change tho.

Janet need to cut them 'Control'/'RN' medleys.
Shit is so tired, and I hope she gets 2 cum on
this tour if she decides to pull another guy from
the audience, preferably on opening night,
so she'll have it out of her system.

For Europe she betta stick to club dates 'cuz
Miss Damita won't be selling out that gig.

Axchi696 said:

really? i don't remember that far back, to be sure, lol!

JackieBlue said:

but even madonna's shows still had tickets available the night of the show. they were also moving folks to better seats because scalpers had all the good tickets and they couldn't off load them on anyone. my boyfriend and i went to two of the shows in chicago and we had 300 level seats but ended up IN THE PIT! purplegypsy had upper level seats in madison sq garden and she ended up with great 1st level seats as well. people just aren't paying the kind of money these artists are asking for.

i only paid 40 dollars a ticket for the 2nd chicago show because scalpers were desperate!

Really? Hmmm the only big show I can recall that was TRULY sold out was Prince's Musicology Tour.

I also think prices have something to do with it. After you pay for tax, service charge and delivery... they need to be performing in your livingroom. I know I had to skip Reinvention Tour because I swing it at the time.
But if I had the dough I'd have been there.

With Janet I wonder if it's going to be the same show with a different pair of boots.
[Edited 7/27/05 9:59am]

I believe Janet was possibly the only artist who never rescheduled her European dates after all tours were postponed after 9/11. Hardly anything was sold out as far as I remember. I had tickets to a Wembley show which I bought a good month after they went on sale.

JackieBlue said:

1st off, i LOVE your avatar. you know, he's my boyfriend. just don't tell posh!

2nd, next time madonna comes around just wait until the day of the show. go to the venue and bargain with the scalpers. believe me, if she charges as much as she did last time, there will be plenty of desperate scalpers there willing to deal!

SassyBritches said:

Poor Posh. David and his many admirers!

I forget about scalpers. I always figure I'll be the one to get arrested altho I did scalp some good ones for Prince way back when.

I don't think I'll ever see Madonna again. Twice now and I hated it both times. I'm STILL owed about £300 for tickets I sold to friends of friends who actually enjoyed the ones I got them seats for We were right up front though but I just couldn't feel any atmosphere in the audience at all.

If Janet toured again I'd consider getting tickets. The excessive miming puts me off and I thought the AFY Hawaii show looked terrible, but it looked more enjoyable overall, and TVR tour looked great. I had to miss out on that one because I had exams that week, and of course she cancelled AFY in Europe and never rescheduled, despite adding further dates in Japan.

Ellie said:

What did you hate about the Madonna shows you saw?

JackieBlue said:

The fact that I had Nazi saluting Madonna freak fans standing behind me in matching camoflage vests
People who were just standing still and didn't know the words to any of the songs
On each tour 'Nobody's Perfect' & 'Mother & Father' respectively being the "about 2,000 people get up to go to the toilet songs"
Singing the bloody GAP advert version of 'Into The Groove' while ripping off the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang 'Old Bamboo' dance!
"Kabbalists Do It Best"
'Like A Prayer' was a major disappointment. I could hear her backing vocalists more than her.
"Holiday, Celebrate, Holiday, Celebrate, Holiday..." *huff, puff* "Celebrate, Holiday, Celebrate" *2 hours later* "Holiday, Celebrate, Holiday, Celebrate"

It was all hindered by the fact that not long after seeing the last 2 Madonna tours, I saw Kylie's a little bit later and had a brilliant time at her shows.

Damn, that does sound a bit annoying and she attracts all types. I've heard about Kylie and would love to see her too. Maybe when she recovers she'll make a trip to the states 'cause I don't know when I'm going back to London.

The thing was with the Reinvention tour was that I finally understood why she hadn't sung her big hits for so long. She lost ALL passion for the songs, and I'd rather hear her sub-average new ones sung with some zest than see her struggling to find any love for the old ones. Seeing RIT made me appreciate what I saw for 'Drowned World' a bit more.

Incidentally, I thought the highlight of the show was 'Burning Up'. Shame I was the only person in a 15 metre radius at least who was singing along. I felt like a bit of a twerp.

Don't you find that concert experiences can be ruined by a crappy audience, no matter how good/bad the actual show is?

Ellie said:

Absolutely and I'm from NY but love to see shows in other cities and every time I see a show outside of NY I'm always really surprised at the lackluster crowds.

When Madonna added Stardusts' Music Sounds Better With You to Holiday I thought the roof was gonna fly off. 80s Madonna + Club Kids = PARTY!

I know what you mean about Madonna. I hate when fans of clueless or unappreciative of the older work of an artist. You can always tell because people either sit down or it's real quiet. As I mentioned in another thread, when I recently saw Erykah Badu the audience was blah. There were like 10 of us standing and grooving. She even commented saying how great they were for other artists and how great the crowd was in NY but how the current crowd wasn't really responding.

The energy of a good crowd can really add to a performance.
[Edited 7/27/05 11:03am]

sure she can. the only problem is it would be the exact same show she put on the last 3 times she toured.

Well with Madonna I'd expect a decent reaction to some BIG old hits. But I think the ticket prices really stopped any casual fans from going. I adored Madonna from the age of 8 until about 20, so she'd been a big part of my teenage years. It was just her hardcore base (I'm telling you, scanning the audience it was like 90% 25-35 year old white gay men), and some stupid people like me with an addiction to competing for decent seats on internet ticket sites

Ellie, did u c M in London?

No offense, but gig-wise London sucks.

This whole seat culture ruins a concert experience 4 me. Most
shows in Europe don't have seats on the floor, everyone is standing
& there's a bar on the floor! (sometimes) I saw DWT in Paris, very theatrical & not exactly a show u can rock 2 but the audience SANG 'Paradise'
& 'Nobody's Perfect' it was fooking wild, I'm sorry but u can't compare Kylie
2 Madonna or Janet in terms of their shows..that's just wrong. Kylie
is cute but very very amateurish on stage.

Kylie is my QUEEN I loved and knew of Kylie before I'd ever heard of Janet and Madonna - Madge cos my mum thought she was a slut and shielded me from her, and despite being obsessed with MJ since the age of 4, Janet totally passed me by (but she's never been that big in the UK).

*sigh* I hate seated concerts too. The first few concerts I ever went to were big stadium gigs, so the standing area was really fun, but when Wembley got knocked down I was reduced to the arenas and theatres Brixton Academy is brilliant though if you go to the standing area,
[Edited 7/27/05 11:55am]

I never understood why they tore Wembley down,
I thought those 2 tower thingies were sort
of a monument...

Martinelli said:

wasn't Wembley a legend?


Madonna and MJ are the only solo artists to sell out Wembley for 7 nights.

Yeah, I don't remember there being any problem with it. It re-opens in 2006, supposedly if it can get finished in time. They lit the new arch up when the Olympic committee came to visit, I heard it impressed them.

It's just a shame that London has had to do without a proper stadium for so long. Fuck the football, it's the concerts that we've missed out on. I live practically next to the Rugby stadium in Twickenham but it's a residential area. U2 played last month but other than them and the Rolling Stones it's rarely a concert venue.

ehuffnsd said:

As far as I know Madonna's never done that. What year? MJ did it for 7 in 1988, 5 in 1992 and 3 in 1997. Looks like a decline but most big artists are lucky to even play 2 if any at all.

At first, Janet's camp didn't even want to admit that the DJ tour was cancelled: her choreographer stated that it was "postponed," until after the elections. Well, 2006 it a technically after the elections, isn't it??

As much as I was EXTREMELY disappointed by the "extended postponement," in Janet's defense, there was just too much controversy going on regardless of whether or not DJ was a hit. The Super Bowl incident really soured a lot of people's taste for Janet. Even some of her fans were critical of her. Then Michael's trial was coming up, and that was an ordeal in itself. As selfish as I am, I sure wouldn't want Janet to suffer any further humiliation due to SOME circumstances beyond her control or even those "actions" that were misjudgments, intentional or not. So all in all, maybe it was just better for Janet to chill.

But I'm really looking forward to next cd, and I'm confident that Janet is gonna tour again. I think she can has the potential to sell-out or come close to it. I'd really like the opportunity to see her perform live coz I've just never had the chance before. On a side-note, I'm gonna have to shell some bucks to see Madonna this next time around, too. Who knows when both of these icons will retire from touring for good? I'm not gonna miss the chance if given the opportunity this time around.

Ellie said:

you're right my memory was mistaken

She did 3 shows for Who's That Girl and Blonde Ambition and 2 shows for the Girlie Show in Wembley Stadium

6 Earl's Court shows for Drowned World Tour
2 Earl's Court and 4 Wembley Arena Shows for Re-Invention.

Isel said:

Madonna toured after the Controversy of Sex and Erotica and Body of Evidence and Dangerous games. and people claimed her carear was over. She sold out cause people wanted to see what she was going to do. I'm sure if Janet had toured and been smart she would have used the Superbowl to her advantage.

Most non-Americans totally didn't get the "backlash" Janet suffered because of the Superbowl. I mean that crap goes on on live TV all the time here, and not just cable. Hell, even if it's a morning kids show we'd all have a big laugh about it.

I don't think Janet even lost any fans because of it. The only people who would have been outraged by that sort of thing would be freaky fundamentalist Christian rednecks, and since when were they in Janet's demographic of fans?

Now, when she apologised for it, that's when I lost that tiny bit of respect for her. Justin's was gone already after the initial bragging and then backtracking, and his Grammy awards "apology" was just pathetic.
[Edited 7/27/05 13:42pm]