Madonna And Her Fans Rescue Our Show Saturday 4th July 2009

9:00pm, its hot in the O2 Arena, so hot I’m starting to wonder if Madonna got her Confessions Tour wish and the air con has been turned off. I’m in block 413 of the arena, in the upper tier and as another infamous Madonna late-start drags on it dawns on me that I’m surrounded by people that are clearly not Madge fans. Both couples either side of my sister and I state that they’ve never seen the lady in concert before. Some booing and slow clapping begins. One man two rows behind us shouts “Hurry Up” in an angry tone. I look at my sister and we both have out doubts that this is not going to be the sort of show we were hoping for.

Eventually the lights drop and my sister and I jump to out feet. No sooner have I started to cheer when I get a tap on my shoulder from behind and a voice growls “Sit down”. I turn round and our whole entire block is still seated. Have these people not been to a Madonna show before? I ask the man if he intends to be seated for the entire show, “Of course I am, everyone else is aren’t they?” he smirks. I look down at the lower tier and the whole place is on its feet. I hatch a quick plan. I leg it down to the security guy and begged to be moved. He gives me two empty seats at the front of the upper tier, a few rows in front of where we were. I wave my sister down and she joins me. But we’re still seated. We watch the first four songs bouncing on our chairs in a very un-Madonna-seated fashion but we’re still aching to be with the throngs of real fans on the lower tier who are up on their feet and voguing with gusto. The Die Another Day video interlude starts. I decide to take a risk and go back over to the security guard. Moaning about the lack of dancing he tells me to go to the information desk. Some help that is. Not wanting to miss a single minute of the show, we have to move quickly. I wave my sister over grab her hand and we leg it around the arena , down the escalators to the lower tier. We tentatively open a door to the lower arena area and I start blathering to the female guard that we’ve been sent down as we don’t like the atmosphere upstairs and it’s too high. She says to go to block 106 information desk. It dawns on me that no one wants to help. We run off to the left in the direction of 106 and when we get to the stairs down to the arena floor we say “screw it” and quickly dash down to some spare seats just off the arena floor itself. We find a load of spare seats next to a small group of fans that are going nuts as Into The Groove starts, and checking that we aren’t blocking anyone’s view, we join them. On our feet, bouncing, dancing, singing, hugging, high-fiving. Cue the greatest night of Madonna fun I’ve ever had, rescued by the skin of its teeth from what could have been the worst.

The group we join are a friendly but hardcore Madge band from all over, one guy from Brazil, one girl in full Like A Virgin costume, one in pink feather boa. Thank god we managed to finally find some people that are here for a proper good time. I wonder why the seated masses in the upper tier didn’t just save themselves some money and stay in to watch the show one Sky One?

Madonna looked nervous when she came out. She must have heard the boos and slow clapping, and she looks tentative through the first couple of numbers. Vogue shows her getting into a flow, and by Into The Groove, when we joined the real fans, she’s on rare form. The Holiday remix is superb, and when the Michael Jackson tribute begins the place erupts. Despite my reservations about the man and his behaviour (I love his music, let it be said) when the tribute dancer rises on stage and the bassline from Billie Jean kicks in, I realise how wonderful it would have been to see the man perform in the arena. I get a lump in my throat as it dawns on me that the man has passed on forever more. The O2 absolutely erupts, and we are treated to exerts from Billie Jean, Wanna Be Startin’ Something’, and Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough (I think). It lifts the atmosphere to a massive high, and Madonna keeps the atmosphere at this pitch right up until the last note is played. The re-done Dress You Up is much better than Borderline. You Must Love Me is sung even more beautifully than it was at Wembley last year. Like A Prayer is as immense as ever. But the remix of Frozen is out of this world, and the song that last year’s show climax was sorely in need of. The use of the Calvin Harris’ I’m Not Alone track floors me, and is the sort of dancefloor moment only Madonna can give you. The mash-up may not have been her idea, but even at 50 she still has a finger rammed into the pulse of dancefloor trends. The O2 is rocking, even the old farts upstairs have been standing for some time now, and hopefully questioning why they ever told us to sit-down in the first place.Ray Of Light seems refreshed this time around, and I finally understand why Give It To Me makes a great show concluder. The only down points are Spanish Lesson (again!) and the re-done Get Stoopid video that features some very graphic flashed images of war and famine victims. Definitely not for the kids. But they paled into comparison to the number of high points during the show. Too many to count in fact.

Madonna energy is off the chart and she gave one of her best performances I’ve seen. Couple that with the group of crazy Madonna fans that welcomed us with open arms when it seemed the whole of the rest of the arena didn’t want to know, and it made for one of the best nights I’ve ever had with the Queen of Pop. I don’t advocate everyone running down to the lower tier to blag better seats; if everyone did it the place would be in chaos. But, as always in these situations, I simply asked “What would Madonna do?”. She’d get her ass down there and dance!

Why would she pay tribute to Michael Jackson on the Confessions Tour? He was still alive during that time.

ernestsewell said:

I'm not sure I follow?? If you mean the air-con reference, I was referring to the fact that it was damn hot in the O2 last night and back on the Confessions Tour in 2005 it was her request that the air conditioning in arenas be turned off to create a sweaty dancefloor atmosphere.

Oh and a couple of other points. The new merchandise isn’t all that, at least for the lads. The only new t-shirt for the guys looks like some cheap knock-off you’d get down the market. And none of the new t-shirts have writing on the back, just the front. They are £22 as opposed to last years £25. The program hasn’t changed from what I can see. The best new t-shirt was a retro Blonde Ambition Tour shirt, but for some reason it was only available in skinny-fit ladies versions. The guys really got stiffed on the merchandise front this year!

Paul Oakenfold; last year he had the entire Wembley stadium at his feet and he played a dire set. This year he has a three-quarters empty, and fully lit O2 arena to entertain and he plays an amazing set!! Just a bit of a shame there was such a long gap between Oakey and Madonna. I’m guessing there might have been some issues backstage to sort out for her to be that late on, late even by Madonna’s standards.

ernestsewell said:

He died and she had this leg of her tour to do. That was her first show back I think

missmad said:

The poster is referring to the Confessions Tour.

The Confessions Tour was years ago in 2006, when Michael was alive. She never did an MJ tribute on the Confessions Tour.
[Edited 7/5/09 8:36am]

I saw both ReInvention Confessions in the fist week of shows, she was very apprehensive, tense and not very chatty. I think it's just the way she does things. They were probably tweaking things right up to the point the lights went down. She tends to lighten up and get into the show more as the tour progresses and it becomes more routine.

Also she take methodical notes through course of the night so maybe something happened on her way to front of the stage that was on her mind. i don't think she worries to much about what the audience is doing before the show. She's Madonna and they just spent 150 are they going to leave cause she's late?

When I saw RIT I had a couple behind me and my friend ask us to sit down, and we were on the floor. i rolled my eyes and went back to singing along with her.

I don't have to read that review, or to bother with Madonna.

Thanks anyways.

ernestsewell said:

The poster is probably saying that Madonna asked for the air condition to be turned off back then ( during the Confessions tour ) and last night it was so hot inside the O2 that the poster remembered Madonna´s wish from 2006 ( i.e. for the ac to be turned off).

KoolEaze said:

madonna has always asked for the air to be turned off.

DaveT said:

Not to sound like the orignal poster´s spokesperson here but I think he only mentioned the Confessions tour because of the bolded part above.
It´s not really that confusing at all.

ehuffnsd said:

Why ? Does she prefer the sweaty, hot, humid and sexy and smelly atmosphere?

KoolEaze said:

That's exactly what I was trying to say....next time I'll try and keep it simple for everyone!

ehuffnsd said:

didn't people working for and on her tour threaten to strike at one time because they got too hot during the shows and she refused to have any air turned on? I read that awhile ago, was it true?

matthewgrant said:

her staff no, the venue staff yes.

apparently air conditioning has negative effect on the vocals. When I saw RIT at the Pond Ice underneath the floor mats had melted by the end of the night and floor of the Pond was a little damp

ehuffnsd said:

wow and yeah I figured she liked the heat for some reason or another. I was thinking to keep the dancers from ceasing up.

matthewgrant said:

i think last year one venue did end up turning the air on for like an hour.

I was asked twice at shows last year (George Michael and Tina Turner) to please sit down by the people behind me. I just turned around and said, "No, get up off your fucking ass. You're at a concert and you got good seats."

They weren't happy. But they got over it. They even got up and started to move their dead asses a few times.

errant said:

Good for you, you hit the nail on the head there!!! I guess I should have stood my ground more, but I didnt want to put a bad vibe on the night before it even began. Plus it was a good excuse to get down to where the proper fans were! I feel bad for the artist when everyone's sitting. How would you feel if you were working your ass off on stage and you were faced with a load of moody people sitting with the arms folded! Madonna wants you up on your feet, so damn it, we were gonna dance!

I quite like the hot.sweaty dancefloor feeling once the show starts, especially at a Madonna gig, you feel like you're shedding sweat with her onstage, so she's not the only one going through it, you're with her and working just as hard. I think that's what she appreciates.
[Edited 7/5/09 10:38am]

ernestsewell said:

oh sorry misread, right.