[Edited 10/11/15 2:03am]

[Edited 10/9/15 1:04am]

setlist

^^actually"Rebel Heart" is not the final song.The show is taking place right now,so we don't know yet

Holy Water / Vogue

- this performance features dancing nuns on stripper poles, The Last Supper reenacted on stage

I love it!

[Edited 10/9/15 1:06am]

OMG...listen to the performance of "Music",which she starts off as a jazz number!

a Madonna concert wouldn't be complete without the acoustic guitar segment

a few observations....

***"Holiday" is the last song and I think it's the perfect ending.That's the song that started Madonna on the road to superstardom.She really has come full circle,hasn't she?

***It's obvious that Madonna really,really,really LOVES the song "Candy Shop" (from Hard Candy).She performed it on the last two tours,and now here it is again,lol.Pharrell must be really happy about that,lol.

***"Ghosttown" was NOT performed and neither was "Joan Of Ark",but hey...she can't do em' all but it's amazing how so many of her classic hits made it onto the setlist! And she even does a surprise version of "La Vie En Rose".I can't complain about this incredible setlist.

from Rebel Heart:
Living For Love
Devil Pray
Unapologetic Bitch
Illuminati
Bitch I'm Madonna
Iconic
HeartBreakCity
Body Shop
Holy Water
S.E.X.
Messiah
Rebel Heart

from THE back catalog:
Everybody
Burning Up
Holiday
Lucky Star
Like a Virgin
Material Girl
Into The Groove
Dress You Up
Love Don't Live Here Anymore
True Blue
La Isla Bonita
Who's That Girl
Vogue
Justify My Love
Deeper and Deeper
Music
Candy Shop
Give It 2 Me

plus!
La Vie En Rose

the festive "La Isla Bonita" is performed in this show

"yeah....there's another part of you no one sees.....there's a burning fire that's underneath....baby don't you know you were meant to be,born to be,meant to be.....Iconic!"

Are you ready for a fun,nostalgic night? Madonna performs "Holiday"!!

^^the only thing is....watching that clip,I miss Nicki and Donna I'm so used to seeing the two of them onstage with Madonna whenever she performs that song

"Iconic" (opening segment)

Madonna seemed to be happy at last during upbeat 'Rebel Heart' tour opener: review

The most shocking thing about Madonna's "Rebel Heart" tour, which opened at Montreal's Bell Centre Wednesday, had nothing to do with sex. (How could it at this late date?)

And it had nothing to do with religion (though she did offer such token Madonna-esque stunts as nuns on stripper poles and dancers gyrating on holy crosses).

Instead the surprise of the show came in smiles.

Throughout nearly the entire two hour event, Madonna could barely stop grinning. For anyone who has followed Madonna tours from the start, the sight of it couldn't help but startle. Never a warm live performer, Madonna tends to grimace through her concerts, stressing athleticism and discipline over all. This time, she seemed to be having a blast. It made for an infectious night that brought the Canadian crowd to a series of spontaneous, and escalating, standing ovations. It didn't hurt that she sang "La Vie En Rose," both in French and in bold voice.

The bright tone of the show made for a striking contrast to the star's last tour, "MDNA," a dark and violent affair that often ended up puzzling to boot. "Rebel Heart" had no such pretense. In fact, it may be Madonna's lightest roadshow to date.

That's not at all to say it's unsubstantial. On the contrary, the triumph of the "Rebel Heart" tour is how it finds Madonna taking ownership of her legacy with an unprecedented maturity.

She began that approach on her like-named album, which found her in a newly self-referential mode.

Madonna mirrored that here by featuring no fewer than nine of its tracks, including the show's opener, "Iconic." For this initial section of the show, Madonna drew on her time-honored mingle of the erotic and the reverent. Her twenty dancers, dolled up as medieval warriors, bore cross-topped weapons. In a more slow and graceful take on "Vogue" Renaissance images of religious figures replaced movie stars while Madonna and her dancers posed at The Last Supper table.

While the star used to position such displays as pointed social commentary, here they seemed to have more to do with simply reasserting her own long history with them.

Madonna delved deeper into her personal story in the second act, which found her on the hood of a '60s Chevy in an auto repair shop, a clear reference to her Detroit roots. She emphasized a rare sincerity here by singing the unashamedly romantic "True Blue," while accompanying herself on, of all things, a ukulele.

Madonna came the closest she's ever going to get to a "greatest hits" display in the third act, where she offered touchstones from "Lucky Star" to "Everybody." The latter she hasn't performed live since the early '90s.

Even so, none of the older songs sounded anything like they had on album. To suit the matador-theme'd theatrical accompanyment, Madonna reimagined them as Spanish-tinged ballads.

Madonna included in her run of oldies "Who's That Girl," which she delivered as a solo acoustic ballad. After singing it, she admitted that it took her a hell of a long time to answer just who this particular girl may be. Then, she went into "Rebel Heart," a song about the joy of self-discovery. That theme allowed Madonna to run through a wide range of characters in the show - including a '20 French cabaret star - while maintaining a solid through-line.

It also helped her pull off what may have been the show's most stunning move. When performing "Like a Virgin," she appeared on the gaping stage entirely alone, dancing with a freedom and even an innocence, that made her, at 57, seem once again new.

Concert review: Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour starts beating at the Bell Centre

Jordan Zivitz, Montreal Gazette More from Jordan Zivitz, Montreal Gazette

In an uncharacteristically unadorned segment around two-thirds into the kickoff of her Rebel Heart Tour, Wednesday at the Bell Centre, Madonna announced she was “going to sing a little song here on my guitar — back to where it all began.”

Before she could spark a flamenco-tinged Who’s That Girl, a fan’s interjection caught her ear. “Yes, I know I played drums first. But who can see you behind the drums? I’m a Leo. We like to be the centre of attention.”

So she’s still self-aware. And in a spare-no-expense theatrical spectacle that artfully flowed from showstopper to showstopper, she proved once again that she doesn’t just crave the spotlight — she owns it.

Montreal accidentally got the first look at the Rebel Heart Tour after five shows were postponed for extra prep time, and the kinks were ironed out before Wednesday night. (OK, 99 per cent of them were: “This costume is treacherous,” the singer exclaimed when she got snagged by some bejewelled fringe.) Consisting of four loosely thematic sections broken up by costume changes, with almost every song benefiting from its own tailor-made staging and with a small army of dancers gracefully executing intense choreography, the show hit all the marks.

Those included the expected provocation. Anyone hoping Madonna would smash new taboos would have left disappointed; but then, she’s already shattered most of them. Still, the first segment’s slightly confused rebellion was built on a load-bearing mash-up of familiar themes: sex, salvation, religion, oppression.

The introductory film positioned the star as both outsider and leader, with images of Madonna — and, why not, Mike Tyson — in captivity, and talk of “too much creativity being crushed beneath the wheel of corporate branding. … It’s time to wake up.” Ignoring the fact that Madonna long ago became a corporate brand unto herself, it was thrilling to see her descend from the rafters and break out of her cage. With a battalion of armoured warriors falling under her command, Iconic was insanely theatrical, Broadway-worthy, and just the beginning.

There was a backscreen projection of Nicki Minaj motormouthing through the shuddering bass in Bitch I’m Madonna (rarely has a song title been more perfect for pricey shirts at the merch stand), although the virtual cameo was upstaged by a cyclone of geishas. There was Madonna whipping off her skirt and playfully scolding the gawkers (“I’m up here”) as she riffed on a Flying V in an aggressive Burning Up — boiled down to an elemental form, like most of the set list’s vintage pieces.

And there were the stripper nuns. Twenty-six years after Like a Prayer’s video scandalized the Vatican and parents who relied on MTV as a cheap babysitter, the sight of dancers twisting down steel crucifixes while Madonna snapped “bitch, get off my pole” in Holy Water was hopefully intended to be comical. The Last Supper tableau that played out during a rumbling Vogue was more challenging, as was the dance-off in Devil Pray that seemed to advocate for spirituality as the most powerful drug.

From there, the show’s tone was more carefree, helped along by a singer who was clearly enjoying herself. The more modest second segment centred on a certain youthful innocence; in a display of Madonna’s gift for literalism, it opened with her lounging on a car hood, swigging from a bottle and cavorting with her grease-monkey buddies for a whimsical Body Shop. She strummed True Blue on ukulele from atop a tire stack; it was both endearingly quaint and, supersized by an unprompted singalong from more than 16,000 voices, a goosebump moment that felt more grandiose in its way than the showpieces surrounding it.

HeartBreakCity’s intimate drama unfolded on a spiral staircase between Madonna and a solitary dancer, pushed to his doom in an effective climax. A skeletal, click-clacking Like a Virgin was both bigger and smaller, the star left alone to fill the sprawling cross-shaped walkway with her charisma. No problem.

The third block opened with the unsubtle and unfulfilled promise of an R rating, as dancers played out bedroom passions to a tape of S.E.X., before Madonna charged out to fight jewel-faced demons to the techno soundtrack of Living for Love, scalping a pair of horns in triumph at the end. In one of the evening’s minor victories, she made a smooth transition from that sulphur-scented campiness to the Latin romance of La Isla Bonita — one of the only hits to retain its original form, with steadfast cultural references that won’t yield to a restless artist’s hammer and tongs.

Perilously perched on rubber poles and bending with the wind in an astonishing display of acrobatics, the dancers nearly stole the show in their employer’s absence during another costume change, set to Illuminati’s woozy thump. After a jazz-club revision of Music’s universal mission statement opened a party-hearty stretch, Madonna stole it back, updating the choreography of Material Girl’s video by sending suitors tumbling down the angled centre-stage platform. (The song was also updated, dragged out of the ’80s by an apocalyptic bottom end.) The device was the linchpin in the elegant stage design, rising from and collapsing into the floor, and serving as both a screen and a playground.

La Vie en rose was another big small moment, prefaced by a speech about believing in love despite being “devastated, smashed to bits” that may become rote in a few weeks but sounded fresh on Wednesday. Delivered atop a circular riser decorated with Valentine’s curtains, the performance was stronger for being vulnerable, and received a resounding ovation that transcended thanks-for-singing-in-French affection.

She risked draining that immense bank of adoration by wrapping herself in the maple leaf during the mandatory celebration of Holiday. (Judging by her star-spangled cloak, it was a temporary substitute for the American flag. Still: were they fresh out of fleur-de-lis at the souvenir shop?)

It was a rare tone-deaf gesture in a nearly flawless show whose polish didn’t mask its spirit. The big production numbers were elevated by a striking joyfulness, the less adorned songs by a genuine warmth.

In the second category, none stood out more than Rebel Heart’s uplifting title track, presented as a statement of identity and gratitude. Before expressing thanks for the fan art that was spliced into the backscreen projection, Madonna asked: “Do we ever really know who we are? It takes a lifetime to figure it out.”

Another interjection from the floor got a laugh. ” ‘Bitch, we’re Madonna.’ Yeah, that’s a start.”

The start, and the end. The song title and the show shared a sense of self-confidence and a sense of play. The first was never in doubt; the second was a minor revelation from an artist whose discipline and perfectionism haven’t compromised a love of serious fun.

Madonna performs again at the Bell Centre Thursday, Sept. 10 at 8 p.m., with Diplo. Tickets cost $52.50 to $385, available via Evenko (514-790-2525; evenko.ca).

"Material Girl" followed by "La Vie En Rose"

"Body Shop"

Madonna's done it again.....this show looks sensational!!

I'll be seeing it for myself next month.....I'm beyond excited!!!!

WOW at that setlist!

I guess its the closest fans will ever get to a greatest hits tour!

She looks like shes having allot of fun for a change, and does not have that "im concentrating so hard" look she sports so often on stage.

Good for her! Cant wait to see her live again, have not seen her live since the DWT in 2001!

What I love about being a Madonna fan, is you always get something new. She doesn't repeat herself or stick to a formula. Can't wait to see the show in Manchester in December.

SoulAlive said:

Madonna's done it again.....this show looks sensational!!

I'll be seeing it for myself next month.....I'm beyond excited!!!!

rlittler81 said:

What I love about being a Madonna fan, is you always get something new. She doesn't repeat herself or stick to a formula.

New North American Dates-----

these are the rumored shows that will be added

Many fans are saying that "Like A Virgin" is one of the best performances....Madonna onstage alone,no dancers or props....just dancing and singing by herself.....celebrating her legacy!