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PrintableSoulAlive said: Fans are saying that her sense of humor is outrageous on this tour She's very chatty and flirtatious with the audience. So many people don't get her sense of humor but she really strikes a chord with me. She genuinely seems very grateful to her fans and all the support she's had for the past 3 decades. Honestly she killed it with this tour. Not a dull performance besides the first few interludes. She's constant motion. Anyone saying she's slowing down clearly has not been in the audience of this show. She does it all so effortlessly. Her singing was top notch too. Yes haters Madonna CAN sing and WELL. Suck it. Nelly Furtado was her unapologetic bitch tonight. I barely recognized her but Madonna seemed thrilled to see her. I did love Sticky and Sweet and MDNA was a theatrical masterpiece however this current tour is a concert for the masses. Everyone left in great spirits. Can't wait to see what she will do next. | |
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She's clearly having alot of fun this time | |
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She looks beautiful, and her latest album is a great album does not suck | |
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She looks like a queen for sure, she'll always be a queen to me, but I just wasn't feeling the new album except for ghost town which I really love, and the first single sort of. I'm sure the next one will be good [Edited 10/6/15 12:45pm] | |
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I think this pic is from the performance of the song "Rebel Heart",which is a fan favorite
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Madonna Announces Second Bangkok Show as Part of World Tour
RIP 1958-2016 Prince  RIP 1947-2016 David Bowie
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CANNOT wait to see her when she gets to Australia! RIP 1958-2016 Prince RIP 1947-2016 David Bowie
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There are rumors that she's gonna come back to New York and do a couple more shows.Fans are still debating about which city should be used for the DVD/blu ray release | |
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I'm thinking Italy would be perfect,even though the 1987 'Who's That Girl' tour DVD was filmed there.
I'm so thrilled that the Australian fans are finally being rewarded.She has neglected that area for far too long! Hope you have a great time | |
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one night in bangkok and the world's her oyster | |
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Madonna Talks Rebel Heart Tour, Why She Wants to Have Tea With the Pope
(Rolling Stone,October 7,2015)
It's three days before the Pope leads hundreds of thousands of people in a mass at Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and four miles away at the Wells Fargo Center, one of America's most famous ex-Catholics is already getting into the spirit of the occasion. Madonna uses a giant cross as a stripping pole and writhes around on a re-creation of the Last Supper table as she moans, "Yeezus loves my pussy best." "Popey-wopey is on his way over," she says later in the show. "I think he's stalking me."
The gleefully blasphemous moment is one of 21 elaborately choreographed numbers on Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour, which has been packing North American arenas since it kicked off September 9th. It's her most extravagant stage show ever — a two-hour set that features samurai warriors, matadors, gypsies, rockabilly kids dancing around a body shop and a dangerous-looking dance routine on top of giant swaying poles, not to mention a grand finale set in a gleaming 1920s-style Paris cafe.
"The logistical avalanche of putting it together was unlike anything I've ever done," says Arianne Phillips, the head costume designer, who notes the tour uses 500 pairs of shoes and 450 costumes. "Every day of rehearsals felt like an impossibility." To prepare for the show, the 20 backup dancers spent three months putting in 14-hour days, six days a week. The 57-year-old Madonna was right beside them. "No matter what we asked her to do, like riding a nun like a surfboard, she'd try without flinching," says Megan Lawson, the tour's head choreographer.
The day after the Philadelphia show, Madonna phoned up Rolling Stone to talk about the tour.
At what point in the creation of Rebel Heart did you start brainstorming ideas for this tour?
Finishing my record was filled with panic and pressure because of all the leaks, so I wasn't really thinking about my live show until I released the record and started making videos and doing my promo show. So honestly, I didn't really try to sit down and get my head around it until last March. That's unusual for me because I usually start thinking way, way, way in advance.
When you did start plotting out the tour, what were your goals?
My goals are always the same. I want to take people on a journey. I like to explore themes. I believe that if you're going to a big venue like a sports arena or a stadium you need to present a kind of entertainment that interfaces with all of the senses.
I don't think it's enough to just stand onstage and sing. I think that there are moments for that, but I'm a very visual person. I was trained as a dancer, so those kinds of things are really important to me, in my shows, anyway.
I feel like when the audience walks into a show, they walk into a magical world, and they're transported for two hours to another time and place, and they plug into the matrix of my creative brain, which, generally, explores and expresses all of the things that I'm interested in, and/or inspired by. So that's always my goal. And of course, it changes and shifts from record to record, from tour cycle to tour cycle. The moods I'm in, the themes I want to express, all of that.
What are the primary themes of this tour?
The first message is empowerment, and we're using the song "Iconic" as the opening. It talks about being a warrior and fighting for what you believe in, and recognizing that we all have the ability to be iconic in our own ways — to be warriors, to shine. Also, I'm honored that I had Mike Tyson is in my song and video, because I really look up to him and admire him as a person who has gone through the roller coaster of life, who has walked through the fire, gone through the darkness. And for me, he's metamorphosed into a human being who is someone to look up to and be inspired by.
So, that would be the first theme. And "Devil Pray" is a song about being sucked into the illusion that alcohol and weed can give you insight into sort of the upper world, so to speak, or can make you closer to God. And in fact, they do. But I think in the end it's an illusion.
As I said, I don't just jump from subject to subject, so we have to go on a journey. We have to start out as warriors, and then we explore themes of sex and religion, because they are things in our society that are always separated. And, to me, sex is a sacred gift that was given to us. It's meant to be played with. I like to, obviously, provoke people with concepts of sex and religion's point of view about it. That's because I believe that people need to be challenged even if they disagree with me, which is fine. But I'm not gonna take you song-by-song. We'll be talking for two hours.
How about you just tell me your process for picking which older songs to put into the set list. That couldn't be easy.
That is really, really hard. Basically, I go through the catalog, which is a pretty long list of songs. And once I got an idea for the themes I want to explore, I break the show down into four sections, and then I try and find ways to interweave my old songs with the new, and generally that has to do with themes. So we try a lot of stuff out, and it doesn't work.
Then we try things that I never would have thought of and it does work. It's a very, very long process. That's, for me, the biggest challenge, to marry the old with the new. Because obviously those songs I wrote a long time ago, and I have to reinvent them to a certain extent so that they speak to me now versus the woman that I was 30 years ago.
I've always admired that about your concerts. It would be so easy to simply do your 15 biggest hits and stick to the original arrangements, but you've never once taken that easy route.
No. And I just couldn't do it, anyway. I just couldn't do it.
Can you explain why?
Because I've changed, and sonics have changed. The sound of a synth or an 808 [drum machine] ... everything has just changed so much. If you put the exact song next to something new, it just sounds so small and mono. You know what I mean? They just can't live together.
"True Blue" was a really great moment, stripping it down like that.
Yeah. I love performing that song and "La Vie En Rose." They're so much fun because there's something naive and sweet about singing a song on a ukulele.
Are you new to that instrument?
Oh, God, yes [laughs]. I suck at it, basically. The chord progressions are completely different than they are on a guitar, so it's not something I can play without thinking. But I have to constantly challenge myself. It's a challenge for my every night, because a G on a ukulele doesn't look like a G on a guitar. It's a little tricky. Gotta pay attention.
Tell me how you get in shape for a tour. You're doing that show over 80 times in the coming months. That's a lot to prepare for solely on a physical basis.
Yeah. This is true, although I have to say I haven't had as much time to train and prepare myself physically for this show as I have in the past with other shows. That's just because I have four kids, and they take up a lot of time. So I have to choose between working out and spending time with them, and then also putting my show together. I have to find the balance of training enough so that I'm not winded and out of breath when I'm onstage, but also not wearing myself out, and also seeing my kids. The list goes on and on.
Do you get something creatively out of doing a live show that you don't get out of making movies or recording an album?
Well, there's nothing like a live show, obviously. Living on the edge, being out, never knowing what's going to happen, it's a dangerous place to be. You make mistakes, you've got to with those mistakes. You know, each audience is different. I love when the audience is alive and plays with me, like it was in Brooklyn. People get my sense of humor and I can riff off of them, both musically and just conversationally.
When you do the same show every night, you have to build up your energy and get ready to be this life force and take the stadium or sports arena by storm. It's a lot of work. And then coming down afterward is a lot of work, so there's nothing like it.
For me, when you're onstage, there's no cheating. There's just no cheating. When you're in the studio you can do another take, you can fix things, you can re-tune your vocals. When you're making a film you can go into the edit suite, you can fix things in post-production. I mean, it's not live. A concert is just a whole different world.
Do you see yourself still doing tours in 10 or 15 years?
I don't even think that far in advance, but if I did travel around and perform and connect to audiences, I'm sure it would look and feel different than, say, the extravagant sort of musicals that I put on right now.
Do you think you could enjoy a more stripped-down show that's just you and a small band, minus all the production?
I quite like the idea of just sitting on a stool with a bottle of wine, a guitar and working my stand-up comedy into the whole scenario. I like talking to audiences, telling stories. I think I could make an interesting show, to tell you the truth. I quite like the idea of doing something simple.
This is your sixth tour of the 2000s. Part of the challenge must be finding ways to top yourself since you've done so many different things.
I don't think of it as topping myself. It's like making a film, and then another film. You don't have to top yourself. It's just a different story I have to tell. I work with a lot of filmmakers and costume designers and choreographers and dancers, so it's always going to be different.
This crew of dancers was pretty amazing. It seemed like they were capable of anything.
Yeah, they're wonderful, super talented and unique. I always tell my dancers that they're actors, they're not dancers, and so much is going to be expected of them. I always say the word "intention." I don't just like waving my arm around for the sake of waving an arm around. Why are you doing this? What are you trying to say? So I think that's what makes my shows different.
It's a funny coincidence that the Pope and you are hitting cities just days apart this week.
[Laughs] It's hilarious, yes. I'm hoping that we run into each other.
You talked about him a lot at the show. Are you a fan?
I have a long relationship with the Pope, with the Vatican, with the Catholic Church, with my excommunication. Anyway, you know, I was raised a Catholic, and no matter what spiritual path I might go down, I always feel some kind of inexplicable connection with Catholicism. It kind of shows up in all of my work, as you may have noticed.
Are you happy with the direction this Pope is taking the church?
I'll state the obvious and say that he seems like he's a much more open-minded individual, who seems to be moving outside of the dogma of the Catholic Church that has been set in stone since the days of Constantine. So I think it's good.
It's good to look out into the big, wide world and see that we have changed, and at the end of the day the message of Jesus is to love your neighbor as yourself, and so that means not judging. And to do that, you have to be more open-minded and accepting of people who have lifestyles that you perceive as unconventional. So I think it's good, yeah. And I also believe that he's the kind of Pope you could sit down and have a cup of tea with, and/or that you could make a joke about something and he would laugh about it.
It's funny to think back to the Blond Ambition Tour when the Pope tried to stop your show in Rome from even happening.
Yes, he did do that. But times have changed so much then, in so many ways, and not just with the Pope.
Do you think he'd enjoy the show?
I do, actually, because at the end of the day, the message of my show is about love, and that's his message.
[Edited 10/7/15 14:01pm] | |
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popey wopey madonna? really? | |
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I'm really looking forward to seeing Madonna later this month. The show looks really fun and upbeat. "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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Madonna and the Pope will "bump into each other" for publicity soon, I just know it | |
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Madonna is so funny | |
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she really believes that the Pope would enjoy the "Holy Water" performance?! LOL
and delusional, must be something in that holy water... | |
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Great new pics from the Toronto show
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the stunning "Messiah" interlude | |
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She said she woke up with a fever this morning, and then proceeded to do an a cappella rendition of Fever! Also, she dedicated to La Vie En Rose to her "special friend," Prince! She mentioned that she had been to town a few times to work with him on various projects and write some songs. It was such a trip to be up so close! She looks fantastic! "That's when stars collide. When there's space for what u want, and ur heart is open wide." | |
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Cool! She mentions Prince around the 5 minute mark!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7692SPi2Iec
Apparently she attended a private show at Paisley Park with Prince after the show! 2 cool!!! [Edited 10/9/15 1:52am] 3121... Don't U Wanna Come? |
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Report from The Current writer: http://blog.thecurrent.or...-park-gig/ "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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interesting | |
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Prince serenades Madonna at late-night Paisley Park gigby ·
Thirty-three civilians showed up to Paisley Park late last night. I know there were 33 of us because I ended up having plenty of time to count each and every one of us from left to right, then again from right to left and all the way up to the stage, which was littered with dozens of guitar pedals, two keyboard rigs, a drum set, and Prince’s signature glyph microphone.
I had shown up to Paisley Park around 11:30 p.m., having been summoned there only hours earlier with the promise that something “extra-special” might go down. As the 33 of us who were gathered there did our best to stay upright, sway to DJ KISS’s mix of Prince and ’80s pop tunes, and keep our wits about us, and as the clock crept past 1:30 a.m., I was just about to start counting the crowd again and contemplating the strength of that word mightwhen a flurry of security guards with walkie-talkies started buzzing around and a door next to the stage swung open. A steady stream of people started filing into the venue, and it took me a couple of blinks to realize that the first woman and the head of the pack was Madonna. She is a petite little powerhouse of a figure, and was dressed in a sharp navy trench coat-style cape with her hair neatly woven into a braid that fell down her right shoulder, like a pop star’s rendition of Little Red Riding Hood. Her bright lipstick and dark eyeliner appeared flawless, and as she scanned the strange scene—33 civilians dancing haphazardly, undoubtedly looking tired from all the waiting and the late hour, and her own hits blasting over the sound system—she looked so calm and coiffed that you would have never guessed that she had just finished performing a two-hour show in front of a sold-out crowd at the Xcel Energy Center. (Read Jay Gabler’s review of that show, which included a special dedication to Prince.) It turns out that injecting Madonna’s entire professional dance troupe into a party is a surefire way to liven it up, and as more and more of the pop icon’s touring crew filtered in, a fully choreographed dance party soon broke out in the middle of the room. It was incredibly surreal standing on the sidelines attempting to groove to the music while what looked like a professional music video shoot sprawled out before us, but all of a sudden the energy in the place had been cranked to 11 and it was all we could do to try to soak up the crew’s ecstatic vibe. Madonna was ushered into a roped-off section of the room and then disappeared, undoubtedly to have a few private moments with Prince while her team blew off a little steam on the dance floor. By 2:15 a.m. she had returned to the scene and was followed in short order by Prince, who stood near the back of the dance floor draped in a floor-length hooded sweater and smirked at the energetic dancers who were frolicking around the room. As soon as Prince appeared the small crowd started pressing toward the stage, and even after Madonna’s tour buses had all been unloaded into Paisley Park there were still only roughly 60 people there to take in the impending show. Most of the people in attendance were standing within a couple yards of the band, and Prince seemed a little uncomfortable playing to such an intimate audience. “You better keep dancing,” he instructed us, sitting at an organ and leading a new configuration of his band through a swampy, funky new song. 3RDEYEGIRL guitarist Donna Grantis was joined by drummer Kirk Johnson and bassist Dwayne MonoNeon Thomas, Jr., who had more jazz and funk sensibilities than Grantis’s more hard-driving 3RDEYEGIRL bandmates Ida Nielsen and Hannah Ford Welton (who was dancing in the audience with her husband, Josh). The change in musicianship allowed Prince to deconstruct his songs into more complex, moody arrangements, tracing back to his roots in late ’70s jazz and funk. As if to show off the band’s newly discovered chemistry, Prince followed up a rip-roaring rendition of “Guitar” with a lengthy, solo-filled jam to the Bill Withers song “Use Me.” After giving Grantis and his new bassist a turn at soloing, Prince slowed the song down and morphed it into a spacey, dreamy interlude, then tore through an impressive and complex piano solo that sounded like it was inspired in equal measure by Thelonious Monk and Jimi Hendrix. When Prince launched into the next song, “Ain’t About to Stop,” off his latest album HITNRUN Phase One, I decided to try to discretely scan the room to see where Madonna was taking in the show. I had expected her to hang back a bit, or maybe be sitting in her roped-off area, but once I stepped a little closer to the stage I realized that she was not only in the front row, but had perched on the edge of the stage at Prince’s feet, looking up at him adoringly as he sang. There is a face that people make when they are watching Prince play guitar; it’s a gleeful expression that combines the joy of going down a roller coaster with the realization that you are witnessing a moment that might never be recreated by another being that lives on this beautiful Earth. It turns out Madonna also makes that face when she is watching Prince play. As the band stretched out into another jam and Prince ripped into a soul-levitating guitar solo, her mouth relaxed into an awestruck gape, revealing a shiny gold grill underneath her perfect red lipstick. Prince, too, seemed a little awestruck by Madge, appearing nervous as he flitted around the stage to different instruments and taking great care to get the lighting, sound, and chord changes just right. It completely shifted the energy at the Park, which usually pulls like a magnet toward Prince’s spot in the room, and it was a rare chance to see two megastars share an intimate moment and a series of knowing smiles. After the sixth song of the set, Prince leaned down and whispered something back and forth with Madonna, and then hopped back up to his keyboards and simply said, “Cool.” With that, Madonna made her way out of the building and Prince was left alone with his band and small group of adoring fans, and he delivered simmering renditions of “1000 X’s and O’s” and “X’s Face” before hopping off stage and handing things back to the DJ. Sensing that we were well past 3 a.m. at that point, I started to make my way toward the door, but my friend and #1 Prince fan Heidi Vader later informed me that Prince returned to play two more short sets and even invited some of his fans up on stage to sing and dance along. Or did any of that really happen? On nights like these, it’s hard to tell. | |
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This show is so amazing. I've been to all of Madonna's shows since the Virgin Tour and this is definitely the most satisfying. I still can't believe, after all these years, there are people who say she doesn't have any talent. This show proves she's a grade A talent (maybe not on the level of Prince) that should be reckoned with.
My favorite performance in the show (at least in Chicago) was "Ghosttown." She just really had the audience in her hands. I also liked "Like a Virgin" -- I think that performance was supposed to be a parody of her younger self. It reminded me of a performance she did on Solid Gold with pink hair.
I am also going to see the show in Los Angeles and San Diego. | |
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That seems to be the general consenus among fans: that this is Madonna's best,most satisfying tour.And the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive.I'm seeing the show in San Jose on October 19th and I can't wait!
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My only criticsm is that the show really doesn't catch on fire until the second act. I mean the first act isn't bad, it's just that it seems like Madonna was trying to get all the rebel and "blasphemy" out of her system before she could relax. As a critic, it's a four star show. As a fan, it's a five star show. | |
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"bless yourself and genuflect" | |
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