19 April 4 - 10, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Take a Bow Madonna’s Celebration tour felt like a bittersweet farewell. BY EVA RAGGIO M adonna will never stop rebel- ling. At 65, she’s touring with The Celebration Tour, a ret- rospective of 40 years since the dawning of her reign as the Queen of Pop. But she’s been much more than that. She’s been delightfully controversial, the head bitch to the underdogs, a relentless ally to the LGBTQ community and an artist cru- cified in the name of female liberation. In her first of two consecutive Dallas tour dates Sunday night, fans filled the American Airlines Center, ages Gen X and above — save for the occasional child far too young to be there. After a set by DJ Mary Mac 5 Star, which included many overplayed club songs such as “Sweet Dreams” and a remix of Madon- na’s “Music,” the singer made her first on- stage appearance, alone, dressed in a black robe and a silver, halo-like headpiece, hark- ing to the days she was denounced as a sin- fully bad influence by the Vatican. Madonna seems to have forgotten that her core fans haven’t seen a line of cocaine since the premiere of Scarface, and started her show at 10:30 p.m. A video reel and host/opener Bob the Drag Queen (dressed like Madonna, as Ma- rie Antoinette) introduced the icon. As if anyone needed reminding: born in Michi- gan, Madonna moved to New York City alone, famously arriving at age 17 with $35 to her name. She hustled, persisted and con- quered the music industry, and harder still, defended her title for decades. And, as Bob concluded, “She taught us how to fuck.” Most important, she taught women ev- erywhere to not give a fuck. Absent from the video were some incredible details of her re- markably resilient life: In her first year in New York, she slept on stranger’s couches, irritated local DJs — who ran from her in fear she’d keep pushing her tape on them — until her songs played in clubs, and was raped by a supposed “good Samaritan” who invited her to use his phone. As a ring of lights hovered around her illuminating the stadium, Madonna opened with “Nothing Really Matters” from 1998, which strayed from the chronological theme but made an apt opening statement. The song is about the wisdom of looking back and finding that nothing matters in life but love. She’d soon ditch the robe for an ensemble that could pass for an Olivia Rodrigo tour costume (plaid skirt and leather jacket and boots) — if it hadn’t included a leg brace, which Madonna wore on her left leg. The singer has sported the brace for years, and along with a hospitalization last year for a serious infection, it’s no wonder her choreography is far less athletic than we’re used to. Her voice often drowned in a mix of reverb and backing vocals but al- lowed an occasional glimpse of an errant pitch. Whether this was the result of a tech- nical issue or simply her age, it made the performance all the more authentic, the core of Madonna’s brand, no matter the high spectacle and surgeries. With her dancers dressed as ‘80s punks, she went through early hits including “Into the Groove,” “Open Your Heart” and “Holi- day.” Dressed in vintage concert tees or fully in costume as ‘80s Madonna, the audience ad- hered mostly to the theme of celebration. Even older women wore some tasteful fish- net tights. A shirtless man in a Navy captain hat danced furiously. But with most of the audi- ence members being respectably grown, they sat the second a song slowed down and rarely got back up. The announcement of “Welcome to the New York City Subway” illustrated the theme of the show’s first act: a portrait of the artist as a Midwestern ingenue bursting with ambition. She bossed the crowd around at times, and we liked it. “I hope I don’t have to get into this repeti- tious behavior where I have to say things more than once to get a reaction,” she said. “Be enthusiastic the first time.” Madonna spoke about her move to New York, “I was naive, idealistic. I thought I was gonna rule the world, but you can’t do that as a dancer,” she said, prefacing the first song she wrote on electric guitar, “Burning Up.” As she recalled, she first played the song at a “tiny little nightclub where they threw beer bottles at my head, and told me to show them my tits. And I did.” This is the tough block Jenny really wants us to believe she’s from. The sound of thunder for “The Storm” played into “Live To Tell.” Madonna was ele- vated on a small structure as photo banners of Christopher Flynn, Keith Haring, Alvin Ailey and others surrounded the stage. A sign on the main screen read, “In loving memory of all the bright lights we lost to AIDS.” A sound of tolling bells then came from behind the screen. A circle of crosses rotated with dancers in each compartment, hanging at times as if crucified. Madonna walked around the stage’s ramp with her head cov- ered, along with dancers dressed as priests. The intro to the Sam Smith/Kim Petras hit “Unholy” lead to “Like a Prayer” as the stage’s floor lit up as if on fire. Through the show, a few dancers ap- peared faceless, dressed as different ver- sions of Madonna. As the cone-bra-wearing, high-ponytailed Ma- donna sat in a chair, the real Madonna (wearing a wig reminiscent of her “Marilyn hair” era) began touching “herself,” her early ’90s likeness, someplace that would’ve sent Pope John Paul II to a much earlier meeting with his boss and maker. The dance portion of the show, including “Erotic,” was a sparkling flawless spectacle. Many of the songs, however, were teased in bits, with only parts of ”Justify My Love” and a lone verse from “Fever.” Madonna returned in a lacy blindfold and a red negligee, and was fondled herself by a woman dancer. No one expected less from a career provocateur (except perhaps for the parents who brought the elementary-aged kids), but by today’s standards, her act still seems rather tame. And we can thank Ma- donna herself for that. One example of the singer’s broad influ- ence on performance came perhaps inad- vertently as Madonna slithered on the floor with dancers, this time her butt showing de- liberately. (The singer has said that during her infamous, star-making “Like a Virgin” performance at MTV’s 1st Music Video Awards, she lost a shoe and began crawling to retrieve it, making it seem like part of the act. Her dress lifted up and she accidentally showed her behind during the performance. “You’ll never work again,” she said her then- manager told her backstage.) Despite her most salacious moments on Sunday, the singer was controlled, unemo- tional and admittedly, “in a mood.” Vintage Madonna. The video returned, showing short clips of her documentary Truth or Dare in which she fellated an Evian bottle, and the moment she did a “puke” gesture behind actor Kevin Costner after he called her show “neat.” Madonna’s daughter Mercy James played a grand piano for “Bad Girl” as the singer sat atop it, channeling Michelle Pfei- ffer, and at times Sharon Stone, by uncross- ing her legs. She sat at the piano bench with her daughter as a faint smoke fogged the air, creating a truly cinematic scene. This was followed by a vignette that in- cluded a male dancer kissing Madonna be- tween her thighs and going to second base as she held up scorecards. “I don’t make disposable art,” she’d told the crowd earlier, which held true through- out the night. The biggest production was reserved for “Vogue,” as dancers walked the run- Eva Raggio Madonna used religion as a theme in her Dallas show, even if she didn’t play “Papa Don’t Preach.” ▼ Music >> p20
