I LOVE Madonna (part 5)

Say what you will about her live, but the woman knows how to put on a show. She may not have the best live vocal, but she makes up for it in set pieces and pure energy. View the clips quickly before You Tube goes caput! Thank you to madonnalicious for the pictures. They have an amazing gallery!!

16 Music - Live 8 I mean, not her best performance vocally, but the day, the venue, the cause and the masses of people under her spell chanting “Music, makes the people come together!” for about 5 minutes. The power she displayed over the audience of thousands....well....it was magical.


15 Drowned World/Substitute for Love - Confessions Tour It was a shame that on the concert DVD they chose not to show the performance from her birthday night (I was there and we had just sung happy birthday to her! Heeee!). Vocally she was perfect and sent chills down me especially as the entire arena sung along as she sat there, on those steps, singing us a song.


14 Deeper and Deeper/Why's it so Hard - The Girlie Show That afro wig shook as she shimmered in her disco romp. The clothes came off in an orgy of dancers and feathered boas as guy made out with guys, girls made out with girls and Madonna made out with all. Then the orgy ends and she starts into her gay rights anthem “Why’s it so hard to love one another”




13 Dress You Up - Virgin Tour Just pure energy and fun. Back when she was starting out, she was just performing for the joy of being on stage in front of her fans. Before she became a serious artist she was a girl excited to be on stage. It was tough to choose between this or her performance of Gambler on the same tour, but I went with this in the end for the sheer fun of it all. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that this is the same person she is today, it makes her achievement all the more inspiring.



12 Everybody/Everybody is a Star - The Girlie Show I loved this performance. This was her first ever hit, and it was so good to see her revisit it. The whole performance seemed so unrehearsed and full of spirit. Wish she would sing this again in concert, and reinvent it as she does that so well. This actually would have been a good ender for the Confessions Tour since that was based on people having a good time and dancing. Oh well, there is always next time.



11 Express Yourself - Blonde Ambition (note: not with the pony tail). This was iconic. This ushered in the new Madonna, and after this she was huge!!! Those turning gears, that smoke, those sweaty, sexy dancers, and that corset!! She was on top of the world and we all were in love. I remember sitting there watching this performance unfold when I was 15. I had loved her before, but now I was in awe. She made a gay man want to sleep with her. Great achievement…must have been the suit.


10 Like a Virgin - Blonde Ambition And it got sexier. I still remember sitting there listening to the first lines of this. I had no idea what she was singing until the chorus. This is probably one of the first instances of her completely reinventing a song (and bettering it imho), and with choreography that made her arms look like rubber she completely realised the songs full potential. The sex was right there, unabashed, and we all sat there mouths on the floor as she writhed on that bed and polished herself off in front of thousands of people.


9 Future Lovers/I Feel Love - Confessions Tour I mean come on. Of course this would be here, she hatches out of a giant disco ball for Gods sake. Standing there screaming as she emerged was a brilliant experience, she was right here in all her equestrian dominatrix glory, and then she goes and plays tribute to ‘ I Feel Love ’, Donna Summer’s disco anthem that inspired the beat for the song, and the crowd went into a dizzy frenzy. And don’t get me started on the dancers…..I have not wanted to ride a horse so badly in my life!

8 Music Inferno - Confessions Tour I have always loved the way that she not only pays tribute to other artist and songs, but also never forgets the songs that made her a success, even if it is a snippet. You hear a radio station tuning with bits of her hits coming through the static (Borderline, Erotica, Holiday) then it settles on ‘Disco Inferno’ . We hear the chorus of ‘Where’s a Party’ before the guitar riff of Music. Roller skaters fly out from all directions doing death defying stunts…..and then she appears in all her ‘ Saturday Night Live’ inspired glory. Truly got the blood pumping, and the feet moving. Her best rendition of this song, and another complete reinvention of it.

7 Like a Virgin - MTV Music Awards I mean this had to be here. After the success of her first album, good ole Madge shocked audiences, when she appeared at the MTV awards singing about being a virgin ‘touched’ for the very first time, in a wedding dress no less. If that wasn’t enough for 1986 America, she then starts writhing around on stage as if post orgasmic. Collective jaws dropped if not at the writhing at the fact she was getting her nice dress all dirty. And a star was born.

6 Holiday - Re-Invention Tour I watched a taped DVD copy of this and the edited version in her documentary ‘I’m Going to Tell You a Secret’. Turning her pop celebration into an instant club classic. The kilts were whipped up into a frenzy and the sweat poured off her and the dancers and she turned up the voltage for the final song of the night with the flashing flags of the world illuminating the screen behind her. Watching the version on the DVD made me want to go clubbing so badly. The lighting, the confetti and Madonna belting out how we all need to get together, in every nation. Then it ends. Sob.

5 Mother and Father - Re-Invention Tour Many will ask why this is here. Simply because for me, everything came together so well. Her Joni Mitchell inspired costume, the fact she sat there strumming on her guitar all enhanced the performance. What made it phenomenal for me was her reinvention of the song and finally her voice. She sang it with power and passion, taking what was a good song on her ‘American Life’ album and making it a great one. Then at the end she gives her best vocal performance singing “Oh Mother, Oh Father, I’ve got to give it uppppp!!!!” before standing up and strumming with conviction. A lot of people have laughed off her guitar playing as very amateur….at least she is trying new things, I say bravo!

4 Let it Will Be - Confessions Tour She rocked her shit with this one! Off comes her jacked and on turns the energy as she struts, dances, trips and basically channels her inner rock chick like a woman possessed. The energy she gives off was intoxicating, and I for one was completely captivated. Then at the end of the catwalk she falls to her knees and wails “JUST WATCH ME BURN!!!!” Wow. And this is all before she takes the camera (that was filming the tour on the night I was there) in her hands and shakes the hell out of it. I still do not know how she found the energy after this tot sit down and sing ‘Drowned World’….guess that is why she took a little breather.

3 Holiday - Blonde Ambition The spinning Madonna in the opening is what gets me the most. The expression on her face was pure joy (maybe it was because she knew the night was almost over), and it was contagious. That dah da da dah da da dah da da dah beginning, then the lights come on full and it is celebration time. I guess I loved this so much due to the costume. The bell bottom sleeves and trousers covered in white and black polka dots shaking and shimmying across the stage with the dancers were truly inspired, thanks Jean Paul Gaultier!! (My good buddy Robyn made a brilliant replica for our fancy dress party….the blonde hair, however, did not suit her). When I watch it today, I worry that my face will explode from smiling.

2 Express Yourself - MTV Music Awards Madonna always uses either the Grammy’s or the MTV awards to do a public rehearsal of her tours. In 1989, as she was preparing for the Blonde Ambition Tour she opened the MTV Awards, in which she was up for loads, with the rough version of Express Yourself. Niki and Donna backed her up and the crowd went completely crazy for it. She hadn’t even done her roots, and her hair was a messy pile of curls, and she has rarely looked sexier. She just seemed so relaxed, and the interplay with the girls was fun to watch. This is my friend (and fellow Madonna fan) Robyn’s favourite EVER!!! Sadly this is not available to watch online, and probably most of the others will be deleted soon. Such a shame!

1 Keep it Together - Blonde Ambition It seemed like ages after she finished ‘Holiday’, people were starting to leave the arena, then….“One child, grows up to be, somebody who just loves to learn….” And so begins Madonna on stage alone singing Sly and the Family Stones “ Family Affair ” as the second encore and there was a mad rush of people stampeding back into Wembley stadium. She kicks into “Keep it Together” and dancers in A Clockwork Orange inspired outfits rush to the stage with chairs for one of her most elaborate and beautifully choreographed numbers ever. Treating her dancers (Slam, Luis, Jose, Carlton, Oliver, Gabriel and Kevin) and her singers (Nikki and Donna) like family, Madonna actually seems like she has, on stage, a family unit. Whether that be real or rehearsed I do not care as it made me want to run away and join them. Then, as she sang “Keep people together. Keep people together forever and ever”, she said goodbye to them all until once again it was her and us, and then she was gone too soon. Every time I see it on my DVD of Truth or Dare I relive that experience and a little tear forms.