Madonna created another history in 2019. One month residency to support her latest album, Madame X, at Brooklyn Academy of Music Howard Gilman Opera House. This residency highlighted two big milestones. First was none of the pop musicians had occupied the historic opera house in downtown Brooklyn for that long period of time. Second, when was the last time Madonna had her concert at a theater? She’d already had some shows at arenas including Madison Square Garden in New York City for her first tour, The Virgin Tour, in 1985…34 years ago!! Howard Gilman Opera House was NOT a big theater. Actually a small theater with a capacity of only 2,098 people, 10-20 times smaller than the big venue she could easily fill out for one show. The world’s biggest star would be right in front…I could collapse just by thinking about the fantasy coming true soon. And my seat was literary in the middle of the theater I couldn’t expect any better. A good fortune to witness history.
Madonna also made another gigantic technological history with Madame X Tour: strongly prohibiting smartphones and cameras. No photos and videos allowed during the concert, two big things the majority of concertgoers looked forward to doing for keeping their memory alive. There was silent yet the charismatic message from Madonna behind the rule: use your brain. To enforce the restriction after metal detectors, Madonna used modern items: Yondr cases. A liberal artist became conservative about technology usage at her shows, but that made sense. One of the major reasons was obviously for boosting Madonna’s commercial sales after the tour, such as concert albums and videos. Another was simply for fans to purely and simply concentrate on her show like old-style without any device and advance information via YouTube. The memory was the best picture. Musicians are on the stage to play the music, not to be taped (Bob Duran recently left the stage early because of this).
Madame X Tour was against two of the current concert trends. Anti-arena and anti-technological devices. Only Madonna could do because she could afford the huge budget of both venue rental and Yonder cases associated with its staff in each city for a long period of time (besides, of course, the astronomical figures of the concert expense such as stage set, costumes, staffs, transportation, etc). And this theater tour was Madonna’s fortunate challenge, rather than repeating the same things, after doing big arena concerts the world’s record amount of time during her 37 years career as a queen. She didn’t have to worry about the possible failure anymore. The theater tour made enable her to focus on story-oriented music and its entertainment. And that was a new progressive of music that many artists hadn’t done.
Madonna’s concert was phenomenal entertainment that didn’t give a fuck about time and her own many, many historical hit songs. Seriously, it is a sincere compliment.
Time. Yes. While the scheduled start time was 8:30 p.m., Madonna started her show at 11:00 p.m. and finished at 1:30 a.m.!! The time was literary X-rated even for adults. The majority of folks had to go to work the next morning.
And hit songs. If fans sought a concert fulfilled with Madonna’s hit songs, that would be a disappointment. The concert didn’t play the majority of Madonna’s mega-hits that changed the world. No “Like a Virgin”. No “Material Girl”. No “Open Your Heart”. No “Music”, No “Ray of Light”.
That was a concept concert to express the life and world of Madame X, a traveling secret agent who fought for revolutions and freedom.
Unrelated songs were bravely withdrawn from the setlist while Madonna played almost all songs from Madame X. Only some hit songs matched with the concert theme were played such as “Like a Prayer”, “La Isla Bonita”, “Vogue”, “American Life”, and “Frozen”, as well as a little portion of “Papa Don’t Preach” and “Express Yourself”. Prior to the main show, a mariachi band consisted by four of Madonna’s performers played some instrumental (no vocal) of “Secret”, “Don’t Tell Me”, “Like a Virgin”, and “Who’s That Girl” to reduce the disappointments from her old fans, but even that performance, the music style was matched with the theme of Madame X: old Spanish and Portugal, two ancient titans ruled the world.
The concert was not just a regular music concert. Because more musical play like Broadway shows, that was not the place to sing along and dance like regular Madonna’s concerts. Rather a show to concentrate and being amazed. The stage, similar to the musical “Chicago”, is beyond the measurement of scale. Borderless: Spain, Portugal, China, Latin America including Medellin, Africa including Cape Verde, and the U.S.A. Timeless: Spanish and Portuguese colonization, wild Western, Silk Road, and current. It sounds chaotic and pointless, but mysteriously, the story point was focused on one; Madame X, a femme fatal. And of course, Madonna herself as an alter ego. Sometimes in the name of the new democracy, sometimes in the name of equality, sometimes in the name of constitution right, sometimes in the name of liberation. Her fights also extended to the current issues in the U.S., such as polluted water in Flint, MI (Madonna’s home state), the presidency, LGBTQ and female equality, and abortion. Madame X, as a secret agent, changed her figures to win depending on the situation, sometimes a whore, sometimes a pirate, sometimes a nun, sometimes a cabaret singer, sometimes a saint…all for victory. And loca Madame X was sometimes a stage diver singing in the orchestra section and filthy mouth auctioneer to collect Benjamins from rich front row fans for just a bottle of lukewarm beer as a part of communications with the audience (The audience in the orchestra should receive more than their ticket price by the incredible memory with Madonna at the concert). Applaud for the elaborated choreography putting the huge scale of the scenario into 2.5 hours concert without letting the storyline scattered. That was craftsmanship.
The stage was a complete form of pop art. Yes, art. The combined art of music, culture, history, ideology, beliefs, fights, revolution, messages, and fashion. Effective lighting and stage set on the small opera house contributed putting the audience into a dream with Madonna. The audience was drowned into the kaleidoscope infinitesimally changing the scenes and awed by the big scale of fantasy they were watching in reality. It was like a 3D effect without glasses.
So was that the concert the audience wouldn’t be able to enjoy without listening to Madame X in advance? Absolutely not.
I didn’t listen to Madame X much before. Even now. Actually, Madame X was a disappointment for me, a cheap and cheesy album like Erotica album. Less quality than MDNA and Hard Candy. Definitely not comparable with Madonna’s best albums such as True Blue, Like a Prayer, and Ray of Light. So that concert was a good example that a wonderful performance could upscale a “poor album” into the dynamic theater show that could keep catching the audience’s heart and eyes.
The overall performance was undoubtedly outstanding. All performers, including Madonna and her own kids, were perfectly coordinated. I am sure pre-recording was used for instrumental band and some of Madonna’s vocal. Especially the instrumentals because the band was nowhere visible on the stage, and I didn’t find the underneath orchestra pit. The concert brochure credited band members but did they play live? I honestly doubted. it. Regarding Madonna’s vocal, I think she mostly sang without lip-synching, and her voice was more beautiful than her recordings. The only concern was her voice was clearly different and rougher when she sang “Like a Prayer” comparing with other songs. “Like a Prayer” is not a difficult song to sing. It was also better if Maluma could join the tour but was it a difficult request even for Madonna? He joined the chorus of “Medellin” over the giant screen.
Before anything, it was a true entertainment. The show that made me thankful I loved music beyond genre.
The concert proved that Madonna was still a humble music fan before a superstar. My thought became more confident when Madonna explained the reason she introduced the world Batuque, folk music of Cape Verde, a small island country off the Atlantic coast of Africa, with “Batuka” included on Madame X. Madonna said she met Batuque in Lisbon, Portugal, where had many immigrants from Cape Verde, a former Portugal’s colony, after moving there. She purely attracted to the beauty of Batuque and gave spotlights to both unknown music and a small country. Madonna had a female Batuque band to just play “Batuka” and another song. Not one or two Batuque players to show a bit of her curiosity but the full band consisting of more than 10 members. Madonna’s passion to introduce any type of music what she believed they were good. Madonna’s flexibility to absorb any type of good music into her as a music fan even she was an established artist.
And probably that was one of the reasons Madonna really conquered the world as she declared upon her debut. Keeping her strong faith in her beliefs whatever people said but also open-minded to any good music and talented musicians. No doubt Madonna was one of the most controversial, strongly love/hate divided artists of the world. While she gained a lot of respect and love from the world, she also received a lot of bashing as well. Such as not a good singer, not good songs, only sexism, etc. But have anybody, especially haters, stopped and thought why Madonna could keep running the front line of the music business while challenging new things and spreading the sensations for 35 long years without a slump? Madonna wouldn’t be able to keep her success until today with only sex appeal. She is 61 years old now. And there are more sexually explicit and exposed musicians than young Madonna today. It was the fact that she was fortunate to be surrounded by the skilled staff to support her, but most importantly, her music was good. Her old catalogs are still vivid and fresh. And Madonna’s neverending talent and faith made enable her to keep creating fantastic music that clearly showed her strong identity.
Even that theater concert too, would probably cause a lot of love and hate. Hate. Not enough hit songs, too different from her previous arena shows, late start, and too much political, liberal and left-wing attitude. Some people might call the concert too much drama. But Madonna wasn’t bothered and kept going on her faith. She wasn’t satisfied with staying in the same level of success and kept challenging new things to entertain her fans. She could easily make another billion by doing an arena tour again with singing the same hit songs. But it would be just another repeating history. Madame X Tour proved Madonna’s superlative and fearless musicianship.
OVERALL POINTS: 93/100
- Performance: ★★★★★
- Excitement/Fire: ★★★★★
- Vocal: ★★★★+1/2
- Instrumental: ★★★★
- Sounds: ★★★★★
- Song orders: ★★★★★
- Stage setting+lighting: ★★★★★
- Better than recordings: ★★★★+1/2
- Chemistry with the audience: ★★★★
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