(All images by and © Matthew Rettenmund)
Monday's third and final Celebration Tour appearance by Madonna at Madison Square Garden in NYC was a mood!
I wasn't going to go, then got the urge ... only to find it was almost totally sold out. Like, for real. I let a floor seat slip away due to the expense, saw some nice lower bowl but always like to be close and finally wound up lucking into buying my poor friend's ticket when he got sick.
Stuart Price is among the show's openers in North America, and unlike the other DJs, he played Madonna jams!
It was fun hitting up the merch stand (I replaced my Who's That Girl? satin jacket with a better size for me, so if anyone wants that in size L, tell me and I'll sell it off-eBay) and chatting with fellow longtime fans, strategizing, reminiscing and anticipating.
Demi & Madonna were once attached to star in a female buddy cop movie, Leda & Swan. Now, Demi is on Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. Coincidence? Yes.
Inside, Uma Thurman was in the Sound Factory pit, and the celebrity section at the end of the main catwalk boasted Demi Moore, Kelly Ripa & Mark Consuelos, Andy Cohen, Anderson Cooper, Jessica Seinfeld, Madonna's first stylist Maripol with Joey Arias, Luigi & Iango and her famed backup singers Donna De Lory and Niki Haris.
There had been some question as to whether Donna and Niki might join Madonna onstage, but while it didn't happen, they were given some love by the fans, were front-row and could be seen singing along. (That some have turned this into a major diss and reason to feed negative stories to The New York Post is ... unhinged. Can't we have a world were Donna and Niki are great, it would've been sweet to see Madonna bring them onstage or to have said hello from the stage, but where Madonna isn't a bad person for not doing so? The drama.)
My seat was pretty perfect, with a great view of everything. I even had a decent side-view of her later spot at the mic at the end of the main catwalk, instead of getting her back, as I had at every other show.
The show is a miracle, and as Madonna would remind us in one of her speeches, so is the fact that Madonna is with us to perform it. She nearly died last year of a bacterial infection, and she choked back sobs as she called out a special guest — Maria, the nurse who came home with her after she regained consciousness following an induced coma. The Queen of Pop self-IDed as a crybaby, thanking Maria for her angelic good work, referring to her acting like a mother to her. Of course, Madonna's mom died when she was 5, and this speech was paired with a heartfelt performance of her American Life track “Mother & Father,” on which she duets with her 18-year-old son David.
She was on fire the whole show, I thought, and the crowd ate it up, from her ethereal “Nothing Really Matters” to her bonkers “Bitch I'm Madonna” conclusion, and all across her catalogue in-between.
Madonna's Celebration is not just a narcissistic celebration of Madonna's achievements (which double as life markers for many of us ... I remember where I was when “Like a Prayer” hit radio, I know who I was in love with when Ray of Light hit Tower Records), but a clarion call for all of us to celebrate life itself, the ridiculous and the profound.
Back in business
Nothing really matters in the end, so you might as well lead with love. And I loved this show. All six times I saw it.
I've been too busy to go into the tour in-depth and felt like it had been covered by everyone in Europe first, but now that I have so many shows under my belt, some more thoughts about last night and about the show in general:
Michael Jackson's music and Madonna's disembodied voice from “Deeper and Deeper” — “I'm gonna be there!” — herald her arrival, but not before MVP emcee Bob the Drag Queen wades through the sea of humanity in a replica of his boss's 1990 “Vogue” MTV Video Music Awards gown. Hype person Bob's banter and a segment in which he reminds us of Madonna's many triumphs whets our appetite further, and extends the promise that he'll reappear throughout the show.