Apart from Paul McCartney, there is no living artist who has had as many (number one) hits over a period of at least five decades as Madonna. But there is a notable difference between the two. Madonna has – and this is the case with all of her tours – little interest in performing a greatest hits program. Even though it would be so easy, easier than ever in fact. This time there didn’t even have to be band rehearsals – on this concert tour, Madonna forgoes accompanying musicians for the first time. Machine on and karaoke.
No, she is not interested in a classic revue. She thinks up a story, a show. And only then does she think about which songs go with it. That’s why you have to be very strong when your ears suddenly hurt because she intones “Die Another Day”. Breathe! Everything has a reason. Madonna also learned something about 20 years ago from the unpleasant experience of producing this song and the subsequent, justifiably worldwide, devastating reception: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Critical life events make their way into the set list.
The list of “Celebration” omissions, on the other hand, is overwhelming. “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Like A Virgin,” “Material Girl,” “Express Yourself,” “Take a Bow,” “Who’s That Girl,” “This Used To Be My Playground,” even the hallowed “Music “ – some of them with top Billboard positions. But this time it doesn’t fit into the concept! One can be disappointed by this, but Madonna’s courage to take the gap deserves respect.
On the “Celebration” tour, Madonna’s narrative, which also took her to Berlin for the first of two concerts on Tuesday evening (November 28th), and for this appearance again with the 1990s-typical Axl Rose Showtime delay of 105 Minutes, like this: Young Madonna Louise Ciccone moves from Detroit to New York City in the late 1970s: Studio 54, Keith Haring, Jean Michel-Basquiat (one of her current dancers is even said to impersonate him), Fiorucci, Jellybean Benitez. Memory Lane photo overlays, charming pictures of chart listings in which her early single “Everybody” got lost next to some song from A Certain Ratio. Strong live phase from her, it lasts about 30 minutes. Her dancers, visually a mixture of Mad Max, Walter Hill’s “Warriors”, Susan Seidelman’s “Smithereens” and the Cindy Lauper Goonies, form a gang around her.
“Berlin is the city of drugs, right?” Madonna asks the audience. “Which one do you take? MDNA?” – Funny but also predictable pun on her 2012 album of the same name, on which she sings like Minnie Mouse and in whose videos she gymnastics around in Ronald McDonald settings that simply scare you. In another announcement towards the end of the concert she returns to the drugs in Berlin. She wants to see the raised hands of everyone who is either high, drunk, or both. She doesn’t like the result. “You guys are tough to crack,” says Madonna.
But first comes the “adult” Madonna in the second part of the show, the sex Madonna in conflict with church and faith, “Like a Prayer”, “Justify My Love”, “Erotica”. Not the best, but the coolest Madonna. “Pepsi” stress, vogueing, “Sex” illustrated book. That was from 1989 to 1992. Announced highly dramatically by the deep Bibulibus-like chants of monks; Cloaked dancers with hoods pulled over their faces march sadly across the cross stage, with Madonna tied up in tow. Something about Michael Cretu’s Enigma project, which also took place around 1989/1990. Pretty nonsense, this monastery act, Madonna could have better put someone on the stage who is on the highest floor, an older gentleman who embodies her “Like a Prayer” antagonist Pope John Paul II.
And finally phase three, the relaxed Madonna, the late summer of her career. The strategist. Relegation project. Madonna is very smart, but unfortunately she is not known as an outstanding composer. By the end of the 1990s, she finally had the power to send her trend scouts around the globe to source the best sounds and producers for her, and she had the authority to get samples from Abba. In this era, the evergreens emerged that sound like meta songs from parallel worlds and with which she introduces the final part of the 120-minute show: “Hung Up” and the Eso anthem “Ray of Light”. This is where “Music” should have come – their French House gala piece, which also marked the end of French House, probably the best dance music of the late 1990s. Sellout. That’s what happens when a huge star comes from outside and enters a closed circle. After that everything in it is ruined.
The fact that Madonna didn’t hire a band for this retro celebration shouldn’t be a bad thing. Live musicians had never played a role, not even on the “Blonde Ambition” tour in 1990. Or can anyone remember the names of their guitarists? The dancers are now their band. Some of them dance topless, some appear genderfluid, which may be the topless-genderfluid premiere for a show in the hall at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof.
No, the important thing is: Madonna sings live, and for the fact that she dances while singing, and for the fact that she is 65 years old (here a reference to her age, but it remains the only reference to her age – the whole discussion about her is completely poisoned), she sings well live. In “Erotica” she stages a sexual intercourse with a dancer who is disguised as her younger self. The narcissistic representation of a longing for eternal youth? Maybe just a successful entry without any ulterior motives.
Narration good, voice good, attitude good. What’s not good: The arrangement of their songs, a continuous sequence megamix, an expression of an often unfavorable reinterpretation of the originally respectable past. Bands need breaks, tape machines don’t. Unfortunately.
And as diligent as Madonna is in exploring her biographical stages, the new instrumentations are rich in contrast in almost all cases. Madonna visits previous stops, but she doesn’t visit her previous sounds. She travels back in time to eras that she dominates, but not with the sounds that belonged to them back then. Now everything sounds like Ibiza. More like Pacha and less like Electric Circus.
The eternal Madonna problem: Anyone who sounds current for their time but never timeless will sound old tomorrow. “Holiday” falls victim to this remodel with fat beats, as does “Into The Groove”. For “Burning Up,” Madonna creates feedback with an electric guitar in front of an amplifier, plus there are overlays from East Village punk club CBGB. Only: The 1983 song was never rock, but new wave. Why rock now? Because hard rock was the genre of the moment in 1983, but Madonna didn’t have the means to embrace it back then? In such moments she seems to remember a (stage) life that she never lived. She completely deprives other pieces of their characteristics: “Justify my Love” becomes a slow opera, without that Public Enemy rhythm (over which there was some controversy with Public Enemy).
A charming moment occurs when Madonna uses the guitar feedback of “Burning Up” to lead into the cutesy “Open Your Heart,” one of her best songs. She also takes a sip from the beer bottle; In the 1986 video she played a straight-edge peep show dancer and used friendly, flat flirting symbolism: “I hold the lock and you hold the key”.
In general, the songs from the “True Blue” album are the most successful in this program: “La Isla Bonita” is a wonderful hit (which is said to have been unsuccessfully offered to Michael Jackson in 1986 for the “Bad” recordings), even if in the “ Celebration” mode is a bit too stompy. The highlight is “Live To Tell”. A ballad that can remain slow and has not received a 2023 makeover. This is about passing on vital knowledge. “Hope I live to tell /The secret I have learned, ’til then / It will burn inside of me”.
On this tour she dedicates “Live To Tell” to the AIDS victims and displays portrait photos, including those of Arthur Ashe and Keith Haring. Other deaths Madonna commemorate are Prince and Michael Jackson, with whom she not only formed the pop titan triumvirate of the 1980s and with whom she was accused of having affairs, but also with whom she shared the same age group. Madonna survived both. She is still there. Jackson pays homage to them with the re-creation of his legendary dance silhouette on a screen, Prince rather weakly with a disguised dancer who is in a purple onesie, hits the Prince-typical cloud guitar to playback sounds and whose chain-covered cop hat from the ” My Name is Prince” video. Oh well. At least in moments like these it becomes clear that the tour motto “Celebration” means more than just a celebration of Madonna’s own life.
“Hope I live to tell / The secret I have learned, ’til then / It will burn inside of me,” sings Madonna in “Live To Tell”. That’s the joke: She was the first in a lot of what she did, in a lot of what she achieved. Maybe the best too. So why should she tell anyone her secret? If she reveals her secret, others could catch up with her. And become like them.
She’d better take her secret to her grave, even if the silence burns inside her.