Madonna celebrates 40 years of her career in Berlin, delivers everything vocally – just not every hit.
Madonna’s “The Celebration” tour came within a hair’s breadth of not taking place. After a bacterial infection in the spring of 2023, her life was hanging by a thread. The start of the world tour – postponed. But she did it, she’s alive and she’s singing. The “Queen Of Pop” is now making a guest appearance in Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena for two evenings. We were there.
40 years of show business, 40 years of pop circus. Madonna always in the middle. She survived them all, Michael Jackson, Prince, Freddie Mercury, to name just a few of her successful companions. And then a bacterial infection is supposed to bring probably the greatest living pop icon to his knees in June 2023. Even she didn’t believe she could recover from it. The eternally young, always modern, never aging woman decides that she will die another day and gets herself up, not least because of and for her six children, three of whom are accompanying her at the show in Berlin.
Late to the party
Madonna and Berlin – a “match made in heaven” if you consider their tendency to be unpunctual. No one will believe that the show starts at 8:30 p.m. anyway, given the slow starting times in other cities, but you have to be able to afford the fact that it ends up being 10:15 p.m. But without Madonna there is no “Celebration” and a diva has her own time zone. The audience takes it calmly, they are prepared for a long evening. A look through Berlin’s largest event hall shows that the majority seem to be over 30 and queer. From glitter outfits to Madonna shirts, everything is represented on the evening. The VIP ticket buyers carry goodie bags the size of a sports bag to their premium seats, which offer the best panorama of the expansive stage construction that runs through the arena like a catwalk. A technician’s pathetic attempt to encourage the guests to do a Laola wave fails. Berlin is probably too good for something like that. “As punishment, it will probably start an hour later,” one guest remarks cynically.
Bob the Drag Queen will host the evening
At some point the time has come and Bob the Drag Queen, an imposing presence in a baroque dress and 2016 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, enters the hall through a side entrance and makes her way through the fans. “I’m looking for a German husband,” she says, but despite a short conversation with two potential candidates, she doesn’t find anything. Anyway, this is about something much bigger: the appearance of the “Queen Of Pop” is only moments away. Bob moderates the stages of the protagonist’s unparalleled career, while appropriate video excerpts are shown on the oversized screens. Madonna as a young woman in the early 80s, Madonna as a femme fatale in the 90s, Madonna and Generation Z. Then there’s a bang and she’s there. All in black, with a metal halo, she performs on a round stage, surrounded by well-trained, young and beautiful dancers. The queen loves beauty. But she also looks fantastic that evening – one would almost say she has never looked better.
After the snappy 80s anthem “Into The Groove,” Madonna speaks to her audience for the first time. Berlin has a reputation for being a drug capital. She addresses a viewer directly and asks about her drug of choice: “MDMA? Or MDNA?” Well roared, Leo. The drug joke doesn’t really work, and the mood remains rather subdued throughout the concert. “This audience is hard to read,” she will say elsewhere. It’s not the performance, let’s say that much in advance. On the contrary: the complete sensory overload of the set, which lasts over two hours, often results in astonished faces instead of the screaming choruses that one is used to from Billie Eilish or Justin Bieber fans.
Tell me, how do you feel about religion?
Madonna has perfected the provocative play with religious symbolism over the decades of her career. The halo of the beginning of the concert shouldn’t remain the same, because “Like A Prayer” features men in monks’ robes and masked dancers who present themselves lasciviously and devotedly in the best BDSM style in front of a roundel of crosses. Madonna, of course, in the middle of it all.
It’s a very sexually charged show anyway, a lot of hands touch Madonna, there’s smooching and the literal highlight is an explicit orgasm scene between young and old Madonna. What, two of them? Yes, because part of the concept is that Madonna meets a younger version of herself, dehumanized by a rubber mask, over the course of the evening. The outfit reveals which Madonna it is – the most iconic is probably the Gaultier dress.
Madonna presents herself as sometimes dominant, sometimes vulnerable, but always desirable and aloof – despite the small physical distance from her fans. Madonna is a boss babe, actually the prototype of one. Even if a show like this no longer causes weeks of scandal coverage, you still have to see where it comes from: Because Madonna removed the taboo on this type of show decades ago. Everyone should be aware of what a service Madonna has not only done for the LGBTQ+ community. Only artists like Madonna paved the way for the Kim Petras and Lady Gagas of this world.
Madonna never condemned, Madonna always had a safe space for the marginalized. When the AIDS wave claimed so many victims in the 90s, I took their side. Public. That was a thing back then. In honor of those who had to go through this insidious disease far too soon, “Live to tell” shows many photos of affected famous and non-famous people.
Madonna, Queen of fucking everything
Madonna is not only a queer ambassador, businesswoman and simply a pop star, but also a mother of six children. Three are accompanying her in Berlin today, in the truest sense of the word. Daughter Mercy James plays the piano to “Bad Girl”, son David also makes a guest appearance and little eleven-year-old Estere, in her best designer shoes and patent leather boots, shows that she also has the pop star gene in her and is a great DJ. Class!
With so much vermilion, one or two hits will of course fall by the wayside, but that doesn’t detract from the show. Anyone who misses “Material Girl” will enjoy “Holiday,” while anyone who wanted to hear “Frozen” will get “Bedtime Story” instead. Madonna has never been a people pleaser and doesn’t believe in best-of shows. It’s a bit of a shame that “Like A Virgin” only comes off the tape as a sample, as a mash up with Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, accompanied by a silhouette dance between the “King” and the “Queen Of Pop”.
A career in six acts
The show is divided into six chapters, each standing on its own and yet all connected. Live, Love, Fuck, you could also have called it. Madonna takes advantage of the intricate catwalks that run through the audience, repeatedly positioning herself on the rotating main stage or floating in a cage above the audience’s heads. The costume changes can hardly be counted, but Madonna doesn’t let herself be shabby and presents herself as a gothic girl, a disco queen, a boxer in “Erotica” or even as a casual cowgirl in “Don’t Tell Me”.
But enough about appearances, what was the voice like? You have to know, Madonna sings live and she sings well. No trace of the big blunders that seep through the internet every now and then. Today Madonna’s vocals are absolutely veritable. This becomes particularly clear during an acoustic version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. Yes, survival is the big theme of the evening, who could blame her. Madonna celebrates 40 years of career, but also her constant fight against all critics and against getting older. The eternally 20-year-old, much-hated style icon quotes himself: “The most controversial thing that I’ve done is to stick around”. And we’re damn glad she’s still here.