The celebration started a little late, but Madonna had no trouble getting the Bell Center dancing on Thursday, during the first of two shows she’s giving in Montreal between now and Saturday.
We suspected that the evening would start late. Before Christmas, Madonna did not take the stage until around 11 p.m. at a show in Brooklyn, a delay apparently due to a technical problem that occurred earlier that day during the sound check. Fans are also suing her and producer Live Nation for this delay. In recent weeks, it has appeared around 10:15 p.m. in Boston and Toronto. Thursday, however, she started “early”.
Madonna appeared at 9:50 p.m. on the huge stage occupying the Bell Center floor. The device is made up of three walkways, one of which extends very far into the enclosure, installed around a main circular platform. As we have seen before at U2 concerts, some particularly lucky fans found themselves in privileged spaces located between the different arms of this sprawling stage.
Madonna’s stage equipment promised exceptional proximity with the queen mother of pop and her dozens of dancers. This is the most imposing device that the author of these lines has seen in this amphitheater in more than 20 years of covering shows.
Madonna had only performed five songs by deadline. The evening was already shaping up to be memorable. The Queen Mother of Pop made an imperial entrance, appearing alone on a circular turntable, dressed in a loose black garment, wearing a tiara, singing Nothing Really Matterstaken from Ray of Lightthen continued with Everybodyhis very first single.
People were already standing all over the compound, dancing and singing with her. The energy went up a notch when she sang Into the Groove, a little after. Madonna promised to tell her story, her whole story. Which she did by recalling her French-Canadian origins – through her mother – and offering a surprisingly rock version of Burning Upon images evoking CBGB’s, a legendary club associated with the New York punk and alternative scene at the turn of the 1980s.
Madonna then once again transformed the Bell Center into a huge nightclub by offering Open Your Hearttaken from True BlueThen Holidaya landmark anthem from her very first album released in 1983. No, she was not going to tell her story in chronological order, but the journey through time promised to be extraordinarily enjoyable.
Attack fans
Shortly after 8 p.m., a group of four friends waited in the lobby, behind a large line of admirers who were waiting their turn to go to the souvenir kiosk. ” Where are you from ? “, asked The Press. ” From Brazil ! “, said the only man in the group, making her friends burst out laughing.
Carlos was telling the truth, except for one detail: Tatiana, Karla, Clarissa and he are Brazilian, but now live in Blainville. None of them had seen Madonna on stage before Thursday night. “I don’t know what to expect,” Karla said, “but I’m sure it’s going to be great.” » At her side, Clarissa, who says she has followed Madonna since around 1992, agrees.
They had read that the star changed costumes 18 times and also, like everyone else, that his show often started late. They were ready to dance all evening. “We saw videos on YouTube. We don’t know which songs she will sing, but we know that she will make the most famous ones,” they say.
And here they are, citing the titles they hope to hear: Frozen, Music, Like A Virgintitles which, a priori, are not on the tour program Celebration, except perhaps during a table change. Clarissa adds that she hopes to hear the song “by Evita Perón”. It will have been filled: Don’t Cry For Me Argentina was planned in the last part of the show.
The show Celebration, which notably included Bob the Drag Queen, was supposed to last a little over two hours. Madonna goes through more than four decades of hits, going back to Everybody (1982) and Burning Up (1983). Since Madonna does not accept the presence of a local photographer during her tour, the images illustrating this article come from a performance that took place in December in New York.