Saw Madonna some nights ago at Rogers Arena.
Every bit of me, and the rest of the audience, was blown.
At 65, she is still dancing, singing and kissing everyone on stage like it’s the end of the world. She will party hard because she wants you to party hard with her. To suck the marrow out of life. To raise a middle finger to decay and decrepitude.
We are all Rays of Light. We will never die.
And in that bewildering array of color, Madonna stands out as the True Blue.
Baby I Love You.
I was born in the late 70s, so my 80s childhood was practically all Madonna. A whole lot of exuberance: bangles, big hair and Love Over The Borderline.
Oh did I mention Love? Madonna Loved So Fully.
I grew up in a conservative society, so any girl, boy or gay that got Madonna also got me and became my friend. While she could not free me from my society’s shackles (that was my own responsibility after all), she did open my mind, and my heart to the possibility of Love’s fullness.
Just how many people has Madonna touched this way? Countless. In Vancouver, the Arena seats almost 20K, and it was packed on the 21st. Everyone sang along as our Icon worked her magic touching our hearts, minds and guts without actually touching us. Her sets were Cirque de Soleil-like, experimental, bacchanalian. Hell, she actually drank from a wine bottle during the show!
Once in every generation, a human being becomes a symbol through the process of remarkability. And remarketability.
For Gen X, it’s Madonna.
Her beautiful deep-set blues mean “Who’s That Girl?” Her bleached blonde hair is Blonde Ambition. Her Gaultier cone bras – well, she’s pretty possessive about those.
At the start of the show, the Icon singled out a woman whose breasts were spilling out of her cone bras. She asked in her cattiest voice what she was doing wearing HER clothes.
It was refreshing to hear Madonna becoming human again. Becoming that little ball of energy from Bay City, Michigan named Madonna Louise Ciccone who “lost her virginity as a career move.”
But everything else about the Celebration show was inhuman. And I mean the energy. When Madonna took a swig from that wine bottle on stage, I wondered if that was even alcohol. Maybe octanol?
Her Live to Tell – Like A Prayer set was a masterclass in cinema, dance and deployment of powerful shivers down the spine. I was so breathless that I shed a tear.
Her children Estere and Mercy James shared the stage with her at one point. Estere vogued for her mother and special guest Pamela Anderson, who both raised their placards to give her a perfect 10. Mercy James played a classical piece on the piano, which magically appeared at the center of the stage. “Why isn’t my kitchen filled with dancing children?” Madonna once thought to herself a long time ago. Then she made sure that Thought became Reality, and Reality went to the Vancouver show and gave all of us the time of our lives.
Before she launches into an acoustic version of Express Yourself, Madonna says this to us: “If you want to make a change in the world, you gotta be loud.”
Indeed, Madonna is one loud and tough mama. Though she has had multiple physical injuries in the course of her career, including a fairly recent one from her Seattle show, she will never let you on about her suffering. In fact, she concealed that knee brace in a most fashionable way that you’d think it was just a costume piece. She will keep dancing and singing and pushing her Love Over The Borderline because that’s just who she is: Our Lucky Star.
The most revolutionary thing I’ve ever done – is to stick around.
Long live Madonna!
PA-Q World 