Pop Culture Buzz

REVIEW WRITTEN BY RICHARD HERLING:

After seeing Tina Turner’s Break Every Rule and Whitney Houston’s Greatest Love tours in the 80’s, you’d think that The Virgin Tour or Blonde Ambition would have been must-see’s in my young concert playbook. Unfortunately, Madonna’s early concert tours fell through my hands. I’ve only seen the ‘Post Girlie Show’ shows. I have however, seen all of these tours, including a slightly misguided stint at Coachella in 2006.

After enjoying the Sweet and Sweet Tour in Oakland on 11/1, I officially throw in the towel. Madonna wins. She is simply amazing.

I thought that this tour was the showcase of a mature artist and an accomplished writer. Rather than haul around a behemoth set, she relied on state of the art LCD screens that displayed amazing animation, visuals and video compilations of Madonna’s past and present. As usual, she also used these screens to show off her overwhelming sense of civic duty, which has had varying degrees of success for Madonna over the years. During this show, only days before electing Obama as our president, the images complimented the music, the energy and the excitement of the sold out crowd. By focusing the energy away from set design, Madonna relied on her dancing, her dancers, her costumes, her voice and most importantly, her music to carry us through the 2 hour set.

Madonna always was and still is the best dancer in the business. Period. Artists like Janet have dancing skills, but no one has ever challenged themselves the way Madonna has. She has always rewritten the book on choreography, and searched out the newest, most cutting edge styles as her backdrop (eg: voguing, krunking and even her use of yoga as dance). This night was an absolute barrage of dancing. At 50, Madonna still rocks. Her newest version of Into the Groove was a stand out, incorporating double-dutch her dancing, while Keith Haring’s artwork was brilliantly shown above. And, much to the crowd’s delight, Vogue, which she mashed up with 4 Minutes to Save the World, was a great throw back.

Madonna’s voice is her challenge. Because it didn’t come ‘naturally’, like, say, Mariah, she had to learn to work with her voice. She learned during the Drowned World tour to change the music to fit her voice. She continues that tradition, by continually reimaging her library. She brought back Borderline, but as a hard edged punk song, that kept the chorus and verses well within her range. During one of the slowest parts of the evening, she slowly emerged from a trap door atop a grand piano, singing You Must Love Me, the Oscar winning song from Evita. She sounded lonely, subtle and soft. It was a testament to the hard work she’s done since we first heard her squeak through Everybody in 1981.

Where this concert shown the greatest, however, was in the catalog itself. We were reminded that this amazing artist: fashionista, singer, dancer and pop art icon, is most importantly a song writer. For 2 hours we listened to Madonna retell us the story of her life. She told the story as only she can. Her lyrics are not overwhelming. And, nobody’s ever accused her of being too ‘deep’. But, her lyrics obviously resonate; otherwise she would not have enjoyed these decades of success. In song after song, we were reminded of the breadth and depth of her catalog, all while putting on the best show around!

SET LIST:
Intro/Candy Shop
Beat Goes On
Human Nature
Vogue

Video Interlude - Die Another Day
Into The Groove
Heartbeat
Borderline
She’s Not Me
Music

Video Interlude - Rain/Here Comes The Rain Again
Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You
Spanish Lesson
Miles Away
La Isla Bonita/Lela Pala Tute
Doli Doli (Live interlude - Romanian folk song)
You Must Love Me

Video Interlude - Get Stupid (About saving the planet)
4 Minutes
Like A Prayer
Ray Of Light
Hung Up
Give It To Me (Finale)

WATCH FOOTAGE OF MADONNA PERFORMING “THE BEAT GOES ON” @ THE OAKLAND ARENA BELOW:

WATCH FOOTAGE OF MADONNA PERFORMING “LA ISLA BONITA” @ THE OAKLAND ARENA BELOW: