STICKY & SWEET TOUR - PRESS REVIEWS - US tour intro - details - tour diary (Eur.) - tour diary (US) - fan reports (Eur.) East Rutherford - New York City - Boston - Toronto - Montreal - Chicago - Vancouver - Oakland - San Diego - Los Angeles - Las Vegas - Denver - Houston - Detroit

On this page you'll find the press reviews for the concerts of US & Canada. Also check the press reviews from Europe. Detroit - 18 November - Madonna returns to Michigan with exacting, entertaining spectacle If you're going to wait so long to come home, you might as well do it up right. Dropping into her old stomping grounds Tuesday night for her first show here in seven years, Madonna wowed a crowd of about 30,000 at Ford Field, serving up the sort of oversized oomph to match her stature as pop queen. It was just as promised: a stylish sensory overload, brimming with high-end video, sublime lighting, strapping dance numbers and an array of pulsing hits. The homegrown hall of famer, tight and sinewy, was an onstage dynamo, whirling and gyrating her way through the biggest concert spectacle Detroit will see this year. From an elevated throne -- where she perched spread-eagled in a fringed black leotard -- Madonna kicked into Candy Shop to launch an energetic, edge-of-risqué set that belied her 50 years. She didn't acknowledge her homecoming until midway through, when she clicked her heels a la Dorothy and uttered, "There's no place like home." Later, she paid tribute to Detroiters' storied toughness, and wryly prodded the audience to clap along: "I don't come here very often, so please make a big deal about it." The high-concept, even icy aura of her 2001 shows was replaced Tuesday night by a warm, vivid vibe. A nightclubby opening stretch gave way to a pleasant spell of mid-tempo pop, including a rocked up version of Borderline with Madonna providing chunky electric-guitar licks -- one of several reworked tunes that showed little taste for nostalgia. Quietly aging material such as Music and Ray Of Light revealed that they're holding up well to time, and Into The Groove got a workout that showed why the versatile tune endures as a club staple. Hard Candy was the big focus, the songs delivered with cool elegance (Devil Wouldn't Recognize You) and high-energy sizzle (the epic closer Give It 2 Me). She didn't try to hide the vocal tracks occasionally synced up to her songs, treating them as just another theatrical element in a show full of them. It was a night for people-watching, as a multigenerational crowd of about 30,000 piled into Ford Field in everything from kilts to hand-scrawled T-shirts. Many were casual fans, including large contingents of women friends, dressed for a party night out and ready for an evening of hits and pizazz. But the die-hards were easy to spot, too -- longtime devotees, many of them gay men, eager to indulge in a time-tested ritual with an artist many view as a personal icon. Down front, fans rushed toward the stage during the show's early stretch, turning the clogged aisles into an impromptu dance floor before security eventually cleared the way. The crowd energy kept up for the duration of the night, boosted by an up-tempo set list and a pace that rarely flagged. Unlike most of the dates on this tour -- and Madonna's previous stops in Michigan -- the show wasn't a sellout. If anything is a bellwether of tough times in Detroit, this was it. Fans elsewhere might still splurge $165-plus on good seats, but ticket brokers Tuesday afternoon were discounting Ford Field tickets by up to $100. And this in a city once known as a can't-miss concert market, for acts small and large. With the stadium's upper level curtained off, the main stage was positioned at about the 25-yard line, with a ramp and satellite stage extending well into the crowd, where Madonna and her troupe ventured often for tightly choreographed dance pieces. There was little to nitpick: The Sticky & Sweet show is such a meticulously crafted, professionally executed spectacle that something would have to go disastrously wrong -- screens falling down, sound zapping out, Madonna crawling -- to make it a bad concert. At this point in the tour, just a week left in the U.S. leg, the set can be only second nature, and perhaps that's the only real criticism: There was a vaguely rote feel to the precisely arranged proceedings, though Madonna occasionally slipped into improv mode, most notably for a warbly a cappella rendition of Material Girl. ("How did I become known for that song?" she cracked.) For an artist many assume is approaching a crucial crossroads -- heading into whatever her 50s might bring -- the star looked quite like herself Tuesday night: progressive, potent, in charge. There's no need to heed Thomas Wolfe, Madonna: You can come home again, you know. (source: Detroit Free Press) Detroit - 18 November - Madonna lights up hometown It's been seven long years since Madonna last played her hometown, but when she arrived on stage Tuesday night at Ford Field -- fittingly, on nothing less than a throne -- the enormous grin on her face said it all: It was good to be home. She said as much during her livewire two-hour concert, sprinkling hometown sentiment and "it's good to be home"-isms throughout the show. But she let her feelings really be known near the end of the night, before a sing-along portion of the show which included a karaoke-style version of her hit song Material Girl. "I don't come here very often," she told the crowd of 30,000, "so please make a big deal about it!" It wasn't hard to. The homegrown superstar -- way before she became the biggest star in all the land, she was just a kid from Rochester Hills with dreams of ruling the world -- put on a stadium-worthy celebration that was part concert, part block party, and all fun. Whereas past Madonna extravaganzas have served to titillate or provoke, the focus here seemed to be on having a good time, plain and simple. Madonna offered up a fair number of selections from her latest, April's Hard Candy. Whereas the record is a bit of a stiff, in person it sounded positively vital, with an explosive, show-closing Give It 2 Me sounding nothing less than apocalyptic in its urgency. She dipped into her back catalog, as well, offering revamped, reinvented versions of some of her biggest hits, including a thrashing, punk rock take on Borderline and a gypsy-style take on La Isla Bonita that would make her friends in Gogol Bordello proud. The concert briefly delved into politics with a video montage showing images of famine and villainous world leaders, which later gave way to images of Bono, Oprah, John Lennon and yes, Barack Obama. Earlier tour stops included images of John McCain on the "bad" side of things, which have thankfully been excised post-election. Madonna didn't always sing -- she oftentimes made no attempt to mask her piped in vocals -- but she constantly danced and always entertained. Her performance was tireless, and her ultra-fit, 50-year-old build continues to impress while gleefully mocking the rules of nature. The homecoming was only slightly dampered by the crowd of 30,000, which was far from a sell-out (the entire upper deck was blocked off with a black curtain). The attendance figure can be blamed on several factors, including Michigan's down economy, the high ticket price and the fact that the local date wasn't announced until three months after the rest of the tour. Many local fans likely made the trek to shows in nearby cities such as Toronto or Chicago, thinking that like on Madonna's last two tours, there would not be a Detroit stop. But it was good to have her back, if only for a night. And on that night she proved that despite her various personas and endless reinventions, there is still only one Madonna. (source: The Detroit News) Houston - 16 November - Don't wait another 18 years to come back "Did you cry?" Aftermath asked a new friend during the mass exodus from Minute Maid Park after Madonna's first Houston show since she opened 1990's Blond Ambition tour at the Summit. "Yes," she said, and from what Aftermath could gather from an informal straw poll, she was far from the only one. Madonna's memory may be faulty – "I've never played Houston before," she said at one point – but that's about it. Now 50, the pop icon thrilled the sold-out crowd for almost two solid hours of sci-fi stagecraft (opener Candy Shop began like something out of The Terminator), steamy choreography and indelible songs. Impressively, she did so without turning the affair into a greatest-hits revue – about half the set came from this year's Hard Candy, and there was only one song from Like A Virgin and no Papa Don't Preach, no Lucky Star, no Express Yourself. They weren't missed, mostly because like Madonna herself, nobody stopped moving long enough to notice. How many of Hard Candy's songs – gloriously superficial mega-disco, with hooks for miles and beats for days - will survive into subsequent tours remains to be seen, but as a sonic backdrop to the outsize stage production that included a Rolls-Royce, gypsy minstrel troupe and video-screen guest appearances from Pharrell Williams, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake, they were perfect. Anything smaller just wouldn't be Madonna, and the songs' glossy hi-res production, freely mingling pop, R&B, hip-hop, rock and dance, is as cutting-edge as anything she's ever done. It must be hell on Madonna to have to comb through her prodigious catalog when touring time rolls around, but Sunday's older material was well-chosen and rebooted to suit Madonna's contemporary technorama. Vogue was sleek and chic, with her shirtless hardbody dancers striking a pose in S&M gear, while Human Nature piled on mad heavy beats and more vocoder than three Zapp & Roger albums. Into The Groove was retrofitted with a house beat as big as Carlos Lee's contract and bass deeper than the Mariana Trench as Madonna and company, clad in vintage Wild Style wardrobe, flitted about and ended with a jump-rope-off. Borderline was a stunner, redone as a Joan Jett-like rocker, one of several instances where Madonna proved her guitar was far more than a prop. Let's see... what else? Hard Candy's She's Not Me found Madonna sparring with four look-alikes outfitted from her "Erotica," "Material Girl," "Like a Virgin" and "Vogue" videos – very meta, Madge – Music married A Chorus Line to Dr. Dre and La Isla Bonita ushered in a mid-set gypsy interlude featuring a fierce fiddle/accordion duel while one of her bohunks fed her a much-needed (I'm sure) drink of water. And by the way, the glitzy 4 Minutes proved she can still sing her ass off, while Like A Prayer brought together gospel, techno, dancers in bondage/gimp getup, Mecca-like bowing and Arabic script, Hindu art and scattered proverbs onscreen. Aftermath isn't sure what it all meant, but it sure was something. Then, Ray Of Light. You know the song, folks. Cue up a ginormous techno beat in your head, picture Madonna back on guitar and let your imagination go crazy. On a night when Minute Maid Park temporarily became the largest gay disco in North America – you have to wonder what Astros owner Drayton McLane thought about that – the song sounded as big as the cosmos onscreen. You did Space City proud, Madonna. Don't wait another 18 years to come back. (source: Houston Press) Houston - 16 November - Madonna gives Houston fans a tasty tour treat There were references, visual and lyrical, to lip-smacking treats throughout Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour, which played to a frenzied, sold-out crowd Sunday night at Minute Maid Park. Gumdrops and candies bounced across the stage's huge video screens (saving graces for anyone not seated on the floor). The cracked peppermint theme of Madonna's Hard Candy disc was all over the merchandise. "My sugar is raw," she purred during opening track Candy Shop. She definitely played up the tartness. But most surprising about Madonna's impeccably choreographed, frequently fantastic show was her willingness to show fans the flipside. She was still larger-than-life -- and astonishingly fit for 50 -- but Hard Candy's toot-toot disco beats seem to have softened her edges. A sweet Madonna? Maybe not. But throughout her two-hour, four-act performance, the world's most famous woman seemed intent, even happy to connect with the crowd. She smiled often and seemed completely comfortable, at ease with her still-considerable powers. If you've seen previous Madonna tours, the chatter is usually kept to a couple of sentences. She could zip through the show without an audience. This time around, she addressed fans frequently, even taking a late-set request for '94 hit Secret from a front-row fan (only if the crowd would help). It made the late start -- more than two hours after the printed time -- seem like a faraway, minor quibble. "I need you to have a good time," she ordered. "I don't come here very often." Indeed, Madonna's last Texas appearance was the 1990 kickoff of her Blond Ambition tour at the Summit (now, ironically, Lakewood Church). Sunday's show was her only Texas appearance, and the Madonna party started early in the day. Fans began lining up hours before doors opened. Several watched in awe from outside as Madonna performed an early evening sound check. Nearby restaurants and bars were at capacity, and several blared Madonna music into the streets. Traffic was often at a standstill. Inside the venue, several fans were dressed like early Madonna incarnations (wedding dresses, cone bras). Others sported vintage T-shirts. And still more looked ready to walk the runways. Giant M curtains towered over the floor, and Madonna made her entrance seated on a throne as 10 dancers gyrated around her. The pop queen was finally ready to see her loyal subjects. There was burlesque charm during Candy Shop and Beat Goes On, which paired top hats with knee-high boots, gloves and a white Rolls Royce convertible. And she strummed the first of several guitar riffs during a brassy Human Nature, which featured a Britney Spears video appearance. (A virtual Justin Timberlake showed up later during a cleverly staged 4 Minutes.) A backing track was sometimes apparent, but Madonna's voice was still surprisingly forceful. Up close, there are no signs of odd facial distortions rumored to be the result of plastic surgery, and her arms don't look so frighteningly thin. She raced effortlessly through intricate dance sequences that pop stars half her age couldn't master. Vogue was a synchronized dominatrix-cabaret opus, mashed up with snippets of recent 4 Minutes. It gave way to a colorful stretch inspired by artist Keith Haring -- all jump ropes and short-shorts and '80s NYC street culture -- that included Into The Groove and newer tune Heartbeat. The first few words of Borderline incited rapturous cheers, but Madonna wasn't interested in a complete retro-trip. She transformed the winsome pop classic into a revved-up arena rocker. And she sized up past personas during She's Not Me, which featured a quartet of dancers dressed in some of her most iconic outfits. The entire show had an aggressive clubland sensibility that's lost on most major pop stars. It gave the tunes an electric undercurrent that regularly blasted through the surface. (Images of Al Gore and Barack Obama also drew roars from the crowd.) Slower moments were filled with theatrical drama. Madonna crooned Devil Wouldn't Recognize You inside a video tunnel, shrouded in a hooded cape atop a piano. And You Must Love Me, her lovely Evita original, got an extra boost via somber scenes from the film. It also showcased an emotive vocal lilt. The show's gypsy-folk sequence veered from the bilingual kick of Spanish Lesson to La Isla Bonita, which was transformed into a joyous, flamenco-fueled highlight. It was invigorating, especially with so many acts (George Michael, Janet Jackson, New Kids) relying on note-for-note retreads to sell tickets. A twisting, tempestuous Like A Prayer kicked off a stretch that found Madonna in a silver bustier and blond bangs, soaring on risers like a superheroine. Ray Of Light pulsed with a delirious urgency, and Hung Up was recast as a riot-grrrl anthem before kicking into the familiar ABBA beat. By the time she hit the remix finale of Give It 2 Me, it was an all-out Madonna freak-out. She stomped across the stage, dancers at her side, in a pair of black-framed glasses. The lights slowly rose as Madonna's candy shop came to a close, and Holiday played as fans filed out, still singing along and savoring the taste. (source: Houston Chronicle) Denver - 11 November - Madonna thrills fans at Pepsi Center Is there such a thing as a bad Madonna show? A friend asked me that question a couple days ago. He wasn't sucking up to Madge, the 50-year-old Queen of Pop, rather he was pointing out the obvious. Madonna is Madonna, and her well-documented past defines her as much as any live performance. As a lifelong follower of Madonna, I can tell you there is such a thing as an off night for the diva. But her Tuesday-night bash, at the Pepsi Center wasn't one of them. Madonna was dynamic and effervescent on Tuesday, playing to the capacity crowd with every trick in her long and playful book. She'll repeat her performance tonight at the Pepsi Center. Madonna can start the night (90 minutes late) with two lackluster songs — Candy Shop and Beat Goes On — and move onto a set that is as risky as it is expected. With an artist of Madonna's years of experience, the success of a big show comes down to one simple element: The setlist. It's that simple. How many fans at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday were waiting to hear Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, a B-side from the new Hard Candy? Not many - as was obvious when the arena quieted during the unremarkable track. How many were wondering - out loud to their friends - if she would play Human Nature or La Isla Bonita? A lot. Seriously. The arena was packed with thirty- and fortysomething ladies reliving their youths. Some were dressed up, veil and all, like Madonna circa her Like A Virgin days. Others simply bopped about like excited teenagers, gossiping about the Vegas setlist and the Britney rumors and the elaborate costume changes. The show was obviously scripted to the very last step. But that's not to say it was all the expected. A late-set La Isla Bonita was thrown into a upbeat, cumbia-gypsy haze, and the hyper-Latin approach worked wonders for a great, but aged, song. Human Nature is Madonna's sexy entry into the dark and moody world of trip-hop, but her current performance of the track posits it as a slow, angry rocker. La Isla Bonita was the show's brightest, boldest, most daring moment — a triumph of reinvention, like Madonna herself. Human Nature was a low-point — a brave attempt at trying something new, but a low point regardless. Borderline was a success story. With Madonna and her electric guitar, the song was gallantly transformed into an arena anthem from the 1980s - not all that unlike a great Journey song. Sounds weird? It was. And it was great. At other times, Madonna kept with tried and true formulas. Into The Groove was a delightful explosion of color. No experimentation here, just pure pop goodness — set against the backdrop of bright Keith Haring animation. Music was a buoyant and throbbing gay disco — the American arena equivalent to Berlin's Love Parade. Her courageous, late-set take on You Must Love Me — from the filmed version of the Broadway musical Evita — was spot-on and gorgeous with its string accompaniment. It was also a needed opportunity to hear Madonna's actual voice. Madge let her back-up singers work a lot of the heavy lifting — hit choruses and the like — but with You Must Love Me, it was only her and the strings. And her voice sounded solid — a strong tip of the hat that we have many more years of her music ahead of us. (source: The Denver Post) Denver - 11 November - The show goes on for Madonna Madonna performs on stage at the Pepsi Center during her first-ever performance in Denver on Tuesday night. OK, she wins. Madonna was a pioneer of the big show, with larger than life theatrics, special effects, unparalleled choreography and eye-popping big-screen graphics. Along the way, others have tried to co-opt that crown, be it Janet, Britney, NSYNC or any number of others. On stage at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday night Madonna drove an antique car across the stage, played guitar in a Slash-like top hat, boxers sparred in a quickly constructed boxing ring, dancers appeared out of the floor, Britney Spears made a cameo via video, break-dancers performed on special rising stages, and Madonna vigorously jumped rope throughout an entire song – and that was just the first 20 minutes. No number of flying Britneys or Backstreet Boys on floating ledges from years past could come close to the spectacle Madonna is making of herself this time around on the Sticky & Sweet Tour. Think of a Broadway musical combined with a gymnastics exhibit, with Madonna as the lead gymnast. Critics make plenty of cracks about her age and her time spent in the gym, but her feats onstage would have been stunning for a 20-year-old – at an oxygen-thin altitude she hasn't played before, as this was her first-ever Denver show. She may not have been singing every note – there were some really questionable moments – but the fact that she was able to keep up a high-energy dance routine without so much as panting or a drop of sweat was impressive. None of the themes or personas she adopted during the course of the evening made any sense, of course, be it the dominatrix in the automobile or the waif clad in Spanish clothes surrounded by dancing monks. Along the way she also had human models of herself, dressed for the different eras – Erotica, Material Girl, Desperately Seeking Susan and more. Oh, the music? It was there. She managed to cram in 23 different tunes amid the costume changes and special effects. If hardcore fans had any complaints they didn't let them show. It does seem odd that someone with so many big hits stayed away from many of her biggest, best songs (though Into The Groove, Borderline, Ray Of Light and others did make the cut). Her signature song, Like A Virgin, isn't on the setlist this time around. Her set started unnecessarily late, with Madonna taking the stage at 9:30 while parents in the audience fretted about sitters. These spectacles sometimes feel they're of a different era, a throwback to the '90s and early '00s. With a packed house in a bad economy, Madonna's keeping them alive. (source: Rocky Mountain News) Las Vegas - 08 November - Madonna gives lackluster audience a 'C' grade She entered upon a gleaming throne, leg draped over one of its shiny arms, exposing the goods like a little girl who keeps pulling her dress up over her head. "Don't be fooled by my humility," she'd later wink, which was kind of like a shark urging you to pay no mind to its teeth. She speaks her mind and she grades on a curve. "I'll give you a C," she told a near-capacity crowd at the MGM Grand Garden on Saturday night, underwhelmed by the crowd's enthusiasm in joining her for an a cappella version of Open Your Heart. It wasn't three songs into her set before she was flipping the audience the bird and bemoaning the relaxed vibe in the arena. "There's a lot of laid-back people here tonight," she sighed at one point. "It's freaking me out. ... (Expletive) you." But Madonna has always delighted in pushing peoples' buttons -- she's that kid in the back of the classroom, lobbing spitballs and trying to get the substitute teacher to lose his cool -- and she did her best to overwhelm at the first of two Vegas shows on her current Sticky and Sweet tour. During the propulsive pop of Beat Goes On, she and a phalanx of dancers rode down the runway that jutted into the crowd in a sparkling white convertible, undulating to the beat. She took to the stage skipping rope and playing double- dutch during the cardiovascular aerobics routine that was Into The Groove, interacted with a quartet of Madonna look-alikes from different eras of her career during She's Not Me and flung herself around a stripper pole mounted on a movable DJ booth at one point. Through it all, an interesting duality emerged that defines a Madonna concert: They're highly choreographed, down to every more, and she lip-syncs (though not exclusively), not even pretending to sing the chorus on a show-opening Candy Shop, for instance. But she also dramatically re-configures many of her songs live, transforming them into new shapes and forms, thus keeping the show from feeling overly canned despite how prefabricated it really is. Few popsters would ever think of toying with some of their biggest hits the way Madonna does on stage. Clutching a bright purple Gibson SG guitar, she turned early dance pop confection Borderline into a riff heavy rocker with flared nostrils that actually had some crowd members playing air drums. Hung Up, the heart-pounding disco dervish from Madonna's last disc, Confessions On A Dance Floor, was given a similar treatment, slathered in muscular power chords until it could nearly be classified as a metal tune -- seriously (Madonna's live guitarist, Monte Pittman, actually plays with long-running headbangers Prong). Ray Of Light was also turned into a bawdy, Bic-in-the-air sweat bath. Elsewhere, Madonna ramp-ed up the BPM and added some serious torque to the bass lines in Music, once a spare and slinky little hip-shaker, which got turned into a concussive, full-contact rave up, as did Like A Prayer. And during La Isla Bonita, Madonna brought out a fiddle player, an accordionist and a pair of older gents with guitars and wide smiles to add some indigenous instrumentation to the song, turning it into a raucous foot-stomper that sounded as if it were inspired by gypsy punk fireballs Gorgol Bordello. Throughout the course of the show, there were a few moments of understatement, and they were a welcome break from the bombast, namely porcelain-delicate ballad You Must Love Me or the forlorn Miles Away, which she sang atop a piano cloaked in a flowing black robe. Yeah, it was all patently ridiculous at times -- Madge in glittery red and silver shoulder pads during 4 Minutes. Huh? -- and we could have done without all the video interludes and dance routines, especially the one where a couple of dudes sparred to the beat in a makeshift boxing ring for no apparent reason. But to lampoon a Madonna gig for its occasional detours into the absurd its kind of like critiquing a stripper based on her math skills, it's missing the point. And the point is that bigger is almost always better, audacity certainly trumps reticence. This was underscored by the time the show reached its sweaty conclusion with a seismic, hands-in-the-air Give It 2 Me. "Don't need to catch my breath," Madonna howled on the tune, the rare sentiment that the crowd couldn't echo on this night. (ReviewJournal.com) Los Angeles - 06 November - Madonna invades Dodger Stadium 10 reasons why Her Madgesty's L.A. bash proves – again – that she's leagues ahead of any other pop star. Alternative title: Why it was worth crawling through four hours of ridiculous traffic to see the former Mrs. Ritchie's latest spectacle. We finally parked at 10 to 10, just as the lights went out nearly an hour and a half after she was due to start. "She just went on!" exclaimed the woman behind us as she hopped down alone from her gigantic gas guzzler. Took her five hours to get there from Laguna. We scrambled to our field seats while Madge and her dancers were piled high into a Rolls-Royce (I think) that slowly rolled to the satellite platform a conveyer belt away from the main stage. We were finally in place just as Britney Spears popped up to wave hello, mutter the monotone "express yourself don't repress yourself" hook, then disappear during Vogue. (Yes, that's all she did.) Madonna doesn't hold anything back. Nothing can stop her from giving all, not even malfunctioning equipment. "Half of my stage is missing," she mentioned halfway into this two-hour extravaganza, just before its most intimate moment – when, flanked by a Romanian quartet on fiddle and acoustic guitars, she rearranged the Evita ballad You Must Love Me into a gypsy lullaby. Frankly, I bet most people would be hard-pressed to figure out what was missing, but Madonna was acutely aware: "The absence of light makes it hard for me to look into your eyes, and that's half the joy of performing. Come close... let me feel you." All great performers should be able to shut out trouble and forge ahead; Madonna gets so compellingly in the zone she could have lit up the night even if this entire expanse had been reduced to a single spotlight. Her driving force: "When I dance I feel free," she sang in Heartbeat, "which makes me feel like the only one / The only one the light shines on." She reinvents her songs as much as herself. Like Bowie, her music can be as chameleonic as her guises. Her brilliant rethinking of Borderline, for instance, rocked-up and Killers-ish, was a charging blast of sunshine, as was a remixed Into The Groove accompanied by Keith Haring-esque graphics and Madge jumping rope double Dutch style. Jeff, who wasn't as thrilled by those moments, considers the highlight the explosively colorful La Isla Bonita/Lela Pala Tute segment, which dovetailed into that haunting You Must Love Me. Vogue lost its tunefulness amid a house beat, he feels, and Like A Prayer was lacking its choir-ific finish. Yet even in those moments Madonna performed as if acting on a dare to bring new meaning to her old material – whereas Dylan, say, often will just take the heart out of "Like a Rolling Stone" and leave nothing but a chanted chorus behind. Madge tries on costumes that may or may not work but has the confidence to also strip it all away and appear small and shy while fingerpicking her guitar during the Evita number. That's not a typical thing to say of a woman who's been this famous for this long. It's humanizing. She sang every lick of every song. Even when sweetened with effects or the extra oomph of two backing vocalists, she still belted out every word – almost always amid choreography, never abetted by a TelePrompTer. She looks unreal. Superhuman, even. It's unseemly for critics to talk about how close to the action we get to be, but this time it warrants pointing out that the press corps were 13 rows back and directly to the right of the satellite stage. So close that even over thumping beats we could hear her high-heeled boots clack on the stage. So close that we could be amazed at how insanely fit and yoga-toned and thin she is – she's not svelte, she's positively gamine now – yet also notice how cragged her hands are, much older than her 50 years would suggest. She commands attention. Not just from the everyday fan but every type of celebrity. We were also close enough to see plenty: Heidi Klum was two rows behind us, Rick Rubin not far behind her. Ryan Seacrest flitted about. Dennis Quaid, Tila Tequila and Donald Sutherland were on hand, along with J.Lo and Marc Anthony. She's still edgily sexy. We could spew 1,000 words alone on the number of naughty gestures that can't be discussed here. "See my booty get down," she hollered out at one point – and we did, vividly, as she dropped to her knees and started grinding her body like this was Like A Virgin at the '85 VMAs all over again. She remains an unparalleled pop performance artist. Speaking of that "Virgin"-al gal, she turned up here, as one of four surrogates during She's Not Me. That slut bride in chiffon was propped up in one corner of the satellite stage while other personas were positioned at opposing posts – the Marilyn-cribbing Material Girl, the platinum-blonde peep-show harlot of "Open Your Heart," the cone-bra-toting sexual aggressor of her Blond Ambition Tour. As the song churned to a crescendo, its defiance shifted from post-infidelity vengeance to a telling tear-down of Madonna's past – yank the wig off the harlot, mock-suffocate the cone-bra poseur with the "Virgin" slut's veil, kiss the bride hard till her lipstick smears, then pick up wardrobe pieces from all four and crawl away. What's that all mean? As with the glam-crucifixion centerpiece set to Live To Tell on her last tour, you decide. But it was only one of several riveting theatrical moments – another was the quasi-satanic routine for Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, with Madonna cloaked in a black, Anton LaVey robe – that could suck you into new songs you might not otherwise give two thoughts to. She's still edgily sociopolitical. With protests raging throughout L.A. and Hollywood, you knew this would be something of a rally. As the iconic poster of our president-elect appeared like giant postage stamps behind her, she declared: "We've got something to celebrate – it's called Barack Obama, (bleeper-bleepers)!" She also vowed to never stop fighting for gay rights – "If we can have an African American in the White House, then we can have gay marriages" – and turned Like A Prayer into another moving plea for religious tolerance. Yet all of that was contained in her closing segment, kicked off by a video (for the song "Get Stupid") that contrasted the evils of a century (from Hitler to bin Laden) with famous forces of goodness, from Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa to John Lennon and Bono. It was an act-now, let-peace-prevail message even a warmonger could get behind. She makes Justin Timberlake seem small. Britney was just another ploy to sell tickets, since this didn't come close to selling out. Her Hard Candy collaborator, however, was the real deal, turning up in the flesh for 4 Minutes, to the delight of women and gay men who rushed the stage like mad. (Timbaland, Kanye West and Pharrell Williams were seen in video sequences.) Next to Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl Timberlake looked like an equal. Placed alongside the Queen of Pop, however, he seemed merely a developing prince. There's a reason she went straight into the Hall of Fame in her first year of eligibility while Janet hasn't even been on a ballot: She's incomparable, outpacing and outclassing her peers and progeny year after year with ease. She's not without spontaneity. Case in point: the impromptu Dress You Up singalong toward the end, just when Obamamania inside Dodger Stadium started to peak. It was glorious fun, and you could tell Madonna knew utter jubilation was erupting: "Thank you, Los Angeles," she said. "You've been unusually responsive." (source: Orange County Register) Los Angeles - 06 November - Madonna brings the house down at Dodger Stadium It was almost 10 o'clock by the time iconic music superstar Madonna hit the stage at Dodger Stadium last night, and the crowd happily lapped up her Sticky and Sweet candy infusion of spectacle and song. Despite rumors of cancellation due to a broken stage, the 50-year-old megastar came out full force (later apologizing for there being some issues with lighting, which had caused the over two-hour long delay in the show's start) and treated the assembled crowds to two solid hours of visual and aural over-stimulation. Having long since learned that it's never too wise to stray too far from your roots, Madonna worked into her lineup a satisfying smattering of hits from the vaults, including a guitar-rocked Borderline, an updated take on Into The Groove complete with vibrant Keith Haring animation, a clubby remix of Music, and an acapella sing-along version of Dress You Up during the request segment. The most impressive greatest hits moment may well have been the rousing one-two punch of Like A Prayer, followed up by Ray Of Light, although near the start of the show the audience was bursting at the seams when none other than Miss Britney Spears showed up to join Madonna for the last half of the unapologetic Human Nature, ("I'm not your bitch, don't hang your shit on me!") Madonna (whom we believe we should now return to calling Mo instead of Madge, considering her split from Brit Guy Ritchie) proved that age ain't nothin' but a number as she powerhoused her incredible body into dance segment after dance segment, bounding from one end of the massive set to the other in brilliantly staged themed numbers. She was sassy and fired up, and demanded that her audience be the same ("Come on you rich fuckers in the front, SING!" she yelled). Not without timely political commentary, she opted to weave international images in video montages, then paused to express her delight in Obama's election this week, and her resolve to be a part of the fight for same-sex marriage in light of the passing of Proposition 8 this week, both to which the audience responded in wild applause and shouts of agreement. For fans of Madonna's newer more dance-beat driven music, the night was indeed centered around tracks from her Hard Candy album. As rumored, Justin Timberlake joined Madonna for their duet 4 Minutes much to everyone's delight, and, not surprisingly, long after Britney Spears was gone and out of sight; the guest spots came with at least an hour's span between them, and according to E!Online, Brit left the stadium immediately following her ex-boyfriend's performance, with the two never meeting face-to-face. (source: LAist) Los Angeles - 06 November - With a little help from friends Madonna had a little help from some friends at the Los Angeles stop of her Sticky and Sweet tour last night (Nov. 6) at Dodger Stadium, as both Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake turned up as surprise guest stars. The former wowed the crowd during the third song of the night, Human Nature, while Timberlake joined Madonna on 4 Minutes towards the end of the show. Spears, in her first public performance since the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, emerged from the back of the stage to the roar of the crowd, looking radiant in black heels and slacks, a white ruffled dress shirt and straight blond hair. Singing with a mic in hand, she sauntered out for a diva matchup at the end of the catwalk. Meanwhile, every camera phone in the venue had already been whisked out to capture the moment while flashbulbs were firing at record speed. After arriving alongside the guitar-wielding Madonna, the latter said, in mock surprise, "Oops! Hey Britney!" and then later, "she's not your bitch!" before Spears sang her own infamous lyric, "It's Britney, bitch." And then after about two minutes on stage, it was over. Spears was lowered beneath the floor and Madonna carried on to the next number. Timberlake was another surprise, and he too received a thunderous response from the crowd on 4 Minutes, the song on which he guests from Madonna's Hard Candy album. Madonna and Timberlake reprised the choreography and staging they employed for the last time they sang the song live, during a promo performance at New York City's Roseland Ballroom in April. Much like Spears, once Timberlake's song was over, he vanished from the stage. All told, Madonna performed nine of the 12 songs from Hard Candy, along with 11 older tunes like Ray Of Light, Music and Into The Groove. She played guitar on a hard-rocking version of Borderline and sang a moving rendition of the Evita song You Must Love Me. Most surprising was the segment of the show where she solicited song requests from the crowd. She ultimately decided on the 1985 oldie Dress You Up, and then led the stadium in a sing-a-long. Celebrities on hand in the audience included Fergie, Drew Barrymore, Heidi Klum, Nicole Ritchie and Jennifer Lopez. Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour next visits the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday. The North American leg of the tour wraps on Nov. 30 and then heads to South America on Dec. 3 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tour is currently scheduled to conclude on Dec. 21 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (source: Billboard.com) Los Angeles - 06 November - Britney Spears joins Madonna show and wows crowd Fans didn't have to wait long for the much-hyped Britney Spears and Madonna collaboration at the Material Girl's Dodgers Stadium show in Los Angeles on Thursday night (06Nov08) - the pop stars opened the show. As expected, Spears joined Madonna for a version of Human Nature, but no one expected the pop pair to team up so early in the evening. Wearing black pants and a white top, Spears stunned the sold-out crowd by singing and dancing with her heroine before she was lowered beneath the stage at the end of the number as portions of the crowd cried out her name. It was a tame stage collaboration compared to the last time Madonna performed with Spears - the pair hit the headlines back in 2003 when they locked lips during a wedding themed routine at the MTV Video Music Awards. Spears' ex Justin Timberlake was also billed to perform onstage with Madonna as WENN went to press - he was set to recreate 4 Minutes, the song he recorded with Madonna for her latest album, with the Material Girl towards the end of her Dodgers Stadium show. The show was a big success, despite fears about the stage after a minor collapse on Wednesday (05Nov08). Prior to Thursday night's show, Madonna said, "Even though my stage roof was damaged and some lights and effects aren't working, I want to do the show anyway because I don't want to disappoint my fans." (source: ContactMusic) San Diego - 04 November - Like a celebration "This is the beginning of a whole new world!" an ecstatic Madonna declared last night, shortly before the conclusion of her nearly two-hour-long concert at Petco Park. In previous decades, such a declaration may very well have been self-referential, as befits a pop superstar who long ago announced her desire to "rule the world." But not yesterday, when the source of Madonna's elation was the formidable victory of Barack Obama, who convincingly beat out John McCain in their election battle to become the next President of the United States. "Are you as happy as I am?" she asked the crowd of 39,000, whose loud cheers indicated their answer was affirmative. "Let's hear it for Obama! It's the best day of my life." A clearly delighted Madonna saluted Obama several more times during her 24-song concert, and the audience repeatedly roared its approval. It was a rare instance when Madonna was happy to share the limelight. "She is an inspiration," said fellow Obama supporter Amy McCoy, who paid $165 (plus service charges) for her field level ticket, then snuck up to a more expensive seat close to the stage and proceeded to dance the night away. Madonna, who is 50 but looks as buff as a 20-year-old, opened her concert with two infectious selections from her newest album, Hard Candy. Those songs, Candy Shop and Beat Goes On, were among the nine she featured from Hard Candy. (For those keeping count, that's 6 more songs than the Rolling Stones played from their then-new album during the legendary English rock band's Petco Park concert three years ago this month.) Madonna's nearly two-hour concert last night also featured lively versions of Human Nature, Heartbeat, Vogue and Into The Groove, which she first performed in a stadium at 1985's Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. She took to the stage Tuesday following a 30-minute opening set by English electronica DJ Paul Oakenfold (who appeared while all of the stadium's lights were on and many fans were still arriving). She was accompanied on stage by up to a dozen musicians and an equal number of dancers, although the musicians often played second fiddle to the impeccably choreographed dancers andthe concert's eye-popping production. Madonna did not make any reference to Filth and Wisdom, her recently released directorial film debut, which stars Gogol Bordello singer Eugene Hutz. However, she did take her critics to task when the film debuted in New York last month, saying that her detractors had a "bug up their (rhymes with glass)" because they think she should focus on music, not filmmaking. "There are certain kinds of resentment when (you) do one thing well -- not to toot my own horn or anything -- and then you try to go do something else," she said. "And that's their (bleeping) problem." But Madonna did pay homage to her London performance at last year's Live Earth concert, where she was joined by Hutz and Gogol violinist Sergey Rjabtzev for a Gypsy-tinged version of La Isla Bonita. She gave the song a similar Eastern European tinge last night at Petco Park, minus Hutz and Rjabtzev, whose roles were ably filled by Moscow's Kolpakov Trio, led by 7-string guitarist Sasha Alexander Kolpakov. With Madonna watching from the lip of the stage with her dancers, Koplakov and his band mates performed the song "Doli Doli." Borderline was one of several numbers that found Madonna starppng on an electric guitar. Other highlights included 4 Minutes and Ray Of Light. Madonna's emphasis on dancing and dashing to and fro across the enormous stage meant that her singing was electronically enhanced, or sometimes entirely pre-recorded. but that's nothing new for the tireless pop icon, who has long relied on lip-syncing in varying degrees at her concerts. Fortunately for her fans, her Petco show had more than enough razzle-dazzle to compensate, not to mention the added celebratory spirit brought on by Barack Obama's election victory. (source: SignOnSanDiego.com) Oakland - 01 November - Madonna gives Oakland the hard sell There are certain things you expect, no demand, from a Madonna concert: You want lots of bare flesh, hot girl-on-girl action and a hefty dollop of swearing. The 50-year-old pop icon delivered on all counts Saturday at the first of two sold-out Sticky and Sweet tour stops at Oracle Arena. Plus, she offered fans that paid upwards of $400 for floor seats a chance to get a closer look at the world's most famous red-string kabbalah bracelet. Madonna spent a good portion of the two-hour set uttering four-letter words, prancing around in designer undies and alternately slapping around and seducing more than a dozen backup dancers. Between the breathless aerobic workouts that accompanied nearly every song, she also made a point to voice her support for same-sex marriage and Barack Obama. Her personal life is a bit of a mess at the moment, with the very public split from Guy Ritchie and younger brother Christopher Ciccone's tell-all biography in bookstores. But with her 11th and latest album, Hard Candy, stalled outside the Billboard 200 [still charting ~ Mad-Eyes] Madonna doesn't have time to mope. Taking the stage in a fishnet bodysuit with one leg splayed across a throne and her crotch on full display for about 20,000 people - a nod to the salacious Hard Candy cover photo - she opened the show with two of the record's most exuberant highlights: Candy Shop and Beat Goes On, complete with tightly choreographed dance routines, an enormous white Rolls-Royce and video-screen cameos from Pharrell Williams and Kanye West. Considering the number of tour buses and 18-wheelers in the parking lot, she probably could have afforded the real things. Madonna played eight of Hard Candy's 12 tracks, while her old hits were tossed off with little fanfare and lots of chagrin: Vogue was stripped of its sleek house hook and served over a skeletal rhythm; Borderline was reinvented as a two-chord punk surge featuring Madonna on leadish guitar; and Like A Virgin was essentially handed over to thousands of off-key voices in a half-hearted sing-along. Other classic tracks were shelved in favor of surreal video clips and elaborate dance routines that gave Madonna a chance to change from one skimpy outfit into the next. She wasn't making a complete break from the past, but she certainly didn't celebrate it, either. Divided into four parts, each segment of the concert revisited and revised the odd corners of her 25-year-plus pop career. Madonna went back to early '80s New York - not hers, mind you - by jumping rope in knee-high socks and short shorts in front of Keith Haring figures for an electric version of Into The Groove. She then proceeded to attack four clones representing her at various stages in history for the acidic She's Not Me. Wearing white-rimmed Lolita glasses, she rubbed her backside when she sang the line, "She'll never have what I have." Then she ripped off "Material Girl" Madonna's glove and slapped her with it, tore down "Like a Virgin" Madonna's veil and wrapped it around "Vogue" Madonna's head for a steely kiss. Let's call that the fantasy sequence. The real Madonna then returned for a bizarre gypsy folk interlude that saw tunes like Miles Away and La Isla Bonita reinvented with furiously strummed acoustic guitars and ended with three old guys performing the traditional song "Doli Doli." Along the way, there were black-hooded monks, flamenco dancers and a long cartoon of an alien woman chasing fish to the Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again." Why not? The night ended with a strange pileup of politics and fanfare, as Madonna's election day and virtual Justin Timberlake-abetted save-the-world public-service announcement 4 Minutes gave way to a high-energy disco workout that incorporated thumping versions of Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light and Hung Up. The set-closing Give It 2 Me was a revelation, given all more impact when the song abruptly ended, the words "Game Over" flashed on the video screens and the house lights came on. Guess $400 doesn't buy you an encore. It was OK. Even if the new songs feel a little like Gwen Stefani's leftovers, suggesting that, for once, Madonna has actually fallen behind the pop-culture curve she always capitalized on so brilliantly, she worked so hard selling them that by the end of the night, the audience felt breathless even as the singer kept bounding forward. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) Oakland - 01 November - Madge still into the groove at Oracle Arena Aerobics, anyone? The initial reaction to Madonna's Sticky & Sweet tour, onstage at the capacity-filled Oracle Arena in Oakland on Saturday (and Sunday) is: Wow, that woman can work out! Jump-roping to a throbbing version of Into The Groove — in which the singer was attired in gym shorts — she didn't miss a lyric, nor did she seem to need an extra breath. The tune came about one-quarter of the way through the stimuli-packed, two-hour show, which drew heavily from the buff singer's latest album, Hard Candy, but also, thankfully, managed to include some old favorites, most of which were reworked for the new century. Perhaps the most evocative number was the new She's Not Me, in which the pop icon literally beat on dancers costumed as various incarnations of herself — the material girl, the 1984 Video Music Awards bride, Marilyn Monroe, et al. It came off as a nifty metaphor for the 50-year-old's 25-year career in the pop spotlight and proved a fun anchor for a somewhat varied show. While most of the songs were backed by the constant electronic dance-party beat found on the new CD, there were a few notable exceptions. Borderline, featuring Madonna in one of several guitar-playing stints, got a rock treatment, and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You featured a gorgeous piano solo. A few tunes in which she accompanied herself on acoustic guitar revealed an almost-human side of Madge. Smiling, she sang the melodic Miles Away in front of video footage of people from around the world; in another quieter moment, she seemed to enjoy the crowd's adulation during You Must Love Me from Evita. As always is the case with Madonna, no expense was spared on quality or concept. Video backdrops ranged from art by Keith Haring (Into The Groove,) to guests Kanye West (Beat Goes On) and Britney Spears (Human Nature) and myriad political and historical figures the likes of Oprah, John Lennon, Mother Teresa and Barack Obama in a "Get Stupid" video montage. She danced with several screens boasting full-length images of Justin Timberlake on 4 Minutes, a number that was more technically dazzling than musically satisfying. Technology also pumped up Ray Of Light, Vogue and Like A Prayer. A not-quite-spontaneous a cappella audience sing-along of Like A Virgin amused the all-ages audience before the finale Give It 2 Me. The sound system was impeccable, the band and background vocalists were superb and the dancers nicely complemented their fearless role model. Unlike many of her contemporaries or predecessors who sound great playing oldies, Madonna has forged a path into the 21st century. She's a consummate professional whose vitality — if not her earth-shattering artistry — keeps her in the limelight, showing kids half her age just how pop should be done. (source: The Examiner) Oakland - 01 November - Madonna's a blast in Oakland concert It's been a long time since Madonna was this much fun. Gone are the days of convoluted storylines (2001's Drowned World Tour), heavy-handed themes (2004's Re-Invention Tour) and controversial antics (2006's Confessions, during which Madonna hung herself on a huge cross). This time around, the Material Girl just wants to make some dough and show her fans a good time, both of which she accomplished as she brought her Sticky and Sweet Tour to the Oracle Arena in Oakland on Saturday. She performs at the same venue at 8 tonight. Despite ticket prices that topped out near $400, a capacity crowd turned out to see the 50-year-old pop icon on the first night of her Bay Area stay. As a thank you, the flamboyant vocalist turned in a two-hour show that was filled with good songs, nifty costumes, cool theatrics and, as always, great dance routines. By Madonna standards, it was a fairly straightforward 24-song affair. In fact the most shocking thing about the show was that there was nothing really shocking about it. That's a refreshing change for Ms. Ciccone — we'll use her maiden name, since she's divorcing film director Guy Ritchie. Too often in the past, Madonna has seemed to focus more on stirring controversy rather than entertaining the crowd. What all this amounts to is that, for the first time this millennium, people are most apt to walk away from a Madonna show talking about the music, not the spectacle. There is, however, much worth saying about the latter. The concert began about 45 minutes late — which provided fans with extra time to shop the souvenir stands for $20 Madonna coffee mugs, $10 Madonna shot glasses and $15 Madonna heart-shaped sunglasses, as well as $25 "Vote Obama" T-shirts. The house lights dimmed and the overhead screens showed a Willy Wonka-inspired animated segment, which tied nicely into the title of Madonna's latest CD, Hard Candy. The princess of pop then appeared at center stage on an M-shaped throne, as tux-and-tails-clad dancers helped her usher in the opening number, Candy Shop. She followed with another solid new track, Beat Goes On, before reaching back into her bag of hits for Human Nature and Vogue. Those two tunes really brought the fans to life as they watched their hero gyrate about the stage and along the catwalk that extended half way across the arena floor. The reaction from the crowd would swell each time Madonna played one of her classic numbers, such as La Isla Bonita. This tour, however, is more about showcasing the new material than it is about digging up the past. It wouldn't be entirely fair to say that Madonna was reluctant to play the fan favorites, but she was certainly hesitant to do them in familiar fashions. Each hit performed this evening was arranged differently than the original recording, which might be Madonna's way of saying that she refuses to play the nostalgia game. Most of the newly realized renditions, especially a roughed-up, rocking Borderline, were quite intriguing. The last half of the show was devoted mainly to newer material, with only three offerings, La Isla Bonita, Like A Prayer and Like A Virgin, hailing from the singer's classic '80s catalog. The song selection, oddly, only seemed marginally important. What mattered more was that Madonna was having fun — and it was contagious. (source: Contra Costa Times) Vancouver - 30 October - Madonna mania hits B.C. If there was ever any question that Madonna was still the Queen of pop, it was settled once and for all at her sold out show last night at B.C. Place. Entering the stage almost an hour late, "Her Madgesty" propped herself onto an "M"-encrusted throne grinding to Candy Shop, the first track in her new album. Flanked by a small herd of tuxedoed men, Madge belted out two songs from 2008's Hard Candy. But make no mistake: Despite the tophat and tails, this is no 1985, pink-gowned Material Girl Madonna. This is Sticky & Sweet Madonna. Think pink electric guitars, crystal-encrusted batons, and an army of scantily clad dancers shining her gloriously high-heeled boots. And if fans were upset about having to wait until her eighth world tour for her to play for the first time in Vancouver, they didn't let it show. An estimated 55,000 fans packed the show, which sold out in less than 20 minutes when tickets went on sale back in May. Indeed, Madonnas of all shapes, sizes and colours descended on B.C. Place to pay homage to a diva who has dominated 25 years of pop music since her debut of Holiday in 1983. The show did satisfy fans desires for oldies, but if it were a slow ballad you were after, you were out of luck. Borderline was sped up with the aide of a pink electric guitar played by Madge herself, complete with head-banging solo. Even the violin-tinged Vogue was restyled with thumping bass. The entire two-hour show was truly a testament to the unstoppable energy of a pop icon who celebrated her 50th birthday only two months ago. And those reported three hour a day workouts have paid off for the mother of two. Madge had no trouble keeping up with dancers 30 years her junior. With nine costume changes - almost as many as the Material Girl's reinventions in her own career - she really proved the moniker of "Her Madgesty." And you can't fully appreciate her kingdom until you witness firsthand 50,000 of her followers singing along to Like A Virgin. (source: CTV British Columbia) Vancouver - 30 October - Madonna hits vancouver with multimedia hurricane Jumped-up sweet baby Jesus—how appropriate that the most rapturously received moment of Madonna's first-ever Vancouver visit would end up being Like A Prayer. Radically retooled as a spirit-of-'98 rave anthem, the 1989 chart-buster was rolled out an hour-and-a-half into a spectacle that mixed beloved classics with plenty of surprises. The 60,000-strong capacity audience could have been forgiven for planting their asses in the football stadium's hard plastic seats and passively drinking it all in. After all, as was the case the rest of the night, it's not like there was a shortage of mouth-watering eye candy. Like A Prayer put Madonna square in the middle of a multimedia hurricane. With the crack band making a convincing case that ecstasy is its drug of choice, multiple video megascreens bombarded the audience with blizzards of written text (the ultimate message being that we are all God's children, regardless of whether we do our worshipping in a mosque, a church, or, for that matter, BC Place). For added visual stimulation, the blond-tressed singer was backed by a platoon of dancers dressed like modified versions of Pulp Fiction's The Gimp. What was ultimately amazing about Like A Prayer, however, was the way it transformed the most unforgiving venue in Vancouver into something that looked like Sunday-morning services in East Harlem. From the high-rollers who blew a mortgage payment to be near the stage, to the unfortunate souls stranded in the nosebleeds, every person in the beyond-sold-out football stadium was on his or her feet, singing, dancing, clapping as one, and generally losing it like Christians at the resurrection. If you weren't lucky enough to be there, you can officially start wondering why God continues to forsake you. Like A Prayer wasn't the only mind-blowing moment of a show that proved well worth the 20-year wait it took for Madonna to finally play Vancouver. The first bit of unadulterated magic struck when the one-time Boy Toy rolled out on a platform accompanied by a ragtag crew of backing musicians who looked—and sounded—a little like the Gipsy Kings possessed by Gogol Bordello. If Madonna started out all flash—including rolling out a white '20s-vintage roadster Liberace would have died for during Beat Goes On—she found her groove during this unofficial world-music portion of the evening. Spanish Lesson and Miles Away would prove sun-splashed warm-ups for a transporting, Calypso-tinted La Isla Bonita. Major surprises on a night that saw more than one cougar clad in period-appropriate attire (standouts included a pink-satin "Material Girl" dress and a Who's That Girl polka-dot number) included the fact that Madonna knows how to rock. Wielding a black Gibson Les Paul, she turned the disco-thumper Hung Up into a guitar-banger grungier than Seattle circa '92. Likewise, Borderline ended up with a metallic crunch entirely absent from the recorded version, and You Must Love Me proved the singer does Andrew Lloyd Webber–brand weepers every bit as effectively as sticky-sweet club pop. Those who judge a mega-event by the number of costume changes didn't go home disappointed. Hitting the stage on a throne and looking like she'd just escaped from the set of All That Jazz, Ms. Ciccone would gear down into a '70s–issue gym-strip ensemble, go Road Warrior–chic with sequined shoulder pads, and embrace her inner Tibetan with a folk-embroidered mini-dress offset by layers of hot-pink beads. Despite what Guy Ritchie would have us believe (not to mention that fuckstick from The Vancouverite), Madonna was radiantly hot, and not just in an okay-for-50 kind of way. And she also proved surprisingly political, with the rapid-fire video montage during a "Get Stupid" interlude starting off with images of John McCain and Adolf Hitler, and Rolodexing through celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates to end up at John Lennon and Barack Obama. Disappointments? Well, start with the fact that BC Place is so huge, you either watched the show on a video screen or focused on what looked like elaborately attired on-stage ants. And then there was the long list of hits absent from the show, starting with Lucky Star, Material Girl, Papa Don't Preach and Don't Tell Me. But compensating for that was the segment in which Madonna asked the faithful what they wanted to hear, and when the overwhelming response seemed to be Like A Virgin, launched into an all-hands-on-deck call-and-response number. As 60,000 fans screamed along in one glorious, harmonious show of solidarity, it wasn't just magical, it was a religious experience. If you arrived at the Madonna concert hoping for something rapturous, your prayers were indeed answered. (source: Straight.com) Vancouver - 30 October - True blue fans go mad for Madonna A mega-show experience is completely different from a mere concert. Or at least it should be. Madonna has never performed in Vancouver. That alone made last night in B.C. Place something to anticipate. The last act to pack the dome was no less than those Rolling Stones. At the time of that show, writer Tom Harrison and I ran down a list of who else we thought could still fill a venue this large that was still active as a recording artist. The only name we could come up with was Madonna. So how come the buzz in the space was so much less electric than it was for Sir Mick and that Pirates of the Caribbean guitarist and crew? Maybe because of how few young people were there. Madonna fans appear to cut off around the mid-thirties for the most part. Or was it just not as big a deal? Hard to say. Madonna's recent albums certainly outsell other legacy acts. But most were there for Take A Bow and True Blue, not that Timba-lake single that took only two seconds to forget altogether. That said, the roar when the lights went down was as huge as expected. Multiple video screens displayed a wild pinball animation and the dancers rose out of the stage as a wall rotated to display none other than the star attraction on a rhinestone studded throne. She was sporting the whole Queen Top look with riding crop, corset and feather collar. Then, surrounded by her dancers, we were off. By the third song a vintage Phaeton had rolled on stage, and Kanye West and Pharrell had turned up in song and on screen. All good. But Human Nature was brutal. Her voice sounded terrible and I don't know if she should ever play guitar. She sure seemed nasty repeating "I'm not your bitch." Far better was Vogue, where she could get her moves on and show off that insanely ripped stomach. Holy pilates. Into The Groove kicked off with her skipping across the stage to a pole mounted on a mobile DJ booth. Yup, she rode that action and danced herself silly on this one. A highlight of the set. And what about that full-on hard-rocking version of Borderline? It was like Madonna as interpreted by Liz Phair. Didn't see that coming. Which is exactly what you want from a major artist: an intense and entertaining overview of their career's work. This show was all about her cutting loose, her considerable talents and even staging a tantrum in She's Not Me from her latest album, Hard Candy. Perhaps the most joyous moment of the night was the double punch of the Romany-themed new arrangement of La Isla Bonita including some truly stunning dancers and killer acoustic band. Doubtless this new love of gypsy culture is partially owing to working with Gogol Bordello lead singer Eugene Hutz on her directoral debut as a film maker, titled Filth and Wisdom. It was genuine and heartfelt music-making. Unfortunately, followed by the heavy-handed pro-Obama video montage of "It's Time." It was the fourth performance video of the night and it really didn't do much. Duh, 4 Minutes followed. Cool costume change though. The crowd was getting a bit antsy, but was back on her page with Like A Prayer. This was the musical highlight in terms of creating that 'stadium' thing. People were up off their feet, clapping along and pretty well losing it. So much so that they didn't notice all the dreck appearing on the video screens. Was this a concert or an evangelist rally? Ray Of Light got things back on track turning the arena into a huge dance club. Very cool and electronic, but her voice blew out again on a few verses. The lead-up to Like A Virgin was contrived, but the whole she sang a verse and we sang a verse was great fun. Then it continued for yet another heavy rocking re-working of Hung Up. Liking this rockist approach. And she looks a little like Zakk Wylde in that leather outfit. The show finale was the new hit Give It 2 Me, and with it's declaration of no one's gonna stop me' you couldn't but agree that Madonna is certainly sticking around. When it worked well, and it mostly did, we got the star revelling in her power and some engaging staging and songs. When it bombed, what was on stage was the kind of uncontrollable ego that is the product of believing that the way you are worshiped allows you to make grand statements and "get deep." It's a precarious balance and one that fell over the edge quite a few times. (source: The Province) Vancouver - 30 October - Queen of Pop's Vancouver party There was no doubt that something big was hitting Vancouver Thursday night. Traffic was at a standstill throughout the downtown core hours before the Queen of Pop hit the stage at BC Place. Outside the stadium $300-tickets were flying out of the touts' hands. Pop royalty had arrived, and over 50,000 locals were ready to pay dearly for the privilege of its presence. Inside, two giant pink Ms, sparkled – as so they should have, with their $2-million worth of Swarovski crystals. And between them, Madonna appeared, draped across a throne, tapping a black cane to the opening bars of Candy Shop. "Get up onto your feet," she sang – but the crowd had beaten her to it. This was one party they were already up for. From a set list heavy with tracks from current album Hard Candy, the opener and its follow up – Beat Goes On – hit hard, with the latter played out with a video backdrop of collaborator Kanye West, and a look-a-like driving down the stage in style in a white vintage roadster. But the segue into Human Nature was strained, Madonna's robotic guitar-playing apparently only there to service a suggestive bump and grind against the upended instrument. It didn't help that the close up on the giant video screens reflected a face full of determination, but hardly ecstatic. Nobody ever accused Madonna of being an actress, but at times during an off-key rendition of Borderline, singing seemed to be escaping her grasp, too. She gave a convincingly angry version of She's Not Me, however – as song that berates a wannabe Madonna with a fierce warning that no matter how hard they try, they'll never be her. As she lay down and beat the ground with her fists, she looked like she meant it. There was some great spectacle: for Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, a cylindrical cage dropped from the ceiling, projected images of rain and water tumbling down its sides. But when it was just her on stage singing Miles Away, the 50-year-old icon simply looked tired. Thank goodness, then, for a spirited version of La Isla Bonita and a traditional folk song by a Romany folk band that finally gave the audience something to do with its feet. The same band elevated the schmaltzy You Must Love Me into a genuinely poignant moment, eliciting the first genuine smile of the night from the star. And when she went off-script for an audience-requested burst of Like A Virgin, it felt like the tension dropped from her otherwise tightly coiled biceps. It was a shame it hadn't happened earlier in the night: she finally seemed to be enjoying herself by the climax, pulling out a rousing version of Give It 2 Me. "No one's gonna stop me," she insisted. And who would argue with that? (source: Globeandmail.com) Vancouver - 30 October - Madonna weaves strange Madge-ic It is perhaps fitting that the first Madonna show in Vancouver falls on the night before Halloween. Out on the streets, the pre-show dinner crowd resembles nothing so much as a Night of the Living Sex and the Cities, where pods of elaborately turned-out thirtysomething women range the sidewalks, three and four abreast, the sound of giggly, two-Chardonnay laughter and spike heels ringing out in the autumn night. Eerily, the male half of the city seems to have disappeared, though some of the gaggles of girls have a token guy in tow. Inside the stadium, the haze of ladies is even thicker. Indeed, some of the men in the crowd seem to have kitted themselves in some fabulous women's wear as well. Two hours before the Queen of Pop is due to hit the stage, the air is thick with estrogen and sparkles. It is, pardon the pun, a strange Madge-ic to witness At 9:30, just an hour after she's scheduled to perform, the stage flanked by hot pink curtains bedazzled with $2-million worth of Swarovski crystals, comes alive with a bombast of visuals and driving beats, relentlessly teasing until She Appears, brandishing a sceptre and draped lasciviously across a throne. Opening with Candy Shop, from her most recent album, the arrival of Madonna in Vancouver, after 25 years of patient waiting, was everything a fan could hope for. Clad in a revealing black leotard, flanked by an army of androgynous dancers and brandishing her infamously toned body like a particularly sexy weapon, the iconic 50-year-old was, well, an icon. As if there was any doubt, the show was a eye-popping capital-S Spectacle with countless sets and costume changes. With almost ruthless efficiency, the hits were picked off one by one -- a Rolls Royce (complete with a fake Kanye West as its passenger) for the recent single Beat Goes On, a guitar and sequined top hat for Human Nature, a bevy of lithe dancers performing the unforgettable choreography from Vogue, a boxing ring sprung out of nowhere for Die Another Day, a stripper pole for the singalong of Into The Groove -- all seeming to go by in seconds. As with all things Madge, it was determined, a show that positively bombarded the audience with stimulus. Make no mistake: Madonna will entertain you, come hell or high water. Perhaps the strangest number of the evening was She's Not Me in which the furious-looking singer was surrounded by dancers dressed as various 'versions' of her throughout her career. One by one she berated them physically, ripping off Marilyn wigs and slapping cone bras. It was a jaw- dropping stunt and the first moment she seemed to connect emotionally with her songs. As disconcerting as it was to see, the indomitable pop star seemed for all the world like a woman scorned. As if it wasn't clear already, the song laid it bare: you do not want to piss off The Queen. From then on the performance loosened a bit -- the pace less hectic, and the once-Material Girl seeming to enjoy herself, especially during the campy fun of Music. If Madonna's astonishing work ethic was evident in every choreographed step, it was admirable but also somehow tragic. The most famous woman in the world seemed very alone onstage, surrounded by accessories but seemingly intimate only with her own drive. It was only a brief moment, observable only to a keen eye, but it resonated. Of course, before you could contemplate it, Madonna was performing another spectacular feat, working the crowd with all her heart. If she wasn't so dazzling, you might wish she'd keep a little for herself. (source: The Vancouver Sun) Chicago - 27 October - A remixed mind-fuck It's Madonna's job to create buzz. Hence the name of her Sticky & Sweet Tour—only slightly less misleading than her 2004 Re-Invention Tour, which suggested a career change but settled for a big-band version of Deeper And Deeper. In her latest show, Madge enters stage in an "M"-encrusted throne grinding to Candy Shop, but it's not quite the 50-year-old porn romp you might expect. By the time she transitions to Human Nature and Britney Spears shows up in a video trapped in an elevator and echoing, "I'm not your bitch/Don't hang your shit on me," it's the same as all her shows: A remixed mind-fuck. Before 4 Minutes, the Top 5 duet with Justin Timberlake, it had been seven years since a Madonna single seriously contended on mainstream radio. (Part of me wanted to think she was selling out with Hard Candy. The same artist who sampled Main Source on Human Nature was suddenly tapping...Timbaland? But then the Pharrell-produced Heartbeat and Give It 2 Me are both as pure and as fake as anything she's made since her debut 25 years ago.) But as always, she's also in the news for a couple other things: her directorial debut, Filth and Wisdom, and her maybe-it-did-maybe-it-didn't-happen affair with Alex Rodriguez, which prompted Adam Sternbergh in New York to theorize that her "true art" is that "she's so good at making us talk about her." It's a cliché to say Madonna is a queen of self-promotion, but Sternbergh's scarily misogynistic description of the singer as a "hyperbaric cougar" and an "asexual-android" gets at what has nagged the singer for years: the media's constant fascination with eviscerating her. So it's no surprise that Madonna's new show comes off not unlike an act of self-defense. She dresses in a boxer uniform for a Die Another Day backdrop, emphasizing her already-muscular arms. Unlike your run-of-the-mill diva, Madonna is willing to get dirty for her art, and she sometimes gets lost in her backup dancers' routine, though she's quick to remind the audience, "I'm still the one in control." Even so, Madonna has always been willing to make fun of her own image. During She's Not Me, she makes out with a younger version of herself (the horny bride from the 1984 VMAs), and then kicks her to the curb. The most overtly political moment is a montage called "Get Stupid," which starts with an image of a swastika and ends with images of John Lennon and Barack Obama. A song about the freedom to dance (Beat Goes On) becomes an anthem for political frustration, and it's the only moment that's generated any real controversy, but she doesn't say anything about either the Republican or the Democratic candidate that she hasn't said before. The power of any great Madonna song is implicit: "Say what you like/Do what you feel/You know exactly who you are." Past becomes present at a Madonna show. The singer is known for reinventing her old material—no classic is sacred (this time she turns Ray Of Light into even more of a drug-induced European dance party). There are some uninspired rock-star moments (basically anytime she holds an electric guitar), but Madonna's ability to redefine and recontextualize every song is still awe-inspiring. A little bit of her Erotica-era cheekiness reappears during Sticky & Sweet, from putting her dancers in bondage outfits during a mash-up of Vogue and 4 Minutes to jumping rope during Into The Groove, the backdrop of which pays homage to her old friend, the late Keith Haring. Sternbergh's right in a way: "Of course it's Madonna." She makes the rules, but she also breaks them. Like a sex instructor, Madonna rules over her audience and tells them when they're allowed to get off (at one point mock-masturbating over someone's head). And when the words "Game Over" flash on the screen at the end of the show, you're just happy to have played along. (source: Slant Magazine) Chicago - 26 October - Madonna goes back in time, around the world For the Average Joe, plumber or no, an identity crisis is a private thing, aided by psychological therapy and a lot of pharmaceuticals. But for Madonna, an identity crisis takes a different toll: Mock catharsis before about 35,000 fans. At the United Center Sunday, the first of two stops on her current Sticky and Sweet Tour, Madonna confronted the multiple identities she's rotated through since 1982. Using She's Not Me, a new song, she redirected the lyrics sung from the perspective of a jilted lover to four dancers costumed in the iconic images of her past hits: the virgin in the wedding dress, the "Material Girl" starlet, the blonde with ambition in the conical bra and the "Vogue" ingenue. Each was assaulted by the present day incarnation. She ripped off their wigs, tore their dresses and otherwise thrashed against her past, which was finally killed -- appropriately -- by a kiss. And suffocation by bridal veil. Madonna is a master of disguise, but even at age 50 she manages to elude. Recent news of her divorce did not make it to the stage -- well, suffocating her dancer in that bridal veil may have meant something -- because her current, and perhaps most lasting, manifestation is that of a stone-faced aerobics master who finds pleasure in choreographed combat. After playing every role and foraging every musical style, what's left? Many of Madonna's favorite roles were reprised on this tour, but few felt freshly renewed. Most worn is her role as global messenger. A video interlude flashed images of world poverty and benevolent celebrities, but the underlying message of saving the world rang hollow. A more credible gesture may have been hosting tables in the lobby advocating Darfur relief, instead of images of emaciated children set to disco beats. A good part of the show was dedicated to Eastern European music -- which included a gypsy band performing the Spanish-language La Isla Bonita, which led to a cantina sequence and You Must Love Me, a ballad from Evita. It was commendable how she transformed a part of her catalog that seemed most unshakable, but mixing all languages, dress, and musical styles made the sequence feel like global clutter. Madonna is still best served on the dance floor. Almost two hours long, the show mostly consisted of songs from Hard Candy (Warner Bros.), a new album that combined hip-hop swagger and hard beats. Older songs were remixed to keep up: Into The Groove and Like A Prayer thumped more intensely than ever. Strapping on a guitar, she also reminded the audience she came of age in the punk era: Borderline, her first Top Ten hit from 1984, became raucous pop-punk. The most impressive sequence of the night was the return to the old school. Keith Haring characters danced in animation in the background while dancers break-danced and a DJ spun hip-hop. Together they looked like the cast of "Fame" and Madonna looked less the elder than just one of the gang. She proved it too: Joining in the jump-rope line, she did the Double Dutch like she was 16, ending with her hands raised in victory. "You can't touch this!" she yelled in a dare, less about sweat and more about stamina. (source: Chicago Sun-Times) Chicago - 26 October - Madonna's a dancing fool Smiles don't come easy for Madonna. Instead, there are usually smirks, sneers, pouts, leers and thin-lipped, tough-as-nails displays of contempt for anyone who would dare mess with her. Madonna, she's one tough dominatrix, and she's got better developed biceps than just about any of the fans who filled the United Center on Sunday for the first of two concerts. But smile she did Sunday, and often. Madonna having fun on stage? Exuding warmth rather than wielding a riding crop? Yes, it happened, a refreshing break from recent tours which presented a woman on a take-no-prisoners mission. Consider the 50-year-old singer's three-decade history as a performer: Her dancing, endurance and high-concept sets are never less than ambitious. But usually they have all the spontaneity of a big-budget Broadway musical. Her tours are always technically impressive, and this one was no exception, a four-part blitz of video, dances with 16 accomplices and costume changes involving (no lie) "3,500 individual wardrobe elements," according to a tour guide. And there were the usual canned vocals; about half the time, the massive "voice" coming out of the public-address system had little to do with the performer on stage. Once again the line between live performance and hyper-stylized MTV video was blurred --- a concept Madonna practically invented in the '80s. In many ways, the Sticky & Sweet tour is more of the same. But it was less muddled by high-concept statements, and threw itself into a low-concept sweat. Here was a show that sustained an Into The Groove-like party vibe for nearly two straight hours. Big Ideas were conspicuously absent, save for a dunderheaded video interlude equating a certain presidential candidate with fascists and mass murderers and another candidate with saints and liberators. Otherwise, Madonna switched off her brain and flipped on the mirror-ball switch. She muscled up to push a car full of dancers, then impersonated Joan Jett with an electric guitar-driven version of Borderline. Much headbanging ensued. The fun quotient was never higher than on She's Not Me, with the singer interacting with four dancers dolled up like Madonnas of the past, including the Like A Virgin tease in a wedding dress and her platinum-haired Marilyn Monroe incarnation. Things slowed a bit during the third segment, with a shrouded performer atop a piano in a cage-like cylinder, but peaked with a celebratory La Isla Bonita, complete with flamenco string band. A beaming Madonna strutted arm in arm with a retinue of female dancers, and it was almost possible to see her not as a pop icon, a hard-edged diva, but as the ringleader of a gang. Of course, she ruined that illusion by slipping into her big Evita ballad, You Must Love Me, which sounded more like a demand than a plea. No matter. Like A Prayer soon rolled in, and then Madonna took requests. She stumbled through a few lines of Beautiful Stranger, then got back on script by strapping on her guitar for a heavy metal Hung Up. This was Madonna doing disco with feedback firing and devil horns flashing. Once again, she was grinning, this time like a 15-year-old listening to an AC/DC eight-track in the high school parking lot. It's a good look. (source: Chicago Tribune) Chicago - 26 October - Extravagant show reimagines Madge's pop catalog Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour stopped for the first of two concerts at United Center Sunday, toting a reported 3,500 individual wardrobe elements by 36 different designers, 28 onstage performers and nine hydraulic lifts. With a production this huge and a sold-out crowd paying $50 to $350 per seat, it would seem the economy is doing just fine. By touching on each of her 11 albums (with Erotica and American Life relegated to wardrobe-change video interludes), the chameleonic pop icon should have had diversity on her side. Instead, her setlist leaned heavily on her dance music, as club-oriented material has sold the best for her in recent years. These hard-thumping songs celebrated self-confidence, sexuality and, uh, dancing, reflecting her career-long love of electronic beats, yet also selling her adaptability short. Three quarters of Madonna's 2008 album Hard Candy were aired, including the hit Justin Timberlake duet 4 Minutes, which aside from its bright brass samples sounded identical in its hypnotic monotony to Timberlake's "SexyBack." That's somewhat understandable since both tracks share predictable megaproducer Timbaland, but it points to a larger problem with Madonna's recent stuff. Sure, it fits into the current pop landscape better than that of any veteran artist, but it no longer stands out. Take the new arrangement of Vogue, which incorporated pulsing electro beats and elements of newer Madonna songs. This approach helped the decades-old track blend in with the sleek contemporary material, but to the effect of making it interchangeable with the rest. A rocked-up variation on early hit Borderline, one of several during which Madonna stummed a guitar, certainly sounded different, but lacking the bubbly enthusiasm of the original synth-pop setting. Into The Groove fared much better, set to a thumping house rhythm with breakdancers and animated Keith Haring art nodding to its '80s origin. La Isla Bonita also sounded energized by a quicker tempo and Romany folk musicians injecting the evening's most genuine multicultural expression. But, hey, who sees Madonna for the music? Her shows are more like theatrical productions, her dancers and lighting technicians as crucial to the night as her lithe, limber strutting. Although it started nearly an hour late, the spectacle was seamless and immense, from the ever-moving video screens (they held cameos by Kanye West and Britney Spears) to the bizarre boxing/dance routine accompanying the prerecorded Die Another Day. Yet the biggest spectacle of all was naturally Madonna herself. She's in fantastic shape and almost never stopped moving while she was in front of the crowd, all of which spoke volumes about her self-respect. However, during new track She's Not Me, she flashed dozens of images of herself on the screens while dismissing a series of look-alikes, turning a pithy kiss-off to an ex-lover into a creepy parade of self-worship. (source: Daily Herald) Montreal - 22 October - Madonna getting younger with age Two years after her last visit, and just one week after news broke of her impending divorce from husband Guy Ritchie, 50-year-old pop queen Madonna settled in for the first of two sold-out nights before 17,800 fans at the Bell Centre. And the party was most definitely on. Relatively speaking, of course. The renowned perfectionist plans her shows to the T, and sticks to script every step of the way. But her music (particularly that of her last two albums) has stayed self-consciously young. And to her credit, despite rumours of her rigid stage presence - which was very much the case in 2006 - Madonna actually seemed to be having fun. This was a looser show than the last - less bogged down by elaborate props, and leaving more room for Madge, her dancers and band to interact. A matrix of state-of-the-art screens, and hydraulic platforms provided the setting for her and her entourage to entertain. After an elaborate video intro - featuring a candy factory/pinball game montage - she emerged on a throne, a leg provocatively straddled over one of the arms. The song was Candy Shop, off her new album Hard Candy. "Get up out of your seats," she sang, as she and eight dancers pranced about to the clubby groove. Video cameos dotted the evening, with the main players of the pop new school - Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake - each making virtual appearances. The performance was divided into four thematic segments: Pimp, NY Old School, Romani Gypsy and Rave Armageddon. A highlight of the first was the funky Beat Goes On (with Pharrell), in which she and her dancers rolled down the catwalk in a Rolls Royce. It was the second set, however, that stood out most. With Keith Haring videos playing on the big screens, Madonna and her entourage literally skipped (with ropes) their way through a dance remix of