Madonna prays for all of us, Madonna prays for us to live a conscious life, and prays for us to treat each other with humanity and respect. It would seem like a prayer, but it is part of the speech that the greatest survivor of pop delivers to her fans in Barcelona, to her fans in London or to her fans in Boston. Of course, always managing to make them feel unique. Meanwhile, she manages to occupy the role of a devotee and the venerated Christ. She always at mass and ringing. "I am the mother of all of you, Barcelona. Are we here?"
Her second concert in Barcelona on this Celebration Tour with which the author of Like a Virgin celebrates her 40-year career began not only 80 minutes late, like the first, but more than an hour and a half. Which came out to two and a half minutes for each year of seniority. Or because for the stars of the 20th century, waiting is still part of being divine. Especially if when she finally appears, she does so wearing a saint's crown and a medieval sorceress-style tunic.
There are good and diverse reasons why Maddona's fans have had a great time on this double visit of hers to the Palau Sant Jordi. And the first is that he made it sound wonderfully good. May the Into the groove and Open your heart, the Holiday or Like a prayer justly evoke the flavor of yesterday. Yes, of course, ma'am, you can tame the damn acoustics!
The second is that in his last appearance in 2015 he did not leave such a great taste in the mouth, let alone on the MDNA album tour from eleven years ago. There Madonna caused disappointment: at 53 years old she did not handle Lady Gaga's appearance well and she chose to resemble her, both in her appearance of a plastic doll and in the treatment of her voice, just as unreal.
Now, however, she seems to have made friends with herself to present that "journey of my life through music, lyrics and stories that have happened to me in my life." The eternal transgressor, provocative in her constant marriage between religious iconography and a proud display of sexuality - genuine transformation of a dozen dancers that go from Christ on the cross to disturbing sadomaso -, has reconciled with the various madonnas that she has been to throughout four decades of career. And she performs her greatest hits - sometimes just a note within a medley - with her original voice. Of course, some more serious tone.
What does it matter that most of the songs sound pre-recorded. For years her audience has preferred to see her dance in shows rather than suffer with her vocal effort live. On top of that, she doesn't even have a band, except for a couple of her adopted children, who appear playing the piano (Estere) or the guitar (David). And a little more.
Other reasons for the unlimited joy with Blonde Ambition - who on this tour at times seems more like an Orthopedic Barbie - is that she carries her 65 with tranquility and without so many pretensions, even allowing the inevitable carnal flaccidity of her arms to appear in erotic scenes, something that in the immediate past would have been a sin for this victim - and judge - of the ageism that he denounces so much. The biggest scare she had four months ago, when a lethal infection seemed to overtake her, must have reminded her of the true value of her life.
All in all, it is the salon culture that she launched in 1990 with her successful Vogue that gives the program a sense of celebration. Thirteen dancers, mostly queer practitioners of feminine aesthetics, vibrate and make people vibrate with their constant festive and muscular parade. The icon of the gay community that Madonna has always been is now reaping her harvest in the woke era, setting the trend with a styling catalog that is ideal for showing off shapeless thighs (or cellulite).
"Hello, handsome, beautiful. Look at you! What matters is that you have taken a risk," the diva says to a hair-deep man in the audience wearing a Vogue/Gautier comme il faut bustier. "We will not survive if we do not risk. What we risk is what we are worth, and what I value is all of you," continues the priestess before singing, now, with her live voice, calm, slow, the hymn I will survive.
The diva will have gone through episodes of her life, from her punk beginnings at CBGB in New York and the now famous scene in which she begs the bouncer at the Paradise Garage nightclub to let her in while other beautiful queens who don't wear lace bodysuits and Fishnet stockings like her pass calmly.
Master of telling a story, as she did with the music videos and with each album, Maddona embraces her own life but from another, deeper place. She interacted with all the madonnas, with her children, with the friends who died from AIDS, with the artists who influenced her and left us, from Billie Holiday to David Bowie. And she even allows herself a little suicide like she is mixing her Like a Virgin with Michael Jackson's Billie Jeane. Her youthful self interacting with Chinese shadows with the silhouette of the king of pop. From the authentic and undisputed King of pop. And there it is diluted -Oh, boy!-We are a sugar.
As he told the audience..."You can call me mother, or you can call me mother fucker.
Farewell, Madonna, mother of the people of Barcelona.
