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Madonna: The Confessions Tour

Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) was Madonna’s heralded return to club music. Not only did the album resuscitate her record sales, debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200 and topping charts worldwide, its singles (“Hung Up”, “Jump”, “Sorry”, and “Get Together”) were among the most infections club hits of Madonna’s 25-year career. Altogether, Confessions on a Dance Floor proved that Madonna, approaching 50 years-old, is a vital force in the ever-expansive landscape of popular music. Buy that album. Her latest release, however…

The Confessions Tour follows on the release of I’m Going to Tell You a Secret (2006), which was a documentary about Madonna’s “Re-Invention” tour. Like its predecessor, The Confessions Tour is a lavish CD/DVD package. Instead of a documentary, the DVD on this set presents a full-length concert directed by Jamie King from Madonna’s Wembley Arena date. The CD contains 13 highlights from the show. Aside from over-saturating the market with three Madonna releases in two years, there’s a fundamental problem with the release of The Confessions Tour .

Experiencing recorded dance music in a club and hearing it rendered live in concert on a CD constitutes two very different experiences. The 4/4 beat that stimulates the body to dance sounds less dense in such a massive space like Wembley. This works against the The Confessions Tour since most tracks have a fast beats-per-minute count. If the beat is a bone, so to speak, there isn’t a lot of muscle cushioning it. The aural clarity and seamlessness of the songs on Confessions on a Dance Floor are also butchered on The Confessions Tour by zealous audience reactions. Enjoying propulsive tracks like “Hung Up” and “I Love New York” is difficult because of interminable vamps that are dotted by annoying hoots and hollers. Just what is everyone yelling about at the 00:42 mark during “Sorry”?

Such curiosities are answered on the DVD of The Confessions Tour . Whereas the CD is a superfluous “value add”, the DVD is thrilling entertainment, particularly for Madonna fans. Since Madonna is among the few artists to successfully and consistently exploit the visual medium to her benefit, it should surprise no one that The Confessions Tour is a stellar visual experience. Each song is dramatized and choreographed to within an inch of its life; therein lies Madonna’s most indispensable and enduring talent — dancing. The limbs that gave birth to a million “Madonna Wannabe’s” are stronger and more sinewy than ever. On The Confessions Tour Madonna is joined by a dozen or so dancers who narrowly escape injury during remarkable acrobatic dance sequences. Even more amazing is that Madonna breathlessly keeps pace with every one of them.

The stage design of The Confessions Tour gives Madonna and her “children” a decadent playground to frolic about. The moment she enters the stage inside a gargantuan mirror ball, understatement ceases to exist. Most notorious among Madonna’s grandiose gestures is her entrance from the stage floor cuffed to a gigantic crucifix posed like Jesus Christ, replete with a crown of thorns. After singing “Live to Tell”, Madonna descends the cross and warbles “Forbidden Love”. Accompanying her are male dancers who stand side-by-side in two’s, intertwining their arms and hands in obvious defiance to the cross. It’s an effective tableau .

Following a static-fueled montage of vintage Madonna videos, a DJ announces, “All right boys and girls, it’s time to get your dance shoes on. You’re listening to K UNT. (Get it?) It’s all Madonna, all the time”. The familiar bass line of “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps explodes with a chorus-line’s worth of disco dancers and roller skaters. Madonna emerges in a three-piece white suite à la John Travolta and sings “Music” over the sampled track. It’s gloriously fun, feckless, and tacky.

Less so are Madonna’s cold rearrangements of “Like a Virgin” and “Lucky Star”. The soulless Eurodisco beat fails to match the charm of the originals. The melodies are basically sung over chord progressions that bear little resemblance to the original arrangements. “Lucky Star”, for example, is paired with the track to “Hung Up”, itself a sampling of ABBA’s “Gimmie! Gimmie! Gimmie! (A Man After Midnight)”. The match is not made in heaven, though Madonna’s skin-tight, ABBA-esque jump suit is an amusing intertextualization.

But even the most rabid anti-Madonna listener or cynical music lover would find elements of The Confessions Tour impressive, whether the jaw-dropping talent of Madonna’s B-boys and girls, the awe-inspiring diligence of her lighting and sound crew, her rock-chick pose on “I Love New York”, or the audacity of her massive “fuck you” to George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Osama Bin Laden, and Condoleezza Rice on “Sorry”.

The oversaturation of recent Madonna product is ultimately what precludes The Confessions Tour from being wholly satisfying to anyone but the die-hard Madonna fan. How many people actually care to hear Madonna lead the audience in a three-minute call-and-response contest to the “Time goes by so slowly” refrain from “Hung Up”? Clocking in just under four hours, Madonna might as well be referencing the The Confessions Tour package.

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The Confessions Tour (2006)

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Madonna will be dancing and singing across the stages of the world this spring and summer, it was announced today. The “Confessions Tour” with concerts across major US cities, Canada, Europe and Japan will begin in Los Angeles on May 21st. “Confessions” tour dates were officially confirmed by Madonna’s managers Angela Becker and Guy Oseary, along with Arthur Fogel, President of The Next Adventure (a Live Nation Company), the tour’s worldwide promoter.

Tour stops in North America for the “Confessions Tour” will include arenas in Chicago, Boston, San Jose, Phoenix, Fresno, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Miami, Montreal and New York. Overseas appearances will take place in arenas, stadiums and outdoor venues in Paris, France; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Cardiff, Wales; Rome, Italy; Dusseldorf and Hannover Germany; Horsens, Denmark; Osaka and Tokyo Japan.

The “Confessions” Tour will be directed by longtime Madonna collaborator Jamie King with Stuart Price once again on board as Musical Director. Arianne Phillips and Jean Paul Gaultier, long standing members of Madonna’s creative team, will respectively oversee and design costumes for the tour.

Madonna’s previous tour, the 2004 “Re-Invention Tour” was the most successful tour of that year, according to Billboard Magazine.

The Warner Bros. Records mega star, whose current CD “Confessions on a Dance Floor” debuted at No.1 in 29 countries, has already begun rehearsals in Los Angeles with her talented troupe of musicians and dancers. With a staggering 35 No. 1 hits on Billboard’s dance charts during the course of her unparalleled career, it’s no surprise that Madonna issued the following mission statement regarding the “Confessions Tour”: “I’m going to turn the world into one big dance floor,” exhorted the Material Girl.

The multi-Grammy Award winning artist, songwriter, children’s book author, producer and video visionary with an unrivaled reputation for astonishing stage spectacles, has made musical history many times over including international record sales of over 200 million albums. A cultural innovator of astonishing diversity and enduring appeal, Madonna has defined our era with a sound, style and vision that has inspired countless artists and millions of fans around the globe. In the process, she has pioneered a new model of creative empowerment, overseeing a multi-faceted career that encompasses virtually every aspect of contemporary culture.

Existing Madonna Fan Club Icon Members will receive a special pre-sale opportunity prior to the public sales dates. Members can check www.madonna.com for complete details.

Additional dates forthcoming.

For Official Tour and Fan Club Information, visit: www.confessionstour.com and www.madonna.com

Warner Bros. Records

H&M TO DRESS MADONNA’S TEAM ON CONFESSIONS WORLD TOUR

Upcoming advertising campaign with madonna and dancers to follow.

8 June, 2006

In a dream marriage of music and fashion, Madonna , has joined up with fashion giant H&M to supply a complete off stage wardrobe for her entire touring troupe including her band, dancers, crew members and the Material girl herself, it was announced today by H&M. With a shared philosophy of diversity and fashion freedom, “Team Madonna” participants will be free to choose clothing from H&M’s extensive 2006 collection.

Madonna, whose Confessions Tour opened on May 21st, will be dressed by famed designer Jean-Paul Gaultier while on-stage looks forward to being equally fashionable when she steps off the stage in H&M.

“Partnering up with H&M feels like a perfect fit. We’ll all get to express ourselves in our own individual ways. The dancers and I are excited to go shopping together,” stated Madonna.

Other aspects of the collaboration between H&M and the artist will include a specially designed Madonna track suit which will be available in H&M stores in mid August as well as an advertising campaign featuring Madonna and her legendary dancers.

“This is a thrill for H&M. Aside from being great fans of Madonna’s music and fashion sense, we admire her ability to always be ahead of the trends in everything she does. We look forward to seeing how her touring family translates H&M’s seasonal trends to their own personal looks,” says H&M’s head of design Margareta van den Bosch.

Founded in Sweden in 1947, H&M, which has over 1,200 stores in 22 countries, is synonymous around the world with affordable, up to date and high quality fashion. The company’s collections are created by their own designers. The spring/summer 2006 seasonal trends are romanticism inspired by the early 1900’s – clean cut tailoring in light neutrals and Riviera style preppy glamour. In addition, there is a wide range of updated classics including knitwear, denim, t-shirts and mix and match sweatshirts and accessories to complete any individual look.

Madonna, a multi-Grammy Award winning artist, children’s author and visionary is a cultural innovator of astonishing diversity and enduring appeal. Her current CD Confessions On A Dance Floor debuted at No.1 in 29 countries. The Confessions Tour is scheduled to travel the world through the end of September.

May 21 – Los Angeles USA May 23 – Los Angeles USA May 24 – Los Angeles USA May 27 – Las Vegas USA May 28 – Las Vegas USA May 30 – San Jose USA May 31 – San Jose USA Jun 03 – Los Angeles USA Jun 05 – Fresno USA Jun 06 – Fresno USA Jun 08 – Phoenix USA Jun 10 – Phoenix USA Jun 14 – Chicago USA Jun 15 – Chicago USA Jun 18 – Chicago USA Jun 19 – Chicago USA Jun 21 – Montreal Canada Jun 22 – Montreal Canada Jun 25 – Hartford USA Jun 26 – Hartford USA Jun 28 – New York USA Jun 29 – New York USA Jul 02 – New York USA Jul 03 – New York USA Jul 06 – Boston USA Jul 09 – Boston USA Jul 10 – Boston USA Jul 12 – Philadelphia USA Jul 13 – Philadelphia USA Jul 16 – Atlantic City USA Jul 18 – New York USA Jul 19 – New York USA Jul 22 – Miami USA Jul 23 – Miami USA Jul 30 – Cardiff Wales Aug 01 – London England Aug 03 – London England Aug 06 – Rome Italy Aug 09 – London England Aug 10 – London England Aug 12 – London England Aug 13 – London England Aug 15 – London England Aug 16 – London England Aug 20 – Dusseldorf Aug 22 – Hannover Aug 24 – Horsens Denmark Aug 27 – Paris France Aug 28 – Paris France Aug 30 – Paris France Aug 31 – Paris France Sep 03 – Amsterdam Sep 04 – Amsterdam Sep 06 – Prague Sep 07 – Prague Sep 11 – Moscow Sep 16 – Osaka Japan Sep 17 – Osaka Japan Sep 20 – Tokyo Japan Sep 21 – Tokyo Japan

The Confessions Tour

Europe (2006), kimberly van pinxteren.

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Listen for the Music, Look for the Muscles

By Ginia Bellafante

• Nov. 24, 2006

Will Madonna ever get old? She may acquire more gravitas, continue to mature emotionally and find greater meaning in her work with kabbalah, but will she ever come to look arthritic, puffy, menopausal? This increasingly seems doubtful. Madonna no longer reinvents, she maintains.

It is the sheer spectacularity of her physical form, the near menacing force of it, and largely that alone, that sustains your attention in “Madonna: The Confessions Tour, Live From London,” the two-hour film of a concert she gave at the Wembley Arena in London this past summer, which was broadcast on NBC Wednesday night and will be shown on Bravo next week.

With each tour Madonna has embarked on in recent years, her deltoids appear to have grown more regally expansive, robust and winglike. Toward the end of the Wembley show, part of a worldwide tour pegged to her album “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” Madonna sings one of the hits from it, “Hung Up,” a song about a woman who migrates between boredom and agony as she waits for a man to call. But who could this man possibly be? Unless Madonna is expecting a call from Wladimir Klitschko about meeting him in the ring, the sight of her singing a song like this, in a leotard no less, leaves you feeling as you might if you were forced to watch Ethel Merman trying to impersonate Chet Baker.

The show pays tribute to Madonna’s current and former selves and does so with dizzying jump cuts and all the spectacle — the acrobatics, playground sets, endless costume changes — that have become the hallmark of her concerts.

Today, Madonna, who is 48, is a concerned citizen of the world. She has made African AIDS orphans one of her causes and wants to adopt a child from Malawi, causing some controversy. At one point in the concert, she sings “Live to Tell” against the backdrop of images of children in Africa and a speeding tally of the number who have been left parentless. But here again, her perfect musculature produces a kind of dissonance. Madonna doesn’t have an altruist’s body, she has a denier’s. What you’re tallying in your head when you watch her dance with the strength and agility of a 19-year-old are the number of hours she spends each day practicing Ashtanga yoga, running hills and bench-pressing the weight of a Regency table. You are tallying all the calories that Madonna is not eating.

In addition to keeping up her legendary physical regimen, Madonna now also rides horses on her country estate in England. Some critics have seen this as another aspect of her Anglophilic pretensions, but what is really surprising is that it took her so long to cotton to a sport so steeped in the dynamic of submission and control. Madonna the equestrian seems the most inevitable Madonna of all. Perhaps realizing that on some level, she opened her Wembley show looking as if she were about to ride in a reimagining of Ascot. She danced around, directing men on all fours before she rode an apparatus meant to look like an electric horse.

Madonna travels backward in the show to the beginning of her career, the time before she was encumbered with the need to do good. The documentary “I’m Going to Tell You a Secret,” which follows her on her 2004 world tour, reveals a Madonna who wants to learn all the time, who hugs her assistant and dancers, who wishes she’d been nicer to people when she was young. Perhaps she knows that many in her audience miss the Madonna of so many Madonnas ago, the one who refused refinement and probably thought Oxford was just an insurance company.

“The Confessions Tour” gets deeper and deeper into her early disco years as it progresses, with Madonna getting in and out of a “Saturday Night Fever” tuxedo and Jane Fonda-esque aerobics gear before it’s all over, as if to tell us that sometimes, yes, she misses herself too.

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