Article from the Toronto Sun

Madonna Tribe‘s correspondent from Canada, Toronto Boy has sent us an article from the Toronto Sun about Madonna, her career and the Re-Invention Tour.

The article by Jane Stevenson is in the end a round up of old news and rumours, that you can read by clicking on the Full Article option.

Madonna: The Mother of Re-Invention
At 45, pop music’s greatest chameleon has finally decided to go with a
‘mature’ outlook
By JANE STEVENSON — Toronto Sun
The Mother of Re-Invention has re-invented herself yet again. And this
time, Madonna’s finally admitting it.

When The Material Girl, Madge, Esther — take your pick — brings her aptly
titled Re-Invention Tour to the Air Canada Centre tonight (for the first of
three sold-out shows), concert-goers will be getting a decidedly less
raunchy, more preachy evening of music than they’re used to.

Can you say less sex, more politics and religion?

Given it’s been 11 years since Madonna played in T.O.with her much more
lascivious Girlie Show Tour at SkyDome, clearly a lot has happened over the
past decade to lead to such a dramatic, more mature transformation.

Especially since the 45-year-old singer-dancer has succeeded in shocking us
over the past twenty years with her various naughty and rebellious looks,
actions, videos and books like Sex, etc.

In a sentence, she’s grown up. Or seems to have.

Two children (seven-year-old daughter Lourdes, a.k.a. Lola, and
three-year-old son Rocco), a happy second marriage to British filmmaker Guy
Ritchie, who’s ten years her junior (who would have thunk it?) and her study
of the Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah will do that to you.

She’s most recently stated that she chose the Hebrew name Esther for herself
as a follower of the religion, prompting huge laughs amongst her critics.

“I’m a little bit irritated that people think that it’s like some celebrity
bandwagon that I’ve jumped on, or say somebody like Demi (Moore) has jumped
on,” Madge told 20/20’s Cynthia McFadden in the only interview she’s granted
thus far while on tour.

“We take it very seriously.”

But when McFadden asked her if there was a reigning philosophy in her
household, Madonna replied: “Clean up your s–t.”

A great answer but didn’t we all expect a little bit more in the way of sage
wisdom from this female powerhouse?

Especially one that’s rumoured to be visiting fertility clinics in L.A. in
an effort to have a third child?

“She’s a pop force to be reckoned with, or certainly was,” Canadian singer
K.D. Lang told the Toronto Sun. “And has tremendously placed the bar way
above where it was for women in music before (her). She’s been an immense
help to women in music.”

That may be so, but there’s been some serious career mis-steps in the past
couple of years including Madonna’s obvious manoeuvres to re-capture the
youth market.

She hooked up with the far inferior Britney Spears for her Me Against The
Music video having earlier famously kissed her at the MTV Awards, appeared
in a Gap ad alongside Missy Elliott who remixed Get Into The Groove, and
became the author of children’s books that have received mixed reviews. (She
just released the third installment in a five-book series.)

And what about those seriously bad movies — 2002s’ Swept Away, directed by
Ritchie, and 2000’s The Next Best Thing, — and two of her less-than-stellar
albums — 2003’s American Life and 2000’s Music?

Still, to come this year, is production on a Martin Scorsese-produced
musical called Hello Sucker!, which doesn’t exactly sound like a winner.

Does great art come from personal suffering? In Madonna’s case, it would
appear so.

At the L.A. launch of her Re-Invention trek back on May 24, I kind of missed
the gender-bending, provocative artist of old.

Even her 2001 Drowned World Tour, while having fewer chestnuts from the
Madonna catalogue, was a way more visually stunning show.

And despite those breathless British tabloid reports of simulated lesbian
sex and getting electrocuted on stage during the Re-Invention production —
neither materialized. (The supposed electrocution saw Madonna strapped into
an electric chair but that was about as exciting as it got.)

Not that she entirely disappointed. On the contrary.

If Madonna really excels at one thing in this world, it’s her live
performances. Why else would her three dates in Toronto — she also plays
tomorrow night and Wednesday night — sell-out in a record-setting 80
minutes?

She’s an incredible dancer, if not an incredible singer, and she does
possess clarity of vision, designer style and a healthy sense of humour.

For example at the Los Angeles tour opener, the reworking of Get Into The
Groove, was a hilarious bit of staging which featured Madonna in a kilt —
in a shout-out to her husband’s ancestry — accompanied by bagpipers and
drummers.

And all those years of serious yoga practice seemed to have really paid off
as she emerged from beneath the stage on a platform for the show opener
Vogue and immediately went into a stand where she placed her entire body
weight on her forearms.

Still, Madonna was hurting for all her physical efforts with a nude bandage
on her right forearm and a black tensor bandage around her left knee visible
on opening night.

Hey, if the healthy specimen that is Madge is vulnerable, what hope is there
for the rest of us?

While Lang, an L.A. resident for the past couple of years, didn’t attend any
of Madonna’s shows on the West Coast — “I wouldn’t really be that engaged
in Madonna’s tour at this point. I’ve seen here like three times already!”
she commented — another prominent, if younger Canadian female artist had
plans to catch Madonna in Toronto.

Napanee, Ont., pop-rock teen sensation Avril Lavigne, said she’s more of a
fan of the pop icon than the musical artist.

“I have a lot of respect for her because she has longevity and she’s been
around for so long and she’s always changed her style and been evolving and
I think she’s a really strong woman and she’s always surprising people,”
Lavigne told the Sun.

“And I think she’s smart, a very smart business woman. I really like her.
I’m not saying I’m a fan. I’m saying her, Madonna, what she has done, what
she has accomplished, I look at that and I have a lot of respect for her.
I’m curious to see what her show’s like.”

So what can fans expect tonight, tomorrow night and Wednesday night?

An hour-and-50-minute show that’s big on production and costume changes and
heavy on the hits — with such ’80s gems as Papa Don’t Preach, Crazy For You
and Holiday featured prominently — and plenty of Bush-bashing during the
title track from American Life.

Yes, after wimping out earlier and pulling the original video for American
Life from music video channels — apparently out of sensitivity to the
troops in Iraq — she’s finally showing those controversial visuals in
concert as Bush and Saddam Hussein share a cigar.

Madonna is also being followed by a documentary crew, a la Truth Or Dare,
and they were highly visible on launch night as they filmed a proud Ritchie
beaming near the front of the stage.

Next up for The Material Girl is a planned tour of Israel’s holy places in
October with a group of more than 100 students studying Kabbalah.

Apparently, she’ll be staying in an out-of-the-way guest house, avoiding
fans and TV cameras. (Now that better make it into the documentary.)

Otherwise, she most recently got bought out of her share of Maverick Records
by parent company Warner Music Group and won the right to exclude hikers
from her $23-million English country estate saying they would have destroyed
her right to a private family life.

Maybe Madonna will concentrate on being a gardener next. Pregnant, barefoot
and in her English garden.

Seems like a good place for Esther.