Tour Memories: PORTRAIT OF MADONNA AS AN ARTIST
Madonna Tribe reader Alan Ilagan sent this interesting article he wrote about his Madonna tour experience during the Drowned World Tour
PORTRAIT OF MADONNA AS AN ARTIST
written by Alan Bennett Ilagan
www.alanilagan.com
Sitting in Seat 4 – Row 4 in Section LOGE10 of Boston’s Fleetcenter, I am
awaiting the entrance of the world’s most famous woman – the one-name wonder
who is going to make my life-long dream come true – Madonna. A curious
phenomenon occurs a few moments before she is set to take the stage: the
janitors, cooks, cleaning staff, and behind-the-scenes folk of the facility
have all come out of the woodwork and assembled on the floor to witness the
arrival of a married mother of two ~ such is the effect of a living icon,
and proof of her enduring ability to fascinate and enthrall almost everyone.
The greatest works of art are those that inspire and challenge, leaving the
viewer or listener forever altered or changed, and somehow better for it. On
her sold-out Drowned World Tour 2001, which winds up this month in Los
Angeles, Madonna accomplishes just that. Our reigning Queen Mother of Pop,
Mrs. Ritchie has enjoyed mainstream success while never bothering to stoop
to mediocre mainstream muck. Ever on the cutting edge, she is one of the
only superstars to maintain an avant-garde sensibility, and that is
evidenced in her current tour.
Casual listeners may be put off by the lack of familiar hits ~ the set list
is made up mostly of songs culled from her last two albums, Ray of Light and
Music. It’s a typically gutsy Madonna move; this is one woman who has never
looked back. To do so would induce boredom, stagnation, or, worst of all,
drowning. In her tour book she quotes George Ohsawa: “The individual who no
longer has a rigid mind has found freedom. Life can be so easy. Refuse to
let go and you are a person drowning; the more you struggle, the faster you
sink.”
particularly freedom of artistic expression. In this case she finds freedom
from the past, most meaningfully from her earlier, material-obsessed
personae. Since 1998’s Ray of Light album, Madonna has made a spiritual
transformation, and such a change could not help but parlay its way into her
art. Her career has always been a mix of style and substance, shock and
seriousness, entertainment and enlightenment, but with her Drowned World
Tour she offers up a live performance that transcends the current state of
pop music, proving her well-seasoned worth and artistic ambition.
Within the show she traverses the globe, drawing upon the punky club scene
of London, the gorgeous geisha period of Japan, a country cowgirl bit of
bull-riding Americana, the Spanish-laced tango of Argentina, and a
ghetto-fabulous pimp-mommy ode to NYC. Such a patch-work mix may not blend
easily on paper, but Madonna sews it all together with unifying themes of
self-empowerment and independence.
For the opening number, “Drowned World/ Substitute for Love“, Madonna
appears alone on stage singing about celebrity and love, and as she looks
out into the audience it is a moment fraught with import ~ Madonna’s
longest-lasting relationship has always been with her fame. Parental figures
and lovers have come and gone, but Madonna’s celebrity has been her one
constant companion. Not that it’s always been a peaceful ride; as the last
notes of the opener fade away, they are replaced with the throbbing beats of
Impressive Instant, signifying the insane other-worldliness of a life
lived in the spotlight. A punk-scene emerges, replete with dancers in
mohawks, torn shirts, and gas masks, who attack her from every direction;
Madonna is lost in a whirlwind of action, lights, smoke, and dancing – all
the while remaining the absolute focus. In one of the most arresting sights
of the evening, Madonna straps on an electric guitar for Candy Perfume
Girl and rips off some pretty decent licks, snarling her way through the
acid-tinged song and attacking the strings in a Hendrix-inspired moment.
She closes the punk section with a rousing rendition of Ray of Light, and
as she?s maniacally thrashing about on stage, it suddenly dawns on me that
this is a 43-year-old mother of two ~ dancing and singing and playing a
pretty mean guitar ~ and $125 somehow doesn?t seem like such a high price
for a ticket.
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The second part begins with a blood-red sky background and finds Madonna
materializing in a dramatic 52-foot-long kimono, spanning the entire length
of the stage. Antagonizing samurai figures menace her every move as she
sings about unrequited love in Frozen. After being berated, threatened,
and finally having her ponytail cut off by one of the male figures, Madonna
attacks back with some Crouching Tiger martial arts flying moves, some of
which lift her twenty feet off the ground. At such moments the visual
threatens to overcome the music ~ in this case the otherwise majestic Sky
Fits Heaven melody ~ but Madonna reigns it in with a touching rendering of
the plaintive Mer Girl, a song that references the death of her mother.
Concluding the deceptively submissive geisha episode, Madonna, looking
weary and war-torn, grabs a rifle and shoots the final taunting male figure
in a gesture both disturbing and ridiculous, depending on how it is taken.
What to make of such violence is anyone’s guess, and widely-varied
personal-interpretation has always been a hallmark of Madonna’s career. In
this instance she raises the violence question ~ right or wrong? pointless
or justified? ~ and follows it up with a brief tongue-in-cheek interlude of
animated porn, further confusing issues and leaving all judgment up to the
viewer.
The Country-Western dude ranch bit is next, with Madonna continuing her
wayward nod to the Wild West which began on the cover of her 2000 Music
album. As she rises on the right side of the stage, it is still slightly
jarring to see Madonna gently strumming an acoustic guitar to I Deserve
It, an ode to her husband. In her D2-designed fashion chaps,
stars-and-stripes tank top and cowboy hat, she does a convincing country
line dance to Don’t Tell Me, rides a slow-motion mechanical bull to Human
Nature, and, in the show’s only misstep, sings the humorless Funny Song,
all the while donning a strained Southern hillbilly accent.
She recovers splendidly to deliver the inspiring Secret and the
magnificent You’ll See, the latter leaving Madonna alone on stage again
and turning in an emotional execution of her best ballad since Live To
Tell. In a show rich with state-of-the-art sets and lighting, eye-popping
costumes, grandiose special effects, and high-tech video screens, the most
powerful moments are when Madonna holds center stage all by herself, singing
solo and unadorned by pyrotechnics or distracting dancers, as she does when
she croons You’ll See.
Returning as a Spanish Senorita, she sings the Spanish-language version of
What It Feels Like For A Girl (Lo Que Siente La Mujer?). Still
gender-bending after all these years, Madonna wears a half-dress ~ front
only, backed by an intricate set of straps and a pair of trousers. She
dances a decent tango with a group of guys, only these men are actually
women dressed in undershirts, suspenders, and pants. Strapping on a guitar
one last time for her 1987 hit La Isla Bonita, Madonna and company perform
an extended version featuring flamenco dancing and an acoustic percussive
finale that sees her oddly at ease pounding out a syncopated beat on the
guitar.
The final section features Madonna and her two faithful back-up singers
doing a straight-forward reading of her first hit single, 1983’s Holiday.
It is the moment the crowd has been waiting for, and it does not disappoint.
With only the three women on stage performing, it is powerful in its
simplicity and staggering in sheer entertainment value. Closing the show
with Music, her latest #1 single, Madonna returns to where she first
conquered the world ~ joyously and exuberantly belting out a now-classic pop
song, singing and dancing, challenging and inspiring.
After all this pomp and spectacle the big question remains ~ how was her
voice? Being as this was the first concert following her bout with
laryngitis (which forced her to cancel one performance), all ears were on
the lady’s singing, and even the most hardened of critics would have trouble
denying what a beautiful, strong, expressive instrument her voice has
become. Throughout the entire evening it remained clear and constant ~ no
hint of laryngitis or vocal strain whatsoever. Every note was dead-on, held
to its completion, even with all the dancing and flying. Most impressive was
the outright absence of any lip-synching. The silly headset trend which she
pioneered with 1990’s Blonde Ambition tour has been replaced by a hand-held
microphone ~ no faking allowed.
“You can do whatever you want to do, and don’t ever let anybody tell you
different,” she states with surprisingly poignant conviction, and this is a
woman who should know. Such a supreme message of self-empowerment is the key
to her endurance and wide-spread appeal. It is a plucky confidence, at once
disarming and seducing, and always fun to watch. After almost two decades of
fame and infamy, she remains a vital force in pop culture.
In her tour book she credits her husband for “giving me a guitar and daring
me to learn how to play it“, and it dawns on me that this is a woman who has
finally reconciled her public/performer persona with her personal/private
life ~ and as such deserves recognition for her work as an artist. Most of
her critical reviews have been for her behavior as a human being ~ her hair
color, her boyfriends, her sexual antics ~ but rarely for her work. She is
an entertainer ~ one of the best ~ adept at creating music, images, and
performances, but even as a whole they do not represent the entire Madonna ~
she is not merely the sum of her artistic parts, but rather a complex,
open-minded individual intent on developing self-knowledge through her work.
The Drowned World Tour is proof of this. She’s not really a punk-rocker or a
painted geisha ~ she’s a wife and a mother. This tour is her work ~ designed
to entertain and perhaps enlighten ~ but it is not her life. Performing is
simply her job, and nobody does it better.
It took her almost twenty years, but Madonna has finally come into her own
as a talented, courageous artist. As the world swirls wildly around her,
trying to pull her down and suffocate with criticism, Madonna has always
risen above it all ~ floating and flying and unbelievably untouchable in her
determination for self-discovery. It’s a trait often mistaken for
narcissism, vanity, or excessive ego ~ and unfairly so at that. What Madonna
does best, and what has kept her so successful for so many years, is to make
her personal growth and transformations relatable to everyone. It’s the
essence of exceptional art ~ to take the intensely personal experience and
translate it into something uniquely universal ~ through music, performance,
dancing, painting, writing, photography, etc.
As the show ends and the lights come up, I have a big stupid smile on my
face, one that will remain for the next week. My friend Suzie, never quite a
Madonna fan in her own right, says the show made her feel “liberated and
inspired”. It’s the same feeling elicited by witnessing a masterpiece
painting or reading a classic book or seeing a fantastic movie ~ in other
words, it’s the purpose of art. And no matter how many times Madonna has
managed to inspire the feeling in the past, she still has power to make it
feel like the very first time.