Madonna cranks up Coachella’s glitz factor
Madonna was barely through her second song at the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival tonight when she addressed what was on almost every festival-goer’s mind.
“This is my first festival,” she said to wild applause from the capacity crowd of several thousand. Madonna paused a moment and then joked: “Now who’s going to share their drugs with me?”
Far and away the most commercial artist in the festival’s seven-year history, pop music’s Material Girl arrived with six dancers in tow amid controversy. Some critics and alternative music fans complained that her inclusion among the festival’s alterna-rock stars and underground electronica and rap acts signaled a shift toward a more mainstream Coachella.
Bowing to that perception somewhat, Madonna opted to bill herself as a “dance act” and played in the Sahara Tent – the so-called “dance tent” here. One T-shirt being sold near the tent this weekend addressed the mixture of bewilderment and excitement surrounding her set. It read simply: “Madonna in the dance tent!”
Although she has performed individual songs at MTV Europe’s Video Music Awards and with the Gorillaz at the Grammys in February, Madonna’s 40-minute, six-song Coachella appearance marked the first time the singer performed an extended set in two years. Tonight she stripped down onstage (behind a screen), from a glittering purple jacket and velvet pants to a blue violet leotard, knee-high boots and a purple feathered boa. The outfit highlighted the 47-year-old’s well-muscled physique.
“She looks so skinny, it’s amazing,” said Julianna Shepard of Thousand Oaks. Her 14-year-old son, Sam, put a finer point on Madonna’s appearance. “She looks hot,” he said.
The singer’s physicality was put through its paces as she karate kicked, writhed on the floor and thrust her pelvis through three songs from her latest album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” and three older hits.
During her closing number, her first hit single, “Everybody,” Madonna appeared visibly out of breath.
“She looks tired,” someone in the crowd was heard to say.
The crowd cheered wholeheartedly during her performance but once she left the stage, fans didn’t sustain their applause – hence, no encore.
Asked if a performer of Madonna’s stature belonged at Coachella, Roger Vambrazano of Los Angeles, 24, said: “Look around. This is the most crowded any tent has been all day. I had no expectations coming in, but she blew me away.”
From ana article by Chris Lee, LA Times. Photos by Spencer Weiner/LAT.