MadonnaTribe reader Michael from Minneapolis, MN sent his photos from the MDNA Tour stop in St. Paul the other day – click here to ch3ck them again – and has now written a full review of his concert experience to share with the Tribe.
Check it out!

The Queen of Pop Returns to Minnesota after 25 Yearswith Her Biggest Spectacle Yet

By Michael Reinbold, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Being such an enormous Madonna fan and having gone to Chicago to see her in concert for four of her tours, I couldn’t wait to finally after 25 years (1987’s Who’s That Girl tour) see her back in the Twin Cities. I attended both nights (Nov. 3-4) at St. Paul’s acoustically top notch Xcel Energy Center. Being a fan club member I got into the Golden Triangle right next to the stage the first night and Section 105 with two friends for the second. What a difference in perspective as one might imagine. Both nights she didn’t come on until 10:35 p.m.

With so much time to kill the first night, I had planned to check out the merchandise table but oddly never left the pit; I was in there for 3½ hours with no bathroom break or run for food or drink. Mind you, this is even before the concert began. I just stayed in there meeting and getting to know the many Madonna-holics like myself that I had chatted on the fan club boards with for so many years. So many stories, so many concerts attended by fans (one counted 12 for this tour alone) who had come from locally, around the country and as far as Israel. Her manager Guy Oseary took a group photo of a good 60 of us and remained with us for a good hour or more snapping up shots of us in all sorts of configurations.

She stuck to her established set list of 22 numbers over a two hour stretch but mashed several bits from “Give It to Me” to beef up her finale “Celebration” with crowd frenzy approving results. I loved every moment of Madonna’s extravagant spectacle but going in had reservations about using “Papa Don’t Preach/Hung Up” after her fire arm branding tumble “Gang Bang.” I don’t think it fits and after finally seeing it live I’m still unconvinced. Surprisingly, M has staged and choreographed it to work well in finishing up a story line of her character’s journey here and for performance sake with her being physically chained up and hauled off into flames then slack lining her way out, this performance stands by itself as something quite riveting. Still, I think other songs like “Some Girls” paired with “Rescue Me” would fit much better in terms of impact.

For “Express Yourself” and “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” you just have to marvel (are they real? Is this an illusion?) at the perfect lineup entrance of the suspended drum corps playing overhead, just dazzling along with M’s joyously energetic dancing with her fired up dancers. “Vogue” done on the runway with the Queen leading her dancers in a parade of chic posing and stunningly fun haute couture tops all of her previous tour performances of this number.

Madonna does her homework being fully aware of Minnesota’s anti-gay Marriage Amendment just two days before election. She prophetically professed, “I don’t care who you love, only that you love. . . We are a democracy and we should have the freedom to choose who we want to marry. Vote No!” Amen!

“Like a Virgin/Love Spent” for me proved to be her finest performing moment of her career. Reinventing the original sugar pop bubble head arrangement of LAV into a delicate piano and violin waltz (lifted from her W.E. film “Evgeni’s Waltz”) allowed Madonna to go to a lonely self-reflecting place of vulnerability that we have never seen from her quite like this. With Lotte Lenya like feel, she delved deeply into her inner pain in hopes of being rescued but in the end only used. To place “Love Spent” as a coda here’s absolute genius. I felt goose bumps while being transfixed right up to its aching finish.

Loved the politically charged video interlude of “Nobody Knows Me” that featured Madonna’s face morphing into stinging, button pushing political figures that one might associate with hate mongering and finishing with a tearful memorial to LGBT teen suicides in recent years. Stunning stuff along with the deft dancers that slack lined in front of this video display adding even more urgency.

I also loved the Butoh inspired choreography of “I’m Addicted” which reminded me of Madonna and her dancer’s performance of “Frozen” from her 2001 Drowned World tour concert.

Madonna’s costumes and hair style changes have never looked better. Her body resembles an exquisite piece of world class sculpture and her face up close is surprisingly simple in makeup yet elegantly lovely. The stunning sets that evolved from a spectacular cathedral and later into an uber-posh art deco style lounge paired with eye popping, visuals/graphics and videos left one awestruck and often times over whelmed with sensory over load but amongst it all you never lost sight of its star performer, Madonna. Now that’s a super star and one I’ll surely return to see again and again.

Special thanks to Michael Reinbold, Minneapolis, Minnesota.