Madonna - The Show

(SFGate caption) Madonna performs "Like a Virgin" Tuesday at the HP Pavilion, the first of two sold-out shows. Chronicle photo by Liz Mangelsdorf


My photos didn't turn out so well, but there is a fansite, AllAboutMadonna.com, where photos from the May 30th San Jose concert were recently uploaded by "Pera". The rest of the photos in this particular post come from that site.

As we waited for the show, roars would periodically emanate from the other side of the arena. Apparently, people over there caught sight of Madonna, but we didn't see anything on our side. We watched the technical personnel raise and lower meter-diameter metal spheres over the stage. At one point, there was a short-circuit, and a shower of sparks. Bad! But for some reason, sparks didn't happen during the show, when the metal spheres were lowered.











Having read a review of the LA show, I knew Madonna and her entourage would emerge from a giant silver ball after it descended from its place amongst the ceiling rafters to the end of of the central-arena catwalk. Even though I knew she had to get into the ball somehow, with the sleight-of-hand that all the light and sound provided, I was distracted and never saw her enter the ball. Once on the floor, the giant silver ball unfolded in a magical, mystical way that was fun to watch.

Great show! Just the most AMAZING street dancers who ever lived! Here is the Sacramento Bee review: here is the SFGate review. There is an even better review of the show at mp3.com.

One dancer came to the stage right platform and spun on his head. Very hard to do, even for experienced break dancers. But he did it for thirty seconds without touching the floor, an eon in dance time, then brought in his arms and legs towards his body's core and spun up, like a figure skater, before springing out of it. Not just amazing - superhuman! And the other dancers - they leaped eight, ten, twelve feet from platforms and jungle gyms onto the (springloaded) catwalk for the number 'Jump'.

Street dancing is partly martial arts, partly hip hop, part break dancing, partly fearless aggressiveness. The dancers oozed testosterone. Even the women oozed testosterone, even the willowy woman in green with the amazingly-flexible back. At one point, there was a staged fight, and Madonna was mixing it up as well. Lying on the floor in splits, Madonna fended off an aggressive move by one of her dancers by putting her foot behind her head and pushing her crotch forward aggressively. The guy backed off! Pretty funny - I should do that next time I'm in a fight!

Madonna also did her 'Like A Virgin' saddle ride on the stage right platform, very close to where I was. Wished I had gotten a photo as good as the SFGate picture! So close, and yet, somehow so far!

Because we were sitting on the side, the 'Live To Tell' cross hanging didn't have the emotional impact it could have had by viewing from the front. Afterwards, she lay down in front of the cross, removed her crown of thorns, and was "resurrected" by the placement of a robe across her back (according to Georgette, this was a scaled-down version of what James Brown does in his raucous, gospel-oriented concerts, with repeated episodes of shaking and multiple robes being placed).

Madonna tends to be heavy-handed and didactic, but from where I was sitting, on the side, I couldn't read enough of the projected messages, or make out her lecture from the arena echo, so that was OK. She does point at Raising Malawi as a Web Site that does good stuff.

At one point she started bitching about unresponsive Las Vegas audiences (she had just arrived from there on her concert tour). I thought I heard her say "And you? You're shit!" to general applause. Maybe I misunderstood because of arena echo, but the masochist in me was getting excited.

Among the last numbers, 'Erotica,' was, predictably enough for Madonna, strangely unerotic. Eroticism requires playfulness, and Madonna is carefully programmed - she has to be to survive all the possible pitfalls, in concert. For example, during her pony ride, it was instructive to see just how careful she was with hand placement on the pole and the saddle, so as to avoid the possibility of injury. Actually, the most erotic number was the opening number, where her riding gear and aggressive equestrian brutality scared the bejesus out of me, and which I found secretly thrilling. Lovemaking with Madonna must be something like grabbing some fava beans and a bottle of Chianti and going on a picnic with Hannibal Lecter.

Towards the end, the roller skates came out, and the dancers did marvelously on them as they hurtled headlong on the catwalk, halting at the last possible moment. Madonna came out in the trademark John Travolta white suit and did a fun number, in part, to a remixed 'Disco Inferno'.

No encores, no muss, no fuss!