Will Madonna leave her sad clown behind for six concert tour of Australia
MADONNA’S “sad clown” was nowhere to be seen as she and a group of hot-pant wearing nuns holding crucifixes took to the stage in Melbourne.
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MADONNA’S “sad clown” was nowhere to be seen as she and a group of hot-pant wearing nuns and holding crucifixes took to the stage in Melbourne.
The singer took to the stage only 45 minutes late after letting her fans wait for hours in the rain on Thursday night where she played the part of a “sad clown” to fans at her Forum show , her first Australian show in 23 years.
Nuns in hot pants pole dancing on crucifixes? Yes Madonna is in town #RebelHeartTour pic.twitter.com/YR9Vz05KBm
— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) March 12, 2016
Madonna was back to what she does best - putting on a big production show.
And fans went wild as she took to the Rod Laver Arena stage.
Melbourne - we have Madonna - only 45 mins late pic.twitter.com/8Yh1ZwLeA3
— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) March 12, 2016
Clearly emotional, she made no secret on Thursday of the toll a bitter custody battle over son Rocco has taken on her.
Madonna even sipped two cocktails on stage, telling fans it was the first time she’s ever drank on stage in her career.
BURNING UP! Madonna pic.twitter.com/7DRofsV09E
— cameron adams (@cameron_adams) March 12, 2016
She told fans “there’s no end to the mistakes I’ve made” and “I never want to be the cause of pain in anyone’s life again”.
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Since arriving in Melbourne last Monday, Madonna has thrown herself into rehearsals. That’s nothing new.
On her last trip to Australia in 1993 when an outdoor show looked like being cancelled due to bad weather rather than take a night off she hunted for a location where her dancers could do extra rehearsals.
She’d hired Hisense Arena for intense rehearsals on Tuesday before spending four hours running through her Tears of a Clown show at the Forum, starting at 10pm Wednesday.
Madonna is a perfectionist, but the Tears of a Clown show was unlike anything she’s done before and nothing like the state-of-the-art pop supershow she’ll bring to Rod Laver Arena tonight and tomorrow.
Clowning around in Melbourne 💘#tearsofaclown pic.twitter.com/FAHRiUBH0z
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 10, 2016
Clown Squad 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉💘 #tearsofaclown pic.twitter.com/UXwngNATTH
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 10, 2016
Send in the Clowns..........there ought to be Clowns! 💘 #tearsofaclown. pic.twitter.com/W8vtHtHw4g
— Madonna (@Madonna) March 10, 2016
At the Forum, Madonna didn’t dance, there were no costume changes just an open, wounded heart. She dedicated her song Intervention (sample lyric “I’ve got to save my baby”) to son Rocco, with photos of him flashed behind her.
“Everyone knows about the saga between me and my son Rocco,” she said. “It’s not a fun story to tell or think about. I probably could have enjoyed myself a little bit more on this tour if he hadn’t disappeared so suddenly, and also if I knew when I would see him again.”
The 15-year-old, who performed as a dancer on her 2012 MDNA tour, jettisoned himself from the Rebel Heart tour to stay in London with father Guy Ritchie and his new wife.
Madonna’s daughter Lourdes, 19, is now in college in America, while her two youngest children David and Mercy travel on the road with her.
Custody battles have raged between Madonna and Ritchie, who reportedly no longer communicate unless through lawyers. Madonna has referred to him as a “c***” on stage on this tour, and in New Zealand said she would “cry” if she kept talking about her son.
Journalist Liz Smith is a friend of Madonna and in February wrote an impassioned open letter about the situation.
Smith wrote that Rocco preferred the more “lackadaisical” lifestyle of his father and that Ritchie walked out of the 2008 divorce from Madonna with over $75 million.
Madonna was “crushed’” by the events according to Smith.
“I have seen her with all four of her children. She is a stickler for education, self-discipline and motivation. Despite the professional image and stage persona she often embodies, Madonna is a very good mother, and not, appearances to the contrary, a hedonist or self-destructive. No drugs, no drinking, no dissipation.”
Smith also got in first at those who cite Madonna’s age, 57, as evidence she should wear more clothes, show less skin and refrain from controversy.
“I, along with others, might roll my eyes at some of the things she wears, or how she presents herself in photo shoots or on Instagram,” Smith wrote. “But that’s not her daily life. She marches to her own drummer and refuses to be categorised or held back by what others think is “suitable” for a woman of 57. She enjoys making us crazy.”
Kylie Minogue, 47, who met up with Madonna’s manager Guy Oseary in Melbourne this week, suffers similar criticism for not being ‘age appropriate’.
“There’s common ground for myself and Madonna there,” Minogue told this journalist last year of the focus on her age.
“I don’t think people want to see Madonna in an old Greek lady’s house dress on the stoop do they? They want glamour, they want fantasy. Maybe it doesn’t make sense in every day life, whatever normal is, I don’t even know any more.”
We hope to see these two Queens together soon @Madonna and @kylieminogue #rebelhearttour #tearsofaclown @guyoseary pic.twitter.com/s4AlsB8kRL
— Jean c. (@Jeancptit) March 10, 2016
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Madonna’s last five world tours bypassed Australia, with the singer apologising to fans, noting spending time with her family and her children’s schooling came first.
Liz Smith vocalised what some Australian fans secretly feared — that she may not make it down under — fears that have been unfounded.
“I am fairly certain that continuing with her current Rebel Heart tour has been agonising, but it would be out of character for Madonna to cave, give in, give up,” Smith said. “And what would it gain her? Bad press, enraged fans, and her son would still be in England.”
Melbourne Madonna fan Nicole Condon has spent over $20,000 going to the tours that skipped down under. She also runs the Madonna Australia Facebook page.
Condon said the Forum show was the most emotional she has ever seen Madonna on stage.
“It’s a pretty real situation, she’s a mother, you can’t force crying on stage,” Condon said. “She is struggling with the situation with Rocco, she is human. People forget that. Her guard has dropped. She’s become less afraid to show her emotions.
“That Forum show was very unpolished. For a fan, that’s a money-can’t-buy situation, we loved it. To see her struggle with confidence, to surrender that control live was a massive risk for her. That was another side of her letting her guard down. Perhaps in this emotional state she needs to be creative and express that.”
At the Forum show, Madonna told fans she is constantly asked when she’s going to stop touring and performing.
“I think that’s the weirdest question to ask,” Madonna said. “There’s no time limit on creation. When Pablo Picasso was painting did they tell him he should stop? No, they did not. They didn’t tell Charlie Chaplin to stop. Did they tell Hugh Hefner to stop?”
That introduced her hit Don’t Tell Me, which was peppered with references to misogyny. When her album Rebel Heart was released last year, it hit No. 1 in Australia (her 11th chart topper here) but commercial radio had put her out to pasture, saying her music didn’t fit their formats.
It’s a topic Tina Arena touched on at the ARIA awards last year — Arena was in the audience for the Forum show this week.
Arena cited herself, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Annie Lennox as artists still making music but being ignored by stations who used to embrace them.
“I want to still acknowledge that ladies over 40 are still in the game,” Arena said during her Hall of Fame induction speech. “Keep doing what you’re doing, ladies, because we will decide when it’s time for us to stop.”
While Madonna is viewed as being too old, her collaborator Diplo was scoring huge radio hits with younger artists.
“Radio is ageist,” Madonna told this journalist late last year. “If you’re not in your twenties they won’t play you on the radio. It’s bulls — t but that’s the way it is.”
“We live in an ageist society. I’ve tried my hardest to do whatever I can to change peoples’ perception of women, of age, of what is possible and why should any of us limit ourselves in any way, shape or form regardless of our sex, our sexual preference, our age, our religious beliefs, our race etc etc. So for me it’s shocking in this day and age where we’re now accepting gay marriages we still treat women in a very sexist way. That’s one frontier that has not been conquered. Because if I was a man, things would be different.”
Madonna is used to being written off — she was labelled a one-hit wonder as soon her breakthrough song, Holiday, was a global smash in 1983.
83 singles and 300 million album sales later, she’s proven herself as the most successful and constantly evolving pop artist of her generation.
This month her tour grosses topped one billion — only six acts have crossed that threshold, with Madonna at No. 3 behind The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. The other billion-dollar touring acts are U2, Elton John and Bon Jovi.
“Madonna is one of the best live acts in the world,” friend Molly Meldrum said.
“She was always so ambitious, even when I first met her in 1984. At her shows everyone on stage gives 100-per-cent but she gives 110-per-cent. She might come across as being hard, but she wants everything to be perfect.”
The Forum show saw Madonna also reference first husband actor Sean Penn and how she visited him in jail when he was behind bars for abusing paparazzi who were stalking them. On the Rebel Heart tour she has resurrected True Blue, a song she wrote about Penn in 1986. Last year in New York Penn attended one of her Madison Square Garden shows, coming backstage to tell her he finally gave her credit as a performer, 30 years on.
“He said something to that effect,” Madonna told this writer last year. “He’s been to many of my concerts, he has been supportive and acknowledged me. I think he, I don’t know, with time and being able to have objectivity and things like that ...”
The pair remain friends. Liz Smith said Madonna has “no regrets” about her marriage to Penn.
“I believe she regrets most of her marriage to Ritchie, except for their son, Rocco.”
Smith also questioned film director Ritchie’s motivation in casting Madonna in a film as a movie star abused by her driver and in the flop Swept Away, where she played a wealthy woman abused by a servant.
“Madonna entered her marriage to Ritchie fully committed. To such an extent that photos of the wedding were never made public. Her nuptials were not grist for the PR mill. Madonna’s two “I do’s” — to Sean and then to Ritchie were absolutely sincere. That Catholic girl from Michigan always lurks beneath the “outrageous” star.”
Madonna plays Rod Laver Arena tonight and tomorrow, then Brisbane Entertainment Centre Wednesday and Thursday and Sydney’s Allphones Arena March 19 and 20.
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EMAIL:cameron.adams@news.com.au
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