Inside Madonna’s secret NYC show

Madonna played an intimate gig in New York for 150 fans, family and friends to celebrate the release of the superstar’s Madame X concert film.

She’s used to selling out stadiums and arenas, but Madonna went back to her roots when she played a secret club gig in New York on Friday night.

The biggest selling female artist in history played an intimate midnight set for the lucky few who made it inside Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem before she took the show to the streets of New York for a rousing rendition of her iconic tune, Like A Prayer.

For Madonna – who began her career in the city’s downtown clubs – it felt apt to see her in her natural habitat, and prior to her 1.45am onstage arrival, the DJ pumped the crowd up even more by playing such classics as Into the Groove, Everybody and Holiday.

Madonna, with Jon Batiste, onstage at Ginny's Supper Club in New York. Picture: Instagram

The star performed to celebrate the release of Madame X, a documentary concert film of her 2019 tour, which is streaming now on Paramount Plus in Australia.

“Obviously, Madame X has been born,” Madonna, who was decked out in a black cocktail dress and lace gloves, told the ecstatic crowd.

“She was always here. She’s always been by your side, encouraging you, pushing you, inspiring you, I hope.”

Madonna on the streets of Harlem singing Like A Prayer pic.twitter.com/NrpMBW1Sq8

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Madonna, whose band included Jon Batiste and the star’s longtime guitarist Monte Pittman, sang lounge versions of Madame X’s Dark Ballet, her 1986 classic, La Isla Bonita, and the Portuguese song, Saudade to the rapt crowd.

“Do you feel like something is missing from your life?” she asked the crowd, while sitting atop Batiste’s piano.

“So, what’s our job? What’s our destiny? To go out and find it,” she said. “I was talking to Jon on the way here, and we said to each other: Here’s the big question: How bad do you want it?”

She then began a rendition of Like a Prayer, which she interrupted with a directive to her band and crowd to join her on the streets of Harlem, where they continued to sing her 1989 global hit

Megaphone in hand, Madonna stopped at the neighbourhood’s famed St Andrew’s Episcopal Church.

“The Lord is with all of us,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to say a prayer.”

She then led her very own congregation back to the club where she watched on from a VIP section as fans danced the night away.

Indeed, to see a true musical icon up close was a true thrill and not something that many of her fans will not soon forget.

And with so many of Madonna’s contemporaries – Prince, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and George Michael – gone before their time, we’re lucky that we still have her creating art and, like her hero, the late writer James Baldwin, “disturbing the peace”.

As Madonna herself has said, “The most controversial thing I’ve done is stick around.”

And thank God she did.

Originally published as Inside Madonna’s secret NYC show