NEW YORK – “No one is more surprised that I have made it this far than me. I didn’t think I was gonna make it this summer, but … here I am.”
With that address after the first three songs of her Celebration Tour, Madonna bridged 40 years of pop stardom with one very frightening health incident in June, a blunt assessment of both her atypical longevity and the fragility of her – or anyone’s − future.
A week after concluding a 27-show outing through Europe with her career-spanning production, Madonna, 65, reactivated her elaborate tour Wednesday at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, the first of three sold-out shows at the venue as part of her North American sprint through April.
Neither age nor consideration will sway Madonna’s stubborn fixation with taking the stage at a time when most concertgoers are preparing for work the next morning – 10:50 on this night. Plenty of fans who have experienced her aversion to punctuality on previous tours have vowed to stay away, but forgiveness is quick among Madonna devotees, a colorful crowd dotted with feather boas, sequins and corsets who packed the venue to the rafters.
Though Madonna has never been one for nostalgia and cozy reminiscing, she is also shrewd enough to note the popularity of her younger peers unspooling their musical stories (so far) with stadium blowouts.
If anyone deserves a bow in the spotlight, it’s the undisputed Queen of Pop. She bulldozed every adversity after moving to New York from Detroit at 19, circumvented her vocal limitations with crafty originality and hustle, developed into an ace businesswoman and musical tastemaker, and remains an inspiration for many.
Madonna doesn’t need to be out there, wonky left knee sheathed in a sleeve, teetering atop chairs and skipping through a glistening “Open Your Heart” with her nimble posse of dancers or gliding over the crowd in a Plexiglas box to sing, quite robustly, the lovely “Live to Tell.”
But tell her she can’t do something and she’d likely reference her 2015 hit, played near the end of this two-hour-plus spectacle: “Bitch, I’m Madonna.”
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This Celebration Tour was almost anything but triumphant after Madonna spent several days in the ICU this summer because of a severe bacterial infection, which prompted the postponement of her North American dates until now.
Her elation at being back on stage was unmistakable not only through her comments −“You have no idea the enthusiasm, the joy, coming out of my pores,” she said before strapping on a guitar to play “I Love New York” for the first time this tour – but through her movements.
An onstage camera captured refreshingly real shots of her cavorting with her team during “Holiday” (with a bit of Chic’s “I Want Your Love” nestled into the groove) and her “Vogue” routine of judging her stylishly clad dancers – including daughter Estere − as they sashayed down the lighted stage runway was a goofy giggle-fest.
One of the most poignant moments in a show packed with visuals including a spinning circular stage − tiered to evoke memories of the wedding cake from her iconic 1984 MTV VMAs performance – unique video scrolls that rolled open in various spots around the arena and pyramids of lasers, came with Madonna and a guitar.
Shortly after engaging in the thumbs-hooked-through-belt-loops dance routine for the stuttering country-pop of “Don’t Tell Me,” Madonna again chatted with fans.
“It’s a miracle that I’m alive,” she said. “I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones. … Let’s take a moment to be grateful.”
With that, she asked the crowd to turn on their phone lights and dived into a deliberate rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” her voice unaccompanied save for the song’s basic guitar chords.
It was simple, yet stirring, and it made for an unconventional segue into “La Isla Bonita” – with son David Banda on guitar – which, weirdly, worked.
Madonna has always used sex to not only titillate, but also to needle her critics. Even four decades into a career, she isn’t going to limit the raunch factor in her shows.
It’s debatable whether the simulated masturbation on a red velvet bed with a “Vogue”-era doppelganger – staged between the hypnotic chug of “Erotica” and “Justify My Love” – was provocative or a shrug-inducing callback to her 1990 Blond Ambition tour, when those salacious simulations almost got her arrested.
In her red-and-black negligee and knee-high black boots, Madonna cut a seductive figure. But watching her get devoured in a sea of writhing bodies and pet and kiss her topless male and female dancers before a tone-shifting “Hung Up” wasn’t nearly as stimulating as her artful lighted-carousel presentation of “Like a Prayer,” another classic creation of agitation in its time (1989) that now feels subdued.
Madonna has traversed so many musical styles, birthed so many trends whether via fashion, song or attitude, and shattered more glass ceilings that nothing short of a six-hour show coupled with a documentary would fully illuminate the archives of her career.
But The Celebration Tour is an effective commemoration of a woman who has fulfilled every accomplishment yet still possesses a scrappy drive.
“It’s important to never forget where you came from,” Madonna said from the stage. “Always remember the struggle.”
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