FEATURE:
It Would Be, It Would Be So Nice
A Final Look Inside Madonna’s Celebration Tour
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IT must be tough…
PHOTO CREDIT: Nina Westervelt/Getty Images
preparing for an exhaustive tour that takes you all around the world. This is true of any artist but, when you deliver the kind of shows that Madonna has through her career, maybe that expectation and sense of scale is a lot larger and more daunting than it is for most. I am going to write other Madonna features through the year but, when it comes to her Celebration Tour, this might be the last one. She starts out on 15th July in Vancouver, and the tour runs right through to 27th January, 2024, at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. It is a long tour that will see Madonna travel around the world. Even though there have been newspaper reports that Madonna has been feeling the strain when it comes to physical preparations, that is to be expected. She is someone who wants things to be perfect, and so many of her songs are very physical and intense. After a lot of rehearsal and drilling, it must be exhausting and painful. This is Madonna’s first worldwide tour for a while, so it is just a case of music memory. A lot of the media have been throwing around jibes about her age (Madonna is sixty-four) and whether she is ‘too old’ to be performing or pretending that she is the artist she was in her twenties – which, at no stage, has she been trying to do. The truth is that Madonna has incredible vitality and strength, and it is going to be a tough series of shows from a physical and emotional perspective. With that love and energy from the audiences each night, there is also the demands that come with mounting and executing a huge set.
There will be a lot of media eyes on the tour. I am not sure whether there are going to be tour diaries or an official documentary around the Celebration Tour, but I am sure there will be a live album at some point (her 2009 greatest hits album, Celebration, might be a starting point when it comes to the setlist). Part of the point of the tour is to mark forty years of her hit, Holiday. From her 1983 debut album (which is forty in July), that song came out in September 1983 - and it remains one of her most-loved classics. This is a celebration of her forty-plus-year career. New dates have been recently added, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the tour ran even further! It is going to be a huge undertaking for Madonna and her crew, but it is also going to be a chance for fans new and diehard to show their respects to their icon. Madonna discussed the tour with Vanity Fair earlier in the year. She also talked about her biopic. That has now been very much put on hold. I think the explanation was that the script offered to Madonna (who was to direct) was not gritty or raw enough. Maybe a little conservative or safe. Also, in a year where she needs to channel all her focus to a tour, a biopic could not realistically start production until this time next year. Maybe it will come back to the spotlight – let’s hope so at least. I think that the setlist and stage will be the most extensive and ambitious of Madonna’s career. It could well be her final tour. Whilst she has been photographed in the studio working on new material, perhaps it for a single rather than a whole album. Again, you would imagine her mind and full focus is going to be on the tour.
On that front…one imagines what the set will look like. The Celebration Tour is pays tribute to her four-decade career. It also pays homage to the city of New York. This is where her career in music began. I can envisage cityscapes and street settings. Maybe there will be this chronological take, where she starts by performing songs from her debut album and then it builds to her most recent work, Madame X (2019). I am not sure whether all of her studio albums will get a look in, but there will be special focus on her 1983 debut. At the moment, there are rehearsals and planning. Making sure the dancers and crew are in sync. With less than three months until the first date, it is going to be a time where everything is getting more real and ramped up. It will be interesting to see whether Madonna recreates sets and looks from previous tours like The Blond Ambition World Tour of 1990, or whether she will create whole new looks and sets. There will be plenty of surprises through the set. But many are going to ask what the setlist contains. It is tough to narrow it down – give the extent of her career and how many songs she has been on -, but I think there will be a weighting on the best-known hits, rather than too many deep cuts or unexpected tracks. Whatever does happen, things are being put into place at the moment.
Aside from all the press poison and those who wonder why Madonna is touring, this is a big moment for music in general. Undoubtedly one of the most important and influential artists ever, Madonna is throwing the biggest celebration this year. Forty years since her eponymous debut and the Holiday single, it is going to be a real thrill for the fans! As you can see from her Instagram, things are starting to move. The photos and videos look amazing. It is clear that, after all of these years, Madonna still gets a real thrill and buzz from taking to the road and performing for the fans. Not only is the Celebration Tour a chance to mark anniversaries and play one of Pop music’s finest catalogues. It s testament to the fact that Madonna has this incredible endurance and endless importance. Fans want to see her on the stage, and we are going to get albums from her for years to come. Over forty years since she started out, here is this career that is still so alive and fascinating! It will give heart and impetus to a lot of other artists out there who wonder whether it is possible to sustain such a long career. Maybe Madonna is an exceptional example, but she will doubtless give a big kick and nod to those coming through. With six months of dates in the diary so far, who knows how much longer the Celebration Tour will last. The fans want to see Madonna perform and, whilst it will be physically demanding, she is up to the task. It all starts on 15th July at the Rogers Arena…
IN Vancouver.