Cut to 1984.
I'm a middle-school-aged-MTV-addicted Midwestern adolescent with a freakish passion for music. Listening to the Casey Kasem Top 40 Countdown each Sunday was an anticipated weekend event. Keeping tabs upon all 40 positions of each week's song tally. This was serious shit. I was seriously serious about this shit. And let me add that my dad, on the other hand, was scared shitless. His daughter was not only refusing to be ripped away from the radio for all of Sunday afternoon in order to be with Casey but also watching MTV like a cult-follower. The VeeJays were my idols. Each video my muse. I was carving art blocks of the MTV logo, mind you, while the other girls were making fancy images of flowers and cartoons for fuck's sake. I was highly wired for the music industry, and if only I'd followed that thru and become an entertainment lawyer instead of a goddamn marketing major. Ahh, but marketing is important, don't let me play it down so quickly. Madge is a marketer extraordinaire.
But let's get to the real topic here.
Madonna. . . with that rag-a-muffin hair. Rubber bracelets running amuck. The mole. The thingy tied in her hair. The fingerless lacey gloves. Ever so cool as she rolled around on the floor to the song, Borderline, which I remember so specifically. God, was it good. I was choreographing the moves to these videos, and by god if I coulda gotten my hands on a can of spray paint, I would likely have gone to the basement to practice that portion of the video too. I was giddy with delight about Madonna. Oh and the love just grew through the many-a-changin' face of Madge. The Borderline video should be available for your viewing pleasure on my blog as well, if I set it up right. (Still learning about stuff like this - really have no clue.)
Borderline, Live To Tell, Open Your Heart, Oh Father, Keep It Together, Express Yourself, Vogue, Deeper and Deeper, Crazy For You, Don't Cry For Me Argentina, Drowned World, Candy Perfume Girl, The Power of Goodbye, Don't Tell Me, What It Feels Like For A Girl, Beautiful Stranger, Get Together, Hung Up, I Love New York. Girls in red dresses with big fake eyelashes, videos and concerts that politically bashes, Madonna's winter white that melts into spring, yes these are a few of my favorite things...
Okay, so I still have the giddiness about her. I admit it. She's a marketing genius. Maybe not the best actress (who cares?). But she has traveled a road that she paved by hand albeit a hand that might possibly have been caressing her crotch or a dancer's crotch. Hell yeah. If I were her, I'da been caressing my crotch too. Why? Because she can. She could, she did, and she can.
May '04, we see the opening night of her Re-invention Tour in L.A. It was the first time either my hubby or I had the opportunity for an opening night show. More the point it was our first Madonna show. Perhaps the gross anticipation, the months we had waiting to get there, or that we were in L.A. where nobody seemed to go out of their way to reeeallly celebrate opening night - we felt it was a little lackluster. It was a theatrical performance at times, a politically and religiously charged show at other times, and when the show ended - that was that. Lights up. Tear down. Get out folks. We didn't know about a no-encore ending. We didn't know what had hit us in general. We were on a post-Madonna dissonance that night. Sorta like post-purchase dissonance which I had learned about in consumer behavior class as I was embarking on gaining that degree I mentioned above.
Then the "Confessions" album gets released, and we loved the music. More than I, my hubby was now deeming this one of her best albums, and he declares we WILL be seeing her IF she goes on tour for this batch of songs. Lo and behold, the tour date list quietly falls upon our eyes as we scroll through Ticketmaster's website one night. Under no influence of alcohol (can't say the same for other purchases made over previous years), we click our way through to a pair of tickets for Chicago's show on June 18. The Confessions World Tour 2006. It was a show to be remembered. Yeah, the United Center got hot. Yeah, she admittedly turned off the A/C in the place and promptly told us to take our clothes off if we were so hot. But damn, none of us in our section cared (nor did we witness anyone else complaining), because this show was sensory delight. She entertained, provoked imagination, she was discotheque cool in a way no woman was before. An unadulterated frolic pad, you see. Can't help but think about finding our way to another show before this tour ends. Sinful, I know. But nothing a few hail marys couldn't cure, right?
Disco balls
Lights so bright
Wanton dance moves
Magical night!
Madonna: Confessions Tour / June 18, 2006 / Chicago United Center
Confession has never been so tasty.
~ab
No comments:
Post a Comment