Drama on tour with Madonna

Re-Invention Tour backup singer reveals backstage drama

Madonna’s 2004 Re-Invention Tour marked a drastic change on the singer’s live performances:

Madonna cut short the participation of her backup singers (who used to share the center stage with her in several parts of her shows), and on a more noticeable change, she ditched one of her long time backup singers.

Niki Haris (who had sung for Madonna since 1987) was substituted by Siedah Garrett, a singer and songwriter who sang backup vocals on Madonna’s second album.

Garrett is promoting her one woman show “Siedah Garret: Behind the Man in the Mirror” by publishing short clips on her YouTube page revealing a lttle bit of herself and telling stories of things that have happened to her over the years.

On her latest YouTube video, Siedah Garrett talks about the Re-Invention Tour - the only Madonna tour she was part of:

 If you’re a Madonna fan and know Donna Delory, what do you think of that? 

The MDNA Magic

Last night, AXS showed a special on the MDNA Tour stage, a look at what happens behind the scene, when they are loading in Madonna’s amazing set. There’s a lot of professional footage of the show and a lot of interesting details.

If you missed it last night, you can watch it here. Make sure you leave your comments!

The MDNA Tour Behind the Scenes - TAIT by mymdna

Moment Factory, the company who developed with M videos for the MDNA Tour also released videos on the making of their process a few months ago. If you haven’t seen it, check it out:

 And do not forget: EPIX HD will broadcast Madonna’s MDNA Tour show on June 22.

While we are on the subject of “behind the scenes”, Jeff McRae could see Madonna coming from under her stage while performing in Boston, and he shared this awesome video with us. Am I the only one who gets excited seeing Madonna rushing up the stairs to get in place for Vogue?

Funny Or Die

Kylie Minogue is She-Ra:

“Dream and Shout” - Scream and Shout + Les Miserables [Parody]

This is not the kind of post we usually make here, but this is too good to let it go unnoticed:

If only…

Thanks to Brycen Pauro for sending the link to this hilarious video.

A Tribute to the Revolutionary Born This Way Ball

One cannot talk about the Born This Way Ball and not think of attendance. And speaking of that, even the new pope gets full capacity. Poor Lady Gaga:

Happy 15th Anniversary Ray of Light!

After a 4-year hiatus from her own records, a baby, and a successful musical (Evita), Madonna came back with a bang: with the album that has become her most celebrated yet: Ray of Light.

Madonna could have easily repeated the R&B formula from her previous album (Bedtime Stories, 1994), especially considering that the R&B’s presence in the mainstream culture was increasing rapidly by the end of the 1990s. But Madonna decided to go on a new route, she turned to the electronic sounds of the UK’s underculture to create a magically fresh and new sound. 

Madonna co-produced the album with William Orbit, Patrick Leonard, and Marius de Vries, mashing up the cold emotionless sounds of electronica with warm passionate vocals, acoustic guitars, the energy of electric guitars and the pulsating vibe of house music. The result was an elegant and sophisticated sound, that came accompained by incredibly stylished videos:

Frozen:

Ray of Light:

Drowned World / Substitute For Love:

The Power of Good-Bye:

Nothing Really Matters:

And don’t forget to check Madonna’s memorable appearances on Oprah and at the Grammy’s in 1999, performing the title track, Ray of Light, live for the first time, and the only live performances of Little Star and Nothing Really Matters to date:

Ray of Light [Live]:

Little Star (Acoustic) [Live]:

Nothing Really Matters (Grammy Awards 1999):

MDNA Post Tour Blues

What happens when Madonna is not on tour?

On a serious note, Madonna has already done another project in collaboration with Giovanni Bianco, Arianne Phillips and Steven Klein in early February, besides her secret project with Klein filmed/photographed in Argentina in December 2012.

I say new video project + magazine spread. Any suggestions?

Charlie Hides, be careful, monsters will start sending death threats in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5…

Good Times…

Remember that Lady Gaga never lip-syncs?

“Never have, never will” she says.

At least that’s what she preaches.

Girl can’t walk the walk.

Well, she can’t dance the dance or sing the song either, obviously.

A thriller starring Madonna and Lady Gaga is in the making.

Inspired by real life events.

Lady Gaga Copies Again

Lady Gaga’s first hit, Just Dance, sounds awfully like this old Samsung ringtone. I just made this video with both songs so you could compare them:

Come on, Lady Gaga! Not one song from your catalog is original?

Queen of Rip-Offs, yes, indeed!

The Samsung ringtune is “The Secret Only for U” by C.P.S Technologies.

Look at the bright side, little monsters: I made Lady Gaga look hot in this pic.

Thanks to Alexander for the heads-up.

Moment Factory: MDNA Awesomeness

Moment Factory, the Canadian team behind the visual of 12 songs of Madonna’s MDNA Tour, gives us an exclusive look at the creative process behind the MDNA Tour.

Pure awesomeness!

So what about you? What is the most [visually] impressive part of the MDNA show in your opinion?

Madonna in Chile

[Madonna’s soundcheck in Santiago]

We all know by now how the media always reports the most negative stories about Madonna and blow them out of proportion. So what’s new?

Santiago, in Chile, is the latest hot topic related to Madonna.

It’s really interesting how a negative story about Madonna and one single show in South America has spread faster than the news of her MDNA tour being the #1 tour of the year.

Also funny how the negative stories about Madonna’s show in Chile have made the headlines all over the world, but news of Lady Gaga’s entirely flopped Latin American tour still hasn’t.

So let me repeat something I said months ago:

When it comes to how Madonna is portrayed by the media, she can never win.

She’s been doomed “evil” and “over” since her first album. It’s not going to be different now, after 30 years.

Anyway, you can imagine the amount of messages I received from little monsters telling me how “Madonna flopped in Chile”, and how “everybody hated her”, videos of people booing her, the whole nine yards (yawn).

As usual, everything taken out of context, and lots of facts being left out.

Don’t know what happened?

Headlines will say: Madonna disrespects Chilean fans, cut songs from the show and appears three hours late.

But would it be different if Madonna had cancelled the show? No.

Had Madonna cancelled her Santiago show because of the rain, the media - and little monsters - would be talking about how disrespectful she was: “people bought tickets months in advance”, “she has performed under the rain before, why not in Chile?“… I can imagine a hundred different hypothetical complaints.

So what are they actually saying?

“Fans waited hours in the rain and Madonna started the show late.”

“It was cold and rainy, and Madonna didn’t start the show on time.”

“We were waiting for Madonna for hours, wet and cold, when she finally started the show, she cut off the entire first section of the show.“ 

I’m sorry to inform you, but Madonna has yet to master the ability of controlling the weather. Her name is not Storm, and that X-Men character was not based on Madonna’s real life gifts.

So complaining about the rain and being wet while waiting for Madonna is just so lame. It’s actually embarrassing that people will use the weather conditions to complain about Madonna.

When you bought tickets for a concert at an open-air soccer stadium during the summer in the south hemisphere, you knew what you were in for. It’s like planning a trip to Chicago in December, then complaining about the cold weather and blaming Oprah for it.

The only legitimate complaint here is about Madonna starting the show late - but even that complaint needs to be measured.

I’ve been to four different MDNA shows this year. The time I waited for Madonna to come on stage varied from 2:30 hours to almost 3:30 hours.

Madonna’s tardiness have been widely reported this year in the press. When reporters didn’t mention how late she started a show, little monsters made sure to leave a comment on every page that talked about the concert bitching about how “horrible” the wait was (as if they were actually there).

So for those people complaining about waiting for Madonna under the rain for several hours, here’s something for you: it was your choice. You all decided to get in the open-air stadium in the afternoon (under the rain) as soon as the gates were opened. 

Still, I understand how impatient we can all be. I was impatient in Miami (where Madonna’s tardiness was longer than usual), but I knew what I was in for, and I did not and will not whine about it like a 12-year old. 

I also did not boo her before the show started. I know it happened everywhere she went with this tour. Booing someone for being late is not the same as booing someone while they are on stage. Impatience is not disapproval. So sending me videos with impatient people booing Madonna hours before the show started is pointless.  

I agree that Madonna needs to learn how to start her shows earlier. One hour past the scheduled time is okay. Two or three? No. But that’s how she rolls, and everybody knows it. No one forced me to attend her show knowing she comes on stage late. No one forced anyone in Chile either. So don’t whine about it.

And please, stop criticizing Madonna for adapting her show to the local weather conditions. It just makes you haters even more desperate.

Instead of cancelling the show after thousands of people had already walked in the stadium (which she was advised to), Madonna decided to go ahead with the show anyway. But some adjustments had to be made: she cut a few songs off the setlist, but added others.

Note that the performances that were cut from the show or performed differently were mainly the ones that involve her electronic movable stage (that was wet and runs with electricity - here’s a red flag), and the performances that happen outside the stage coverage.

You see, Madonna also cut Like a Virgin and Love Spent from her shows in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre in Brazil and it wasn’t even raining there! Brazilians are not whining about it as if it were the end of the world. So get a grip! Madonna had a legitimate reason to cut certain songs from her show in Santiago.

And no, unlike little monsters are trying to say, it was not a light rain that stopped Madonna from performing the show the way it was supposed to be, it was the same rain that stopped Santiago as the media reports.

Don’t believe me? Here are a few clips from Chilean news reporting how the rain caused chaos around the city (all of those news are completely unrelated to the Madonna show):

“Rain, Accidents, Power Outages and Floods in Santiago” (here)

“21.5 mm rainfall in the Metropolitan area causes traffic chaos, fallen trees, power outages and damage to dozens of traffic lights” (here)

“Santiago collapsed again by 21.5 mm of rain” (here)

The same 21.5 mm of rain that caused so much damaged in Santiago fell over Madonna’s show (in the same city). Ignoring how the (same) rain affected the Madonna show is just such a desperate way of wanting to write something negative about her.

Let’s all bitch about how Madonna cut certain parts of her show in the same evening the whole city was in a chaotic state because of the same rain.

Who cares if some parts of the city went through power shortages and it could have happened right when Madonna was hanging from her stage’s ceiling?

Who cares if her stage was wet?

Who cares if her dancers and herself could slip or get electrocuted above the dozens of LED blocks they stand on throughout the show?

Who cares if Madonna left out the violent numbers of her show in respect for the Newtown, Connecticut victims? 

It’s entertainment! Watching a celebrity get hurt in front of us is all we want. Madonna had no right to take some precautions!

Criticizing Madonna for anything and everything, and not being interested in the real reasons why her show happened the way it did is more important to the media than anything else.

At times like these, I can see how right she was when she envisioned the American Life video. Tragedy is entertainment now! 

 

So you can complain all you want, and whine about her show being a different from what she planned it to be, but 1:20 of Madonna is better than no Madonna at all. 

And despite the changes on the show, there is another thing we can all feel good about (and Madonna real fans know it):

The rain may have stopped Santiago, but it could not stop the Queen of Pop. 

Epic Fail

Here we see her own fans throwing things at her - including a bottle (minute 3:10):

Here, you can watch little monsters burning a T-shirt with Madonna’s picture while they call her names: “cunt”, “old hag”, “bitch”:
 

Very mature, as usual. NOT.

Thanks madonnasfault and i-m-just-riding for the contribution.