The Material Maven is fixated on a steroid-hyped episode
-by Radio RockonTour host Timothy Tilghman
What’s gotten into the once virginal Material Girl? Madonna appears to have leapt totally over the top with the peculiar excesses on her 2012 MDNA Tour. Louise Ciccone has retooled her stage personae into that of an over-sexed gansta moll with a bustling ensemble cast in tow gleefully choreographing her rapid descent as a bargain-basement carbon copy of her former celebrity status. How quickly self-consumption can ruin a reputation.
Madonna gave the first of two capacity-crowd concerts Sunday night in Washington, D.C, on September 23, 2012. Tickets were not all that hard to come by out on the walk. Finding a below market-priced seat, however, was a tricky proposition. It seemed the younger you were, the more you were apt to enjoy the exaggerated stage production concocted by Lady Madonna. To beleaguer matters, the Voguestress did not open the show until 10:30 pm. The dreaded end did not occur until after midnight at 12:25 am!
One major disappointment with her 2012 tour is the fact that Madonna rearranged many of her songs altering the structure of her familiar hits. Loyal fans wanna hear what they remember as the song on the radio or on the record. Significantly reconstructing established material is rather a turnoff for seasoned fans. This fact can actually dissuade the overall mood of an audience expecting to be entertained.
Curiously, there were rather subtle similarities between Madge’s 2012 stage romp and Pink Floyd’s The Wall if you knew what to recognize among the changing staging. The engine roar of a helicopter in flight, an image of a large white-bricked Wall, and a small furnished bedroom in the Paradise Motel wherein Madonna is confronted a masked menace attempting to molest her during “Gang Bang”.
Our tramp-vamp found herself under assault in a dingy urban flat brandishing a silver pistol. The two commence in struggle, and Madonna capped the violent intruder complete with several blood splatterings that appeared on the jumbotron for maximum effect. Why all of this gratuitous violence? What purpose does fabricated turmoil serve to promote her stage act? Whatever Maddy was trying to convey visually made no connection whatsoever.
The Cougar may only be 54, but Madonna demonstrated she is ready for action. Flaunting her flourishing sexuality like an aging brothel Madam, her sexually aggressive antics were borderline comical when she revealed her round buttocks wearing a black G-string thong! In an interactive burlesque sequence, she knelt before a male audience member and asked him to write on her back what he thought about her. He scrawled the word SEXY on her bare back to the approval of the randy spectators.
Madonna is desperately seeking for a measure to remain relevant in today’s youth-driven music scene and with today’s fickle downloading public. Performing at the 2012 Super Bowl 46 Half-Time gig was an overdue career pinnacle. No popular female artist has held onto the fascination of Americans for as long as Madge has. Hopefully, Madonna will be able to continue creatively and record more commercially viable albums that score on the charts in the future.
Madonna, Verizon Center, Washington, DC, September 23, 2012 setlist: Transgression: Gregorian Chant Virgin Mary Intro (with Kalakan + with snippets of “Lekhah Dodi” and “Birjina Gaztetto Bat Zegoen”) * Girl Gone Wild (with samples from “Material Girl” and “Give It 2 Me”) * Revolver * Gang Bang * Papa Don’t Preach * Hung Up (with samples from “Girl Gone Wild”) * I Don’t Give A * Prophecy: Best Friend (video interlude; with samples from “Heartbeat”) * Express Yourself (with snippets of “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga and “She’s Not Me”) * Give Me All Your Luvin’ * Turning Up the Hits: (video interlude; with samples from several Madonna songs) * Turn Up The Radio * Open Your Heart (with Kalakan + with snippets from “Sagarra Jo!” by Kalakan) * Holiday * Masterpiece (with Kalakan) * Masculine/Feminine: Justify My Love (video interlude) * Vogue * Candy Shop (with samples from “Ashamed Of Myself” by Kelley Polar + snippets of “Erotica”) * Human Nature * Like A Virgin (with samples from “Evgeni’s Waltz” by Abel Korzeniowski) * Love Spent * Celebration: Nobody Knows Me (video interlude) * I’m Addicted * I’m A Sinner (with Kalakan + with snippets of “Cyber-Raga”) * Like A Prayer * Encore: Celebration (with samples from “Girl Gone Wild”)