It’s grossed $US280m so far, has 87 dates, 24 songs, and 4 ‘acts’. Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet world tour has impressive stats, but none of those are impressive as the show itself, or the person at the centre of it all. She’s been around for 25 years, had multiple reinventions, caused raised eyebrow after raised eyebrow, but on Sunday night she had the audience in The O2 in the palm of her hand.
We were there courtesy of Adobe (thanks Emma and Ali), as the screen projections were made using After Effects, and as a spectacle by the so-called Queen of Pop, it promised much. And boy did it deliver.
A high-tech, high production value, highly polished show included old songs that were thrown in among new ones, but more than that, the way that Madonna threw herself around the stage defied belief. For a 50 year-old woman, she looked at least 15 years younger. The yoga, pilates, and Kabbalah worship clearly pays off.
There was no let up in the pace either. Whether poking fun at her previous incarnations, leaping on a vintage Rolls-Royce, standing on a grand piano, or walking on a travelator, she made it all look so easy. The projections were equally unrelenting, competing for your gaze with their bright colours and shapes.
Downsides? Too much playing of guitars provided a few too many sit-down moments for the audience, and too much crotch grabbing from a woman who is half a century old, and doesn’t need to either cause scandal any more or prove she is sexy.
Overall, it was a truly astounding two hours, with some clever bootleg tinkering of old and new songs, a tasteful Michael Jackson tribute, and truly legendary stagecraft, of which you’ll rarely see elsewhere; it was Madonna after all. Take a bow, your Madgesty…