Madonna Philly concert report

I saw Madonna in concert last night and needless to say, I enjoyed it. It was the first of two nights she would be performing at the Wachovia Center in Philly for her Confessions tour. I saw it with my friend Mike, who lives in South Philly and is in walking distance of the W Center. That meant we could walk there and not to worry about parking! We got there around 7:20 pm. The show was supposed to start at 8pm but people were still filing in so it didn't start until 8:50.

From the moment Madonna came out in full horseriding gear and sang "Future Lovers"--one of the ten numbers she performed from last year's Confessions on a Dancefloor " album-- I couldn't take my eyes off the stage for the next two hours. One highlight included her straddling a horse saddle on a stripper's pole while she sang "Like A Virgin" against a backdrop of a series of films of horses falling down, which was a reference to her horseriding accident back in August. There was "Music" done as a mash-up with the Trammps's "Disco Inferno," which was staged as a Saturday Night Fever extravaganza, complete with Madonna wearing a Tony Manero-style white suit. And there was the final number, the europhic "Lucky Star/Hung Up," where Madonna got the crowd to chant "Time goes by so slowly" again and again. At one point she went to berate a couple in the third row for not being enthusiastic enough--"Did you pay for those third throw seats? Then fucking act like you paid for the tickets! That's your hard earned money! Unbutton that top button!"

And yes she went up on that disco mirror crucifix when she sang "Live To Tell." While she sings a counter goes on, and when she is finished it stops at 12 million. The projection screens that says that "12 million children in Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS."

When I went to see her at her Drowned World tour five years ago, I had to sit behind a couple of drunk queens who couldn't stop yapping. No drunk queens around me this year, though this time around there were a couple of drunk straight girls within earshot. And speaking of drunks, there was a bar in the stadium we walked by to get to our seats was having some Madonna karaoke going on. A drunk boy butchering "Hollywood." Three piss drunk girls slaughtering "Like A Virgin." I hope that I don't act like that when I'm drunk!

I wanted to pick up a T-shirt but when I got to the merchandise booth I found that they were going for $40 and up. Having been able to scrape up enough money for the tickets, I thought that the price was a bit too rich for my blood. The shirts looked nice but they didn't quite seem to be worth all that money, so I wound up just getting a 8x10 color photo instead. "At least I have some great memories of the concert," I said to Mike as we walked back to his place.