Madonna proved she’s still got it Friday night, performing a stunning show despite a rocky start, for a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden. The show was her last ever, wrapping up her worldwide Platinum Tour.
The show opened with a performance by Lady Gaga, somewhat fitting as she has extensively been compared to early Madonna. With an array of flashy costumes and set designs, Lady Gaga warmed up the stage with her recent mega-hits ‘Telephone”, “Alejandro”, and “Just Dance.” Despite the crowd’s enthrallment with the Gaga spectacle, it seemed obvious they were much more concerned with what Madge would offer up for the night.
The atmosphere seemed to drastically change when dancers cloaked in white appeared on stage for the opening bars of 1985’s“Material Girl.” As the Material Girl herself began to sing, the audience fell quiet. The stage had a cheesy nostalgic feel as she was dressed in a bathrobe and hair curlers, sitting in beauty salon-like chairs. Adopting an accent somewhat close to a nasal-y New Yorker, she seemed to channel a Cyndi Lauper-esque persona that disappointed many of her fans.
“I’m not sure what she was doing out there,” said Hannah Wilson, 27, of Trenton, New Jersey. “That’s not how she sings that song, it’s like she was trying to make a joke or something. And it didn’t work, it just didn’t.”
Luckily for the 50,000 fans in attendance, the rest of the show was far less of a disappointment. Madonna began the next number, the 1990 hit “Vogue”, dressed in a black lace and mesh leotard and knee-high shiny leather boots dancing on a raised platform. The mood couldn’t have differed more from her first song, as the crowd screamed, clapped, and danced along with Madonna and her scantily clad dancers.
As images of eyes and clocks flashed on the screen behind her, she sensuously strutted up and down a catwalk as the electronic sounds of “Vogue” mixed with parts of her newer hip-hop song “4 Minutes”. The show was clearly back on track at this point, as the number offered up the classic Madonna costumes, set designs, and dance moves dedicated fans have come to expect from the Queen of Pop.
The show closed with the 2000 triple-platinum hit “Music”. Taking the stage in plain black pants and a black top with the word “Mother” written on the front and “F****r” on the back, she appeared in the middle of a group of gyrating dancers, clad in all black.
As the crowd belted out “music makes the people come together”, Madonna could not have seemed happier wrapping up the last show of her decades-long career.
“She delivered out there,” said Kelley Lewis, 29, of New York. “I wasn’t sure how it would turn out after the ‘Material Girl’ thing at the beginning but she really made up for it.”
Madonna will certainly be missed as she heads in to retirement; evident by the number of crying fans leaving the arena Friday night.
“I’ve grown up with Madonna,” continued Lewis’ friend Chelsea Lee, also of New York. “She defined my teenage years and it’s hard to think of it ending. I’m just so glad I got to witness this tonight, she is the definition of an icon.”
-Stephanie Thornton
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