Madonna 2020 Palladium Residency

I'm not keeping up with the injury details but surely she could sit on a stool and busk a few classics instead of jumping around and throwing some shapes? Seems v harsh just cutting the show.

I was there last night.
It's an extraordinary and elaborate show - almost a piece of musical theatre.
If I hadn't learnt till afterwards she'd lopped off the three songs I would not have been aware. It's still a one hour 50 gig - so I didn't feel short changed.

If you want a greatest hits gig, you might feel disappointed by the focus on her latest album, but it is a unique event and worth seeing if you can afford the horrible prices.

Let's hope she is fit enough to do the rest of the run and she doesn't do herself long term damage as a result.

4th and 11th February cancelled, just seen a Facebook post from her

Indeed. I think it's a "bit" cruel of whoever has decided to go on with this tour in its current form. Probably they think she's not getting younger so it might be her last big tour and money must be earned before Madonna decides to stop it. We all know stories of stars who were basically forced to perform even when unwell. Or seriously ill.

On the other hand though, I think she's also under massive pressure, a self-inflicted one. Madonna is a huge name for everyone in my generation but I'm turning 40 this year - she is not as famous anymore as she used to be in the '80s and '90s, which is an absolutely natural course of things; every generation has their own idols. Back then she had little competition; now we have dozens and dozens of pop stars with dozens of millions of followers. I guess this tour is also a statement (OK, was supposed to be). I think she may have wanted to prove something. But I also think majority of her fans, including myself, would quite enjoy watching her sit on a bar stool and sing songs - even though Madonna is not the best singer in the universe - and wouldn't complain that they haven't seen 20 complex sexy dance routines in a show. I guess there comes a time in your life when - to quote - you actually can go for second best, for your own good. 

When the tour was announced her fan club had first dibs on tickets. Being in small venues, she knows she’s playing to hardcore fans and I’m really, really surprised she didn’t take the opportunity to dig deep into her catalogue and mix things up - for once in her life she doesn’t have to please tens of thousands of people who turn up for Vogue or Like a Virgin.

I don’t think she’ll ever do a barstool kinda tour (I wish) but prior to Madame X Tour she has always worked out and took incredible care of herself, so that could keep doing what she was doing. Her dancing isn’t as taxing as it once was but she still manages to put on amazing shows.

I would love a show that focused on her band and voice though. I know she’s mocked endlessly for her vocal abilities but the woman can sing and knows how to use what she has.

Well she does kinda decide ticket prices as she will demand a certain amount per show and the promoter then has to work out how they are going to charge with their share on top of that.

Her prices skyrocketed after she found out how much they were going for on Ebay for the Drowned World Tour. She said that if people were willing to pay that much, that was how much she was going to charge.

If she did more than one show in a city she always did back to back shows, but usually only 2 in a row at the most and then had a night off.

The whole tour has been a mess from the start. They did the fan lottery system and turned down a lot of people and then when they put the 'leftovers' on sale to the general public, the seats were better than the ones they had allotted to people who had won the lottery and there were hundreds of them left for each date. Heaps of people who already had tickets got pissed off because they were allotted crappy seats when they would've paid for better ones if given the option originally. The people who'd been turned down in the lottery got pissed off as obviously there were plenty of seats left and it'd all been a scheme to create a fake rush. And non fans didn't buy tickets because they were far too expensive.

Disaster...

I always thought that was fair actually and to help justify the expense (tickets basically doubled in price compared to her previous tour) the tour was advertised as having all of her hits: mostly songs she hadn’t performed in over 14 years:



Re-Invention Tour is underrated but it completely changed the touring industry. Madonna was one of the first to show people were prepared to pay big money for official tickets, and one of the first to feature such huge screens and merge it with live performance on such a big scale. It really was the turning point in a fledging industry at the time (interestingly, Christina Aguilera bought her stage and used it on her Back to Basics Tour a few years later).

I know Kylie’s Anti Tour has been mentioned a few times but it was exactly this, and so much fun. I’m not sure Madonna is able to loosen up to that degree,the only time she’s really come close was that bizarre clown thing that was discussed early In the thread. I would love it if she did though, so many songs that she has never performed live.

The tour was announced last May so 8 to 9 months is a huge amount of time for Live Nation to schedule it. There isn't an immediate show booked to go into the Palladium so if Madge cannot do consecutive shows which must have become clear early in the tour then the dates could have been adjusted.

Also she has done enough tours and no doubt they are highly rehearsed then if she felt the schedule would be too much ask for them to be spaced out a bit more. This is Madonna we are talking about, if she cannot demand this then who can.

The likes of the Stones, McCartney, Cher, Elton all do tours and seem to get their itineraries balanced right.

The fact that she has cancelled shows so she doesn't do more than 2 in a row and has to have all the treatment on show days must show the schedule has some part to play. The fact that there are multiple shows in each venue means there are more occasions where she is doing back to back shows. Obviously Madonna is not Superwoman and it will take longer to recover from concerts as you get older. Although I admire her for carrying on, surely the sensible thing would have been to cancel and reschedule the tour. Any real fan would not want to see their star in so much pain for what is after all just a concert.