Last night we went to see Madonna in concert along with 69,798 other people. It was the last show of her Sticky and Sweet (or is it Sweet and Sticky?) concert tour and it was PHENOMENAL.
Before you start lecturing me, I know she's morally questionable and disgusting in many aspects of how she lives her life. But we got the tickets at a good price and so we decided it was worth the money to see one of the greatest music legends of our time. (And odds are she won't come to South Carolina next year when we live there and she certainly hasn't made it to Brasilia, Maputo or Guadalajara in the last 10 years so this seemed like as good a time as any).
The Sao Paulo newspaper reported that she travels with 250 people in her entourage and that it takes 5 days just to set up the stage. I can totally understand those numbers after seeing the show. There was so much going on - her; the band; dancers all over the place; djs; 6 huge screens that formed her backdrop that flashed different images, videos, etc the whole time; these enormous sparkly "M"'s that decorated the sides of the stage; this huge moving circular lighted thing that raised and lowered during different parts of the concert; etc. A baby grand piano was raised on the stage at one point and she drove out on the stage in what looked like an antique Bentley or Rolls early in the show. It was CRAZY INSANE.
We had great "seats" - I put that in quotes because there were no seats. We were in that part right by the stage where you stand for hours upon hours (yes, I know I sound old, but my back was killing me!). We were a maximum of 15 people back from the stage so we had great views of her. She didn't even start singing until 10:15, so when she stopped at 12:15am, I was DONE.
Before the concert, we ran into some people from the group "Meninos do Morumbi". Meninos is this wonderful organization here that was started in the mid-1990s by a great guy and musician named Flavio. Flavio's intention was to introduce music to adolescents from the slums as a means of getting them off of drugs and off the streets. The program has been wildly successful. There are some 4000 kids involved in the program - they come for various lessons now in sports, English, and music; and their music is sensational. They've performed for President Bush and other dignitaries so their exposure is enormous. But I digress. We ran into Flavio and his wife before the show with some of the kids from Meninos. They said that they were at the show as Madonna's guests. Some of Madonna's dancers had come out over the last few days to do workshops with the kids. As we were standing there, the dancers came out to get the group. They treated each other like old friends and then they took them backstage. How cool is that? So even good things can come from morally destitute people.
It was a memorable show and I'm so glad we went but wow, am I tired today. Apparently Madonna at age 50 has way more stamina than I do at 38 (and if you look at the attached photos of her, you'll see she's nothing but muscle so I imagine she's definitely got more stamina than I do!). She was out celebrating until 5am this morning. I fell into bed at 1:30am, don't think I rolled over until the alarm clock went off at 7am and I've hardly been able to keep my eyes open all day. So on that note, I'm off to bed!
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