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Madonna Saddles and Rocks Moscow
American pop diva Madonna has given her first show in Russia at Moscow’s Luzhniki Arena. Madonna came to Moscow with Confessions Tours, promoting the new album, Confessions On A Dance Floor. Kommersant correspondent Irina Kulik and other 50,000 Madonna fans went to the gig.
Madonna’s concert is a real landmark event for Moscow even though major pop stars of all stripes have included a venue in Russia's capital in their schedules. But Madonna is a unique personality. She still embodies pop culture, real conceptual pop art. She is the only one on this intrinsically conformist pop stage who still dares to be provocative while once raging rocker debauchees are now turning into law-abiding and politically correct citizens. She does not fight with philistine morals. She simply ignores them. It makes it more menacing than any political program speeches. No wonder that the pop diva and her fans received a greater number of anathemas than the main rock anti-Christ Marilyn Manson. A small group of Russian Orthodox believers even took to the streets to protest the gig near the venue, only to find themselves behind the bars along with ordinary drunkards.
Some songs from Madonna’s latest album feature citations from ABBA. Madonna was the first who got the permission from the Swedish band to use their songs. The screaming pink leggings is probably the last item of clothing that Madonna can try on and not look ridiculous as would any other middle-aged lady who suddenly threw on the things she used to wear as a teenager. In fact, disco was the last thing that reigned in the world before Madonna appeared. Yet, despite the love of pink, the Material Girl still cherishes no girly sentiment. All this jolly dance-floor fun sounds almost heart-rendering, like a kind of a party during a plague.
The world is going to nowhere but we have some time for a party. The British Paul Oakenfold gave the Moscow fans a real disco party. He included dance-floor hits of the last twenty years into his set, with an emphasis on the Russian influence – Zemfira, PPK and even Tekhnologiya whose Nazhmi na Knopku (Press the Button) finished his part.
The start of the show looked more like a race track than a disco party. Horses galloping on the screen at the background, Madonna emerged from a crystal glitter-ball like a horse-woman with a whip. She used the whip to hurry her dancers as if it was a never-ending training – for herself and others. Those confessions (a word from the name of the tour) are not some sentimental and confidential words but bold revelations. Just look at those x-rays of the artist’s fractures – they were showed during Like A Virgin. This time, they were combined with shots of broken and bandaged feet of horses. Regardless of all her professional injuries, the amazing old horse still looked the most relievable part of the astounding machinery of her show.
The total weight of all the things she took to Moscow is 200 tons, which can be put side by side with a military ship. The glitter-ball studded with Swarovski crystals alone weights a ton. The glitter-ball, however, wanes compared to another element of the show – the paste-studded crucifix that Madonna climbs during one of her songs.
With every song the audience realized that if it was a dance party, it was at least special one. No floodlights, but pictures of suffering children, rivers of blood and women wearing yashmaks instead. During Forbidden Love, trunks of the dancers bore either the David’s star, the crescent with a five-pointed star or the Lebanese cedar. The video featured symbols of world religion made of blood drops. Even the sticky Sorry sounded as Madonna’s apology before the suffering world.
She sang Live to Tell on the cross with crystals. That paste-studded disco crucifix, which caused so much controversy in Russia, looks not a religious symbol but a pop art object. It is some kind of an enormously enlarged jewelry like those many ladies and gentlemen of various degrees piety wear. You would rather call Madonna crucified on that giant bijou a victim of fashion than a martyr for faith. Only if appeals to help AIDS-positive and www-addresses of foundations in charge did not appear on the screen during this glamorous crucifixion.
Even after easing the tension, she did not go on to dance songs. She preferred rock ones, appearing in a leather jacket with a huge guitar atilt for I Love New York. At one point, the diva decided to talk to the audience as any artist on tour does. However, starting with the usual “I love you Moscow”, she went on to say that you guys have been living in democracy for 15 years here, but do you often think about peace in the world? After that she sang Give Peace A Chance with all her band.
Then, she stepped from rock heaven into disco hell. The stage changed into a dance floor again for Music Inferno. Madonna appeared on the glittering stage in a white three-piece while dancers on roller-skaters were whirling around her, nearly knocking her off her feet. Yet, the inferno proved to be a parody, just like La Isla Bonita which was turned into a kitsch Latin disco with heavenly branchy palm while suddenly cropped in that hell on the backdrop screen. It was then when Madonna sang one of her most provocative songs, Erotica. She closed the gig with Hung Up with ABBA’s sample in it, showing the audience a mantle with crystal-embroidered Dancing Queen on the back. Others might recall another hit of ABBA – See that girl, watch the scene, dig in the Dancing Queen.
She played her yesterday’s gig amazingly, while on the previous day she attended the opening of an exhibition of her pictures shot by Steven Klein, American photographer. This flash trip from the airport to the gallery shows not only energy of a socialite. It seems that Madonna needs to look in her own reflection in art before a show. This is what makes her main instrument – not only music. Confessions Tour proves it once again.
Irina Kulik
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 13, 2006
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