Here’s a “colder” review from the Toronto Star.

Madonna‘s notorious 2003 flop, American Life, wasn’t half as bad as its many detractors argued, but the record’s messages about the emptiness of fame and materialism were not easily reconciled with a pop legacy synonymous with hedonism, conspicuous consumption and the relentless pursuit of the spotlight.

A similar dissonance ran through the ungainly, but wholly spectacular, production the former Material Girl jammed into the Air Canada Centre last night for the first of three local dates – one follows tonight, another on Wednesday – on her “Re-Invention” Tour.

Totally camp at times, yet yearning for gravitas at others in images of war and hackneyed John Lennon covers, the immaculately conceived and executed two-hour affair often resembled the world’s most pretentious drag show.

That it succeeded as ludicrously overwrought entertainment, despite a few obvious flaws, though, is testament to some of the most riveting stage and video design ever committed to the concert stage, an undeniable repertoire of solid tunes and the barely containable enthusiasm of Madonna‘s fans.

This was only Madonna’s second visit to Toronto since her 1990 Blond Ambition tour stop at SkyDome provoked a visit by the local morality squad, a moment that immortalized the city as the “fascist state of Toronto” when it turned up in the documentary Truth Or Dare one year later.

While her “Girlie Show” touched down at the ‘Dome in 1993, she gave the city a conspicuous pass on 2001’s “Drowned World” tour. The excitement among the Maddie faithful – a true cross section of the Toronto population, if tilted somewhat towards giddy gay men and 30-something women in unflattering outfits – at her return has, thus, been building for quite some time.

The highest expectations were likely met, even if Madonna herself felt almost secondary to the Cirque du Soleil-esque whirlwind of high-res digital projections, costumed dancers, acrobats, skateboarders and bagpipers (yes, there was a pipe and drum band on stage at one point… for “Into The Groove,” of all things) swirling around her.

From the coy, one-two opening statement of “Vogue” (first words uttered from the stage: “Strike a pose”) and American Life’s “Nobody Knows Me” until the closing circuit-party throb of a reconstituted “Holiday” – which had Madonna and her dance troupe cavorting over the ecstatic crowd on an enormous, triangular catwalk while confetti cannons discharged a small mountain of candy-coloured paper… the “Re-Invention” was an all-out assault on the eyes.

“American Life” and a jubilant “Express Yourself” were conducted in fatigues and military-drill formation. The Dick Tracy soundtrack obscurity “Hanky Panky,” “Deeper And Deeper” and “Die Another Day” were (un)dressed as burlesque, the latter tune climaxing bizarrely with Madonna being strapped into an electric chair before a glowing half-pipe. A show-stopping run at “Music” brought the video’s retro-disco imagery garishly to life on an illuminated staircase, while “Like A Prayer” concluded with stills of stigmata flanking the singer on stage.

Still other tunes found Madonna assuming the pose of a simple rock ‘n’ roll frontwoman, strapping on a guitar for “Burning Up” and “Material Girl” and occasionally even playing it.

If this spiritually questing, 45-year-old mother – there were some Kabbalah-themed T-shirts spotted on stage and Hebrew script on the monitors for “Like A Prayer” – and sometime children’s author intended some overarching message to be taken away from this orgy of excess other than “Dig me, I’m Madonna,” it wasn’t getting through. But “Dig me, I’m Madonna” certainly did.

It’s not that her sentiments aren’t sincere, it’s that she’s incapable of expressing herself through anything but spectacle. And she does it very well

Source: Toronto Star