“Dressed in black with a horse whip, lace sleeves and a riding top hat Madonna was unfurled to Wales from a massive disco ball at the front of the Millennium Stadium stage”, Claire Hill writes today in her review for the Western Mail.

“Her arrival, at 8.38pm, was marked by deafening cheers as she opened her first set in Wales with an equestrian theme. Future Lovers was blasted out at the start of the six-track “saucy-horse” section where Madonna pranced around the stage with her dancers held by reins.

Minutes earlier the singer had been driven to the stadium in a blacked-out silver Range Rover.

Madonna instantly silenced critics who carp that she can’t sing live with pitch-perfect versions of I Feel Love and Get Together before going into a racy and raunchy Like A Virgin.

An adulterated merry-go-round horse with just the saddle left moved in a circle while the 47-year-old put on gymnastic movements that would shame someone half her age.

Continue reading this review from icWales.com by clicking the Full Article link below.
Thanks to James.

To the end of the equestrian section the singer disappeared through the floor and was replaced by three separate dancers who break-danced their way through individual tales of child abuse, self-harm and gang-killing. Madonna reappeared attached to a disco-fied cross with her head wearing in a crown of thorns as she sung a powerful rendition of Live To Tell.

Images of this moment have been well-documented since the singer started her Confessions tour in May but with the backdrop of children dying of Aids in Africa and the running tally of 12 million children who will be orphaned by the disease in Africa the song had a poignancy which has so far been missed. She closed her section by lying prostrate on the floor as quotations from the gospel of Matthew 25:35 appeared on the screen above her.

Then the singer launched into her Bedouin section which featured two versions of her recent hit, Sorry.

Described as more of a theatre production than a concert, last night was a chance for the 59,000 concert-goers to see the show first, as the Queen of Pop kicked off the European leg of her world tour. The atmosphere in Cardiff throughout the day was electric with thousands waiting for the gates to open at 5.30pm.

If Madonna had been so inclined to step out of her dressing rooms and move around the crowds, pop into the bars blasting Holiday out onto the sunny streets of Cardiff then she’d have been impressed about the power of one thing – her cowboy hat legacy.

Inside the stadium Madonna changed her outfit seven times moving from the equestrian period to Bedouin and finally to disco.

Those in the audience only had one chance to dress for the occasion and while plenty schlepped along in everyday high-street wear, others were making a different statement.

The hardcore fans were happy to display their unwavering dedication by pulling on their well-worn tour T-shirts from years back and others were more keen to pay a more personal homage.

Two girls purposefully strutted down Queen Street before the concert dressed in tiny black shorts, a cut-off gold and black leotard, a heavy helping of lace and tight peroxide curls that recalled Madge in her Blonde Ambition days.

Behind me a middle-aged couple commenting on the £150 tickets, announced, “You might as well just get drunk and watch it on the telly, you’d see more.”

This is possibly true for the £55 tickets at the top of the stadium, but the flaw in her theory was that Madonna was not on television last night. No, last night she was only at the Millennium Stadium.

As the clock hit 7pm, DJ Paul Oakenfold, a favourite remixer of Madonna became the second person to open up for the singer since the Beastie Boys in the 80s.

We were promised a spectacle and that’s what we got. While the songs were powerful with acoustic renditions of Drowned World and the return of old classics like La Isla Bonita and Lucky Star, it was the all-round theatrics of the performance that threatened to leave the audience speechless.

In costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, the singer glittered in Swarovski crystals and wowed with her athletic dance moves. She was a ringleader on the stage drawing everyone into her world, if only for two hours.

Closing with her last single Hung Up the singer pulled out all the stops.

You might be able to watch it all on video in the future, saving yourself that £150, but you won’t be able to capture the full reach of Madonna. Only the 59,000 people there saw that – and luckily, I was one of them.