Confessions Tour 2006 – Opening Night in Los Angeles

Highlights this evening were, of course the entrance! The way the disco ball blooms like a flower and yes, Dita is back!

Erotica with the use of its demo, You Thrill Me was absolutely breathtaking.
I’m shocked so many so-called die hard fans don’t know this song or, at least its origins.

The spellbinding moment of the show is undeniably live To Tell with its theme of “confessing sins and revealing your truths.

” Madonna was particularly radiant during this song and it was probably the most honest and emotional I’ve seen her perform
since In This Life during The Girlie Show.

Music Inferno was the moment the show delivered on its “mission statement.” The entire show however, was a flurry
of homage to “the ghost of disco past.”

The Donna Summer cover during Future Lovers sounded pristine in Madonna’s
voice. Her intonation and rich timbre were impeccable. The Travolta-inspired Saturday Night Fever dance break was almost verbatim with the finger points and the “hand guns.” The final moments in the show include a “big up” to ABBA in the form of her costume. The white unitard worn during Erotica, La Isla Bonita, and Lucky Star is a take on costumes worn by ABBA on their final world tour.
Is Madonna trying to send us a message?

She also firmly plants her tongue in her cheek with the cape she wears during Lucky Star which reads “Dancing Queen,” yet another ABBA reference.

The show is a healthy 2 hours in length and even with the 12 weeks of preparation, there were still a handful of technical “fuck-ups.”
During Let It Will Be, Madonna accidentally slapped her microphone off the end of the main catwalk and crawled over to the edge for a moment with an “Oh sh*t!” expression on her face as a techie searched for it on the arena floor.

Also, during the first 20 seconds of I Love New York, there was a lot of feedback coming through the house. Later, during the intro
of Ray Of Light, Madonna “pow-wowed” with Stuart Price to fix an amp or something.

There were a few false starts on Madonna’s behalf. It was either Like A Virgin or Jump, where she started singing early and caught herself, then picked up the correct entrance on the second try.

This also happened during La Isla Bonita and I’m not sure if the it was due to a mic problem or Madonna’s clumsy counting. 🙂 The entire first verse of “La Isla” was out of time rythmically on Madonna’s part then picked itself up on the chorus.

From my vantage point, during b>I Love New York, I observed a less-than-thrilled audience. This was
really the only time I observed entire sections of people standing with their arms folded with feigned expressions on their faces. I may be biased as I have never disliked a Madonna song until I heard this one for the first time, but I’m just reporting what I saw.

Aside from its could-do-without number, I Love New York, the seemingly thrown-away rendition of
Drowned World/Substitute for Love, the poor choice of keys for Jump, Ray Of Light & Like It Or Not, and the few minor errors, this show delivers on so many other levels and is, if you can believe, even more visually stunning than Madonna’s previous outings.

If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, you should proceed to your nearest ticket broker and secure your spot for the hottest show of the year!!!

Special thanks to Mykeljay. Check his blog at http://blog.myspace.com/mjspace for more.