“Madonna turned Madison Square Garden last night into a combination of Studio 54, Las Vegas and Cirque du Soleil, emerging from a giant disco ball to perform two hours’ worth of thumping, bass-driven dance music accompanied by eye-popping visuals, her usual coterie of handsome male dancers and, perhaps most importantly, a DJ” – Rafer Guzman writes today on Newsday.

“Adding to the clubby atmosphere: reduced air-conditioning to help protect Madonna’s voice. As the impressively lithe and sinewy singer moved around the stage, she wasn’t the only one perspiring.”

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In case you’re wondering, Madonna did get up on her crucifix to sing “Live to Tell,” from her latest album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor” (Warner Bros.). Was it tasteless? Was it offensive? One thing’s for sure: It was one of the show’s few dull points. Being stuck to a cross doesn’t allow a physical performer like Madonna to move much.

At 47, Madonna has stopped reinventing herself in any substantial way. She continues to try on different outfits — a cowboy hat for the 2000 album “Music,” a militant beret for 2003’s “American Life” — but those are fashion accessories, not personas.

For her latest album, she has returned to a familiar role: the flamboyant disco queen. “Confessions” happens to be a disappointingly vapid album, a soulless spreadsheet of dance-pop cliches — but Madonna has always had a knack for rising above her material. It’s one of the reasons she remains so fascinating, and so undeniably entertaining.

Madonna devoted about half of the concert — the first of six in a run at the Garden — to the new album, performing nearly every track on it. She began with “Future Lovers,” surrounded by men dressed as S&M horses. Madonna rode one, of course, then launched into a stomping version of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” During “Like a Virgin,” she mounted a saddle attached to a merry-go-round pole.

This was the “Equestrian” part of the show, and the other sections — “Bedouin,” “Never Mind the Bollocks” and “Disco” — were equally nonsensical (and thoroughly enjoyable).

Madonna still has a knack for aesthetics, which helped some of her overly earnest new songs come to life. During “Isaac” (a song that raised a few hackles in the Jewish community), a muezzin-style singer in a robe trekked across the stage while images of the desert passed behind him.

The show steamrollered ahead with barely a split-second between songs, much like a DJ might string together his set. The inevitable climax was the show’s “Disco” section, for which Madonna gamely donned a white suit, a la John Travolta.

Madonna may be stealing her own ideas these days, but she still knows how to please a crowd. By the time she unleashed the old-new combo of “Lucky Star” and “Hung Up,” the crowd had long been up on its feet, dancing and sweating along with her.

From Newsday.com