Dear MadonnaTribers
The end of the year is almost here, and boy was that a good year! Madonna took part in fashion campaigns, outstanding community work in Malawi and Brazil, she released her Celebration single, album and video among other thing – but most of all she rocked the world with the Sticky & Sweet Tour!

I got to see the tour 8 times, but of course the most amazing experience I remember from it was the 2 grand finale shows in my country – Israel!
It has been a long wait for us Israeli fans waiting for Madonna to come back here. 16 years! True, we got to see her here more and more during the passed years as she followed Kabbalah events that took place here. But for the fans, the need for heaving Madonna performing here in Israel, especially after her long journey through Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, was getting bigger and bigger with each tour since the Drowned World Tour. After on and off rumours about “The Re-Invention Tour” coming to Israel, that never came true, and then a word about “The Confessions Tour” coming here, and never came true too, we all got disappointed but we “got up again, over and over…”

Then came “The Sticky & Sweet Tour” and we we’re all certain this around – the queen is coming! But once again, the tour was over, and Israel was left out of it…

But then, a few months after the tour was “over”, rumours started popping about a supposed 2nd leg of the Sticky & Sweet!
When the official news came here to MadonnaTribe ‘for the very first time’ fans around the world started speculate where would Madonna go next?!

This time around it felt like “the time is right now”! After I got a confirmation E-mail telling me M is coming to Israel the official word broke free! Madonna herself wrote a special latter to her fans, telling us that the Sticky & Sweet Tour will end it’s world record run, in a very special place that has an emotional value to her! Some time after, the official word was released to the Israeli media – and all of us Israeli fans knew that from now until the show “Time will go by so slowly, we won’t know what to do!”

But as devoted fans we did managed to find out things to do to make time go faster! We had Madonna themed parties across Israel, we we’re interviewed on T.V. and radio shows, we we’re destructed by a giant billboard advertising the show next to one of Israel’s business traffic road, and we stood up for hours in front of the box office to get the Golden Circle tickets and once we got the tickets in our hands we thought it couldn’t get any better then this! But it wasn’t too long before the announcement of a 2nd show made us all disbelieve how lucky we are!

A week before the first show I took a walk to Park Hayrkon, to view in my own eyes the construction of the stage, THE STAGE! The same stage that has been an ongoing part of my life over this year, the stage I know that once I’ll see for myself, here on the green hills in the middle of Tel Aviv, here in Israel, once I’ll see it – I’ll be reassured, this time, this time around it really happens!

The days passed and the even though M herself was not in Israel just yet, she was all over the country. News Papers, T.V. reports commercial adds and billboards, parties and what not?! The excitement was over flowing.

Madonna gave us her all. She literally shined here on the stage. How could she not?! Performing at the ‘energy centre of the world‘ in front of 50,000 people, heaving her friends and teachers watching her, among them Karen Berg and Eitan Yardeni – it was hard for Madonna to hid her emotions during the entire show. The highlights never ended. Starting with “Hello Israel” to “This one’s for the ladies! All the sexy Israeli ladies”, up to the emotional, teary-eyed speech before “You Must Love Me” that made the audience yelling “Ester! Ester! Ester!” hysterically, that lead up to Madonna starting the song with “Wow! Where does Ester goes from here?!” to even larger applause from the crowed! And of course the fantastic ending song “Give It 2 Me” where Lola was on stage with her mother!

And that was only the first show!

Even though professional cameras were not allowed during the shows, knowing how special the shows here are going to be, I snuck in my pro CANON SLR cam, with a 300mm lens (you don’t want to know where I hid it – lets just say running to the stage was a bit difficult!). “No one’s gonna stop me, now!” that was my motto for the show! And I’m so glad it was cause there was no doubt in my mind that the shows in Israel will be special, and they were!

For years MadonnaTribe has a been my online home for sharing my Madonna related artworks with you all. I can not be more great full to my dear webmasters friends for giving me this platform. This time around I would like to share with you fellow tribers my newest passion – photography. I took more then 3000 pictures at the Sticky and Sweet Tour on various shows I’ve attended, and right before this year comes to an end, it is time to share the best of them with you all!

Hope you’ll enjoy!
Happy holidays and a happy new year to all MadonnaTribe members an visitors.

XOXO
David Kawena.

Special thanks to our friend David Kawena. Click on any of the images above for his complete gallery.