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29 March 2024

Madonna from Her Madgesty to just Mad

US pop icon Madonna performs on stage during her first ever concert in the Gulf as part of her MDNA world tour at Abu Dhabi's Yas Island Stadium. An estimated 25,000 fans cheered and screamed as the Material Girl finally appeared on stage more than two hours late, wearing a skin-tight black outfit from her "Girl Gone Wild" album. (AFP)

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

There’s trouble brewing in paradise, and this time around, Madonna is not keeping shut about the antics that grabbed headlines last week when her intimate Parisian concert turned into a rage-fuelled riot.

The diva took to her official website Madonna.com in the early hours to say: “Playing the Olympia was a magical moment for me and it was real treat to do this special show for my fans and be so close to them.

“Unfortunately at the end of the show – after I left the stage – a few thugs who were not my fans rushed the stage and started throwing plastic bottles pretending to be angry fans.”

The drama that stopped short of turning into an outright bar brawl saw several people injured post the 45-minute show and Madonna herself coming under heavy criticism from her most ‘loyal’ fans for cheating them out of a night of her Madgesty’s best.

Yet, Madonna clearly took a different stance, when she went on to say:

“The press reports have focused on this and not the joyous aspect of the evening.

“But nothing can take away or ruin this very special evening for me and my fans.

“When I looked out in the audience, everyone I saw had a smile on their face. I look forward to having this wonderful experience again.”

While several fans have ranted over a truncated performance, while others have simply called her ‘delusional with age’ on Twitter, the 53-year-old’s rep maintains the show was never marketed as a full-fledged concert but rather an intimate setup for her top ‘loyalists’.

Talking to ABC News Radio, spokesperson Liz Rosenberg said: “Madonna’s Paris club show was planned as her heartfelt thank you to France which she expressed at the start of her show. The show was not billed as her full MDNA concert and tremendous effort was made to keep the ticket prices reasonable ($100 for 2,000 floor seats) and keep them strictly for her fans.”

Is Her Madgesty losing her crown?

However, despite the assurances and the clarifications from Madonna’s camp, fans continue to be incensed, calling her nasty names and demanding refunds on Twitter, when the chanting on the night itself ­ followed by throwing bottles on stage – didn’t work.

The show was streamed live on YouTube but by Friday morning, the channel disabled comments and had more than 12,000 dislikes.

An invitation to tweet about the show appeared to backfire with audience members using the suggested hashtag #MDNAParis to rant, calling her ‘pathetic’ and a ‘crook’.

In fact, this past two-months, Madonna has been bearing the brunt of the wrath directed at her by her global fans that have attended her ‘MDNA’ concert tour.

While many have objected to her on-stage strip shows to garner attention, others have called on Madonna to act her age and not resort to cheap digs at arch rival Lady Gaga and the use of violence on stage, which included a controversial image of France’s far-right National Front party leader Marine Le Pen with the Nazi Swastika symbol superimposed on her forehead.

Le Pen, 43, has already filed a legal complaint against “Madame Madonna Ciccone and any others” responsible for the projection of the image.

The Abu Dhabi concert

The 40,000 plus fans who drove down to Yas Island to see the diva in action got all that they had bargained for, and quite more in spades as racy content and profanity peppered the proceedings.

The show on both nights kicked off nearly two hours late, with the last 45 minutes of wait in the sweltering June heat on day one giving several frustrated fans ample reason to complain.

Controversy was the word for the night, as Madonna freely dropped profanity in her performances, upsetting quite a few sentiments while winning fans in others for her sheer audacity on stage.

“Let’s live dangerously,” were her choice of words at one point on stage.

Writhing bodies were all in a night’s work, but a few collective gasps were heard over the din as a semi striptease erupted on stage.

Didn’t another performer get into a wee bit of trouble a few years ago in the UAE when he stripped off his shirt during a performance?

At one point several parents were overheard questioning their choice in bringing kids to the concert.

The now infamous dig at Lady Gaga saw Abu Dhabi amongst the first few cities to hear it in all its glory as Madonna crooned a few lines from her counterpart’s “Born This Way”, adding very cheekily: “She isn’t me.”

Politically incorrect

Madonna quite cheeky in her political and religious affiliations has used her MDNA platform to go all out in bloodying up the proceedings.

Yet, many say all this diva has managed to pull off with her rants and on stage antics is resemble a raving banshee.

Even the controversial Olympia show of last week wasn’t spared, with Madonna breaking into an eight-minute monologue to talk about the state of the world economy.

Yes, you read right.

She stated: “We are entering some very scary times in the world, yeah?

Economic markets are collapsing; people have nothing to eat in Greece.

People all over the world are suffering and people are afraid, and what happens when people are afraid?”

“They become intolerant. I know I have made a certain Marine Le Pen very angry with me. And it is not my intention to make enemies. It’s my intention to promote tolerance, OK?”

Her words have found support in certain factions, with Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada said that it was the primary job of religious leaders and organisations to raise voice against the rising intolerance in the world but many had not come forward due to reasons best known to them.

And if Madonna dared to highlight the issue of intolerance, we should all back her.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, has also applauded Madonna for speaking against Roma (Gypsy) discrimination in the past, which, he said were facing apartheid conditions in Europe.

But not many concur.

In words of a blogger and fan Julien Chadeyron: “To listen to her [Madonna’s] monologue, you’d think we were at a speech by Miss France running for president.

“We’re not here to hear you talk, honey. If you wouldn’t mind singing, that would suit us fine!”

Guess, that just about sums it up.

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