and Review: Madonna is late, loose and ultra personal at her fan-only Tears of a Clown show in Melbourne
MADONNA’S Tears of a Clown show was the sort of thing you never thought you’d see a superstar do.
Instead those who won free tickets through her fan club got to see Madonna at her most raw and vulnerable.
With no choreographed routines, no back-up dancers and a stripped down version of her usual band, Madonna played many songs she’s never performed live before.
Musically, diehard fans were in raptures as Madonna made the most of having an audience where the more obscure the song, the better.
As well as a cover of Send in the Clowns, each song followed a song about the topic of the lyric. She followed a story about how “even famous people get insecure” with Drowned World/Substitute for Love, written about how she used to trade fame for love.
She said Smith’s Between the Bars is “one of my favourite songs in the world” and she plays the song “whenever I feel down.”
Vocally, she was rough in patches, particularly recreating songs like I’m So Stupid and Nobody’s Perfect, where the recorded version has deliberately overly-autotuned vocals by electronic whiz-kid Mirwais.
Naturally she opted towards more acoustic-driven, emotional songs like Easy Ride, XStatic Process and Mer Girl, written about her late mother.
Paradise (Not For Me) was a shock addition to the set, one of many songs Madonna started, stopped, and made another attempt at. Again, not the thing you’d expect to see from Madonna and one of the things that will no doubt be edited if the show, which was being professionally filmed, ever gets released.
Obviously Tears of a Clown is nothing at all like the arena show she starts in Melbourne tomorrow. That’s why diehard fans were prepared to wait to see something they’ll likely never see again.
This was a one-off, and you presume next time she does it (she’d rehearsed it for two days already in Melbourne) it will be smoother.
But musically, imagine Prince or Bruce Springsteen giving free tickets to their diehard fans and playing songs those fans never thought they’d see live. After decades of Madonna being totally in control and in the zone, she’s publicly reflecting what’s going on in her very public personal life with a show that was out of her comfort zone and uncharacteristically loose.
It could have been a glimpse into her touring future — less choreography, more campfire, more connection.
It was similar to Kylie Minogue’s Anti-Tour, except she basically gave her diehard fans a free two hour show, where a small fortune had been spent on the production and staging.
If you weren’t a diehard Madonna fan, you were at the wrong show and were wasting a ticket someone would have walked over cut glass for.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment...8171cdbdf0c51b
the power of M.
