Jason and I went to the Madonna concert at Ford Field on Tuesday, Nov. 18th. I am afraid the night did not quite live up to my (admittedly high) expectations. First, we had the chance to experience first-hand how inconsiderate Michigan drivers can be. We ended up waiting in traffic for almost 2 hours to get off of the exit ... the line was less than 1/2 a mile long and we could see Ford Field from where we were sitting, but impatient drivers kept bypassing the line and cutting in at the front.
The concert was scheduled to start at 7:30pm and we were still stuck in traffic until after 8pm, so we thought we missed the beginning of the show. However, once we finally parked (one good decision we made was to pre-pay for parking) we went inside and discovered that Madonna was not coming on until after 9pm. Relief - we did not miss her grand entrance! We had a chance to get some snacks, beer and a t-shirt before heading to our seats.
The show finally started .... I will start with the good parts:
#1 She sang my all-time favorite "Like a Prayer"
#2 The show had awesome dancers
#2 The show had awesome dancers
#3 Other classics, such as "Get into the Groove," "Vogue," "Isla Bonita" and "Borderline"
Now to the negative .... the performance overall was mediocre. Madonna performed several songs I had never heard of - this is a pet peeve of mine. I feel like singers should highlight the songs that caused them to become famous in the first place, not use a concert as a venue to release new songs. Even the oldies but goodies that she performed had some kind of twist - for example, "Borderline" was tweaked to sound like a rock song and "Isla Bonita" had a gypsy theme to it. "Get Into the Groove" stuck to it's roots, check out the picture below:
The show had a lot Indi/Global influence. There were more videos and lights than actual performing, and one video highlighted her political views with images of Oprah, MLK, Nelson Mandela and of course Obama. While everyone has a right to their political opinion, we paid (a lot!) to see Madonna perform her songs, not get a lecture on how the world needs change.
Finally, Madonna is not well-known for her singing abilities, but it was a bit annoying that she opening lip-synced through the majority of the concert. I will give her props for her dancing and physical endurance - I cannot imagine being that in shape now, let alone at 50 years old. But the moving your lips to the track is a bit insulting to a crowd of 30,000 fans - even if singing is not your strong suit.
The concert lasted less than two hours, and then it was time to get stuck in traffic yet again. We ended up arriving home exhausted and quite let-down around 2am. This was definitely not the experience that I had hoped for - but at least we can add Madonna to our list of "been there, done that". Regardless, here are a few more pics for your viewing pleasure :-)
I did not even know that Madonna could play the guitar!
Whew-wee - don't we look happy???? :-)
