Lady Madonna

Madonna, live summer 04. Manchester Arena, Manchester


Dave Simpson
Monday August 16, 2004. The Guardian

You wouldn't expect Madonna to call her live comeback the Reinvention Tour - an untypically ironic gesture from a master of the shifting image. Manchester Arena hosts countless women whose outfits pay homage to past Madonnas, from 1984's ra-ra-skirted pop queen to the last tour's cowboy hat and sequins. But Madonna has outfoxed them all again, ascending from underneath the floor in a glittery top and thigh boots that make her look like a revamped Gloria Swanson.

Her star is supposedly waning - recent album American Life was her first-ever flop - but this audio-visual spectacular is a reminder that there's no one like Madonna. Now aged 45, she sings the first lines of Vogue in a yoga crab position, then stands on her head and zips across the stage on a conveyor belt. The tour employs 12 dancers, trapeze artists and a fire handler, but the crowd's eyes rarely stray from pop's ultimate female icon.

And this is no empty spectacle. She delivers the line "The American dream is not what it seems" while surrounded by images of warfare and dancing mullahs - quite a statement from one of the few Americans more famous than George Bush. However, it's impossible to pin Madonna down: a Kabbalah convert who sings "I'm not religious" beneath images of Christ; a hit machine who mixes classics (Papa Don't Preach, Like a Prayer) with stinkers (Hanky Panky); a multimillionaire Material Girl who has no qualms performing John Lennon's Imagine.

This is a more vulnerable Madonna than we have glimpsed before. When she sings, "My mother died when I was five" she offers a glimpse of the person who, in acting as a parent figure to her sisters and brothers, quickly developed a facade of strength. This show's fascinating subtext lies in glimpsing the human being behind strategic masterstrokes such as updating Into the Groove with kilts and bagpipes. For all the "reinventions", Madonna's best trick is to start to play herself.

· At Earl's Court, London, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Box office: 0870 903 9033. Then touring.