Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour (first night) – Photo: Kevin Mazur for WireImage/Getty
“I still believe in love — even if Barack Obama didn’t come to my show,” Madonna teased near the end of Saturday night’s concert at the Verizon Center. “Maybe I’m too provocative.” Like all her tours, Rebel Heart had its fair share of provocation, chiefly through repeated sacrilegious references to God and Catholic iconography.
But that’s always been Madonna’s cross to bear (and her bread and butter). This time out it was confined to the opening numbers. If you could look past it, as well as her overuse of war and violent imagery (Madonna is seemingly forever fighting someone, from God and Gaga to Guy and the media), you probably left charmed by the evening.
The Rebel Heart Tour finds Madonna at her happiest and most personable, and also in her best voice. In past tours she seemed to be performing on auto-pilot, but not on Saturday.
Edgy and sassy and unapologetic, Madonna once again proved her predominance in pop performance. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like her new album, even though it accounted for nearly half of the two-hour set. The truth is, few others working in pop today put on such a compelling and sensory-rich, top-notch theatrical production from beginning to end. Madonna makes her concerts feel like celebrations.
Near the concert’s end, Madonna settled, with a guitar, on a raised platform and sang the French classic, “La Vie En Rose” — which she dedicated to Obama — as if she were a bona fide chanteuse. “Everybody sing along!” she cooed playfully. She didn’t need the audience assist, as she perfectly conveyed the emotions of the song. It was just one example of how significantly Madonna’s musicality has improved over the years, even if her music has not.
9/12/15 Verizon Center Set List
Iconic
Bitch I’m Madonna
Burning Up
Holy Water, with an interpolation of Vogue
Devil Pray
Messiah
Body Shop
True Blue
Deeper And Deeper
Heartbreak City, with Love Don’t Live Here Anymore
Like a Virgin
S.E.X., with Justify My Love
Living For Love (Remix)
La Isla Bonita
Dress You Up, with a flamenco medley of Get Into the Groove / Everybody / Lucky Star
Who’s That Girl (acoustic)
Rebel Heart
Illuminati
Music / Candy Shop
Material Girl
La Vie En Rose
Unapologetic Bitch
Encore: Holiday
Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour (first night) – Photo: Kevin Mazur for WireImage/Getty
Additional North American stops on The Rebel Heart Tour through 2015:
Back in May, just after our 31st anniversary, I asked readers which of four classic cover interviews from our early years they'd like to see in print again: Greg Louganis (March 9, 1995), Sir Ian McKellen (Jan. 25, 1996), Camille Paglia (Feb. 1, 1996), or Eartha Kitt (Nov. 14, 1996). None of these conversations exist online, and they haven't been seen since their original print dates.
Out of more than 200 responses, 8% chose Paglia, 27% picked Louganis, 29% went for McKellen, and an impressive 36% cast their vote for Kitt.
Kitt, who passed away in December 2008, seemed a fitting choice to revisit. A pop culture icon for her turn as the second Catwoman (following Julie Newmar) on the late-1960s, camp-classic TV series Batman, she was slated to appear at Washington's legendary jazz nightclub Blues Alley when we spoke.
King Molasses is brimming with a confidence that feels well-earned. Recently crowned the winner on season one of Revry's reality competition series King of Drag, the performer was also just voted D.C. Drag Awards' Drag King of the Year, their fourth time taking the honor.
"I've been doing drag in D.C. since late 2018, believe it or not," says Mo, as the performer likes to be called. "And I've been working pretty hard -- and working for a while -- in the scene." Still, they say they've been blown away by the reception they and their fellow King of Drag contestants have experienced since the show, the first to feature solely drag kings, wrapped in July.
Jason Collins, the first openly gay NBA player, is reportedly undergoing treatment for a brain tumor. Collins made headlines more than a decade ago when he came out publicly in a first-person essay for Sports Illustrated.
The 41-year-old former center earned All-American honors at Stanford before being drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2001. Over his 13-year career, he played for several NBA teams, including the New Jersey Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, and Brooklyn Nets.
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