Madonna

Live at Hyde Park, Tuesday 17th July 2012

Madonna was one of my big five acts that I wanted to see live, so one is ticked off the list following last night’s Hyde Park gig, but was she worth the money, time and effort? Well just about. There was nothing wrong with the show, in fact nothing wrong with Madonna. OK so I, and judging by audience reaction, many others would have liked a few more of her old songs, but she doesn’t do that and, to be fair, we knew that before we left home. But it was the whole Hyde Park experience that left me questioning the value that I got for my money.

I thought I was going to come across as a grumpy old man when I explained that I had found the evening a 75:25 trade-off, but in fact the group largely agreed with the opinion. The show was magnificent, but to truly appreciate it, you have to be able to see it. The inner circle ring was quite a large expanse that left the masses quite a long way from the stage even if you managed to get to the very front. We picked our place on a side, unfortunately as it turned out, the wrong side. During the performance, Madonna chose to use a pier from the main stage which ran down the left hand side; our luck was we had positioned ourselves on the right, which meant that she was completely out of view, leaving only the screens to watch, and for whatever reason, she spent an awful lot of time on that pier. And that was the root of my main gripe; I came away feeling that I had paid £77 to watch a video.

My second bone of contention was the constant pushing and shoving as people made their way through the tightly packed area towards the toilets, food outlets or simply seeking a better viewpoint to the detriment of the people who had arrived earlier. I’ve done one Hyde Park concert previously and do not remember it being quite as physical as this one. A shower of rain saw the umbrellas go up completely obscuring any sight of the stage and even the screens were barely visible. This led to anger, and of course, a fight ensued. By the end of the concert, with the 10:30 p.m. cut off time only minutes away, Madonna said her goodbyes in true Madonna fashion with an expletive, and to be honest with my legs and back aching, I had had enough of the whole wearing process.

The show was a bit dark at times, after an energetic opening showing that the 53 year-old can still strut her stuff, the next number saw a pistol-totting Madonna going through a routine to a Tarantino-like video back drop, all a bit sinister.

Many of the songs were new to me, my fault for not listening to MDNA before the event, and some were not greatly to my taste, leaving me wanting a step back in time. Like A Virgin was reduced to some weird ballad affair, that I just hated. Express Yourself, with our Madge dressed as a college cheerleader and drummer boys suspended high above the stage was really good and when she decided to give her audience a little something of which they craved, Like A Prayer and Papa Don’t Preach went down a storm.

Madonna, of course, does preach and the audience were treated to one of her rants regarding Equality, Race and Sexuality, which went down well with the massive gay following whilst the rest of us thought she was just going off on one.

Madonna’s done, I still like her music and the show was great, but she is a tick on my list and I don’t think I’ll be rushing to spend another £77 to watch a video that I can probably rent for £3.