Madonna’s Celebration World Tour has kicked off in London but there have been a few hiccups that have left fans frustrated.

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The music icon is delivering her first greatest hits world tour and it finally got underway in London over the weekend. The tour was originally meant to start in Canada a few months ago but was delayed after the singer was hospitalised and placed in intensive care after being found unresponsive in her New York apartment.

The tour finally lifted its curtain at London’s O2 arena, and the show saw Madonna recreating looks from some of her most iconic videos, making a powerful statement about people lost to the AIDS crisis, and the show was a family affair with her kids taking part in it too.

The show sees Madonna sing a swag of her greatest hits including Everybody, Into the Groove, Holiday, Burning Up, Open Your Heart, Live to Tell, Erotica, Justify My Love, Hung Up, Like a Prayer and many others.

Fans at the first show were treated to an encore that included a pre-recorded tribute to Michael Jackson, plus Madonna’s hits Bitch I’m Madonna and Celebration. Those who went to the second and third shows in London however were short-changed with the encore cut.

As the show was late starting it had to end earlier because the venue has a strict curfew that does not allow shows to go past eleven o’clock. The singer is reportedly getting a £300,000 pound bill for going overtime on one occasion.

The show opens with Bob the Drag Queen hyping up the crowd while dressed in the Marie Antionette gown that Madonna worn when performing at the 1990 MTV Awards. When Madonna first appears, she is alone on stage performing Nothing Really Matters, but the stage is soon filled with dancers as she launches into her first ever single Everybody, followed by Into the Groove. 

Madonna dons a guitar for a punk rock version of Burning Up, before recreating the video for Open Your Heart. Next up is party anthem Holiday, which sees the singer and her troupe of dancers making shapes on a giant rotating centre stage.

many close friends of the singer. Next up is Like a Prayer, which sees the show’s dancers performing in front of a rotating stage filled with crucifixes.

Next the stage turns into a boxing ring for Erotica, and then things get very sultry for Justify My Love, a song that has been absent from the singer’s concerts for many years. The party vibe returns for Hung Up which sees the singer surrounded by six topless long-haired dancers of mixed genders.

The third section of the epic show sees Madonna performing Bond theme Die Another Day, before going full cowboy style for Don’t Tell Me. Lesser-known song Mother and Father is a surprise inclusion in the set, as was an acoustic cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. The audience joined in another sing-a-long for La Isla Bonita, which merges perfectly into Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. 

The final section sees Madonna clad in a tightfitting body suit and she sings Bedtime Story while rising on a giant cube that rises out of the stage. For Ray of Light she rises even higher above the audience in a cage. The singer walks the stage alone in a giant cape for Rain which for many of the shows to date has served as an anti-climactic ending to the show.

Only the first night audience got to see the encore, but it included a pre-recorded section that mashed up Michael Jackson’s hits with Madonna’s Like a Virgin. For Bitch I’m Madonna the dancers were all dressed in iconic looks from throughout Madonna’s career.

The show closes with Celebration mixed with elements of Music. While it’s a great tune to end the show, the performance is nowhere close to the energy levels generated when it closed her MDNA tour a decade ago.

So far Madonna has only announced dates in Europe and North America, and Australian fans fear it’s unlikely she’ll head down under. During her entire career Madonna has had 12 tours but has only made it to Australia with The Girlie Show in 1993 and the Rebel Heart tour in 2016.

OIP Staff

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