Picture it: Philadelphia—the Cradle of Freedom—the Fourth of July.  It was a sultry day—the air humid and thick.  But you could smell Freedom in the air—it was everywhere.  The throng of people was buzzing in anticipation.  When would the reading begin?  When would it finally start?  It was the moment that they had all been waiting for.  And then, at last, the reading began.

Thus could describe the scene of July 4th, 1776.  That group of people was gathered to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence.  Freedom was virtually upon them.  It was an exhilarating experience one could just imagine.  Thus could also describs the scene of July 4th, 2004.  And this group of people was gathered to hear quite a different reading, a reading from the Book of Revelation.  It was with this reading that Philadelphia saw Madonna open her ‘Re-Invention Tour’.  The Queen was virtually upon us, and it was an exhilarating experience one could be certain.

We hear Madonna’s disembodied voice read the apocalyptic text, while an arresting photo-montage of her is shown on five huge screens which are across the stage and suspended from the ceiling.  The photographs are dark and edgy: her in an elaborate Christian Lacroix ball gown complete with a matching, beaded face mask; snarling coyotes straining against their collars; her in various spine-snapping yoga poses; and then the same Lacroix gown burning in flames. (The photographer is Steven Klein, and I got to see the photos as video works and photographic animations at the Deitch Projects Gallery in New York in April of 2003.)  Once she begins reading, the crowd jumps to their feet, erupts in cheers, and doesn’t stop standing and yelling for the nearly two-hour show.  The people had come seeking Freedom and Liberty on this special day, and their Queen had come to grant it.  She also granted them a show that was a 21-year-career retrospective.  And her Madge-esty was in fine form.  I will concur with the majority of other critics that Mrs. Ritchie’s vocals have never sounded better.  (I’m her Number-One-Fan, but even I have had to wince at hearing some of her live performances—‘Ray of Light’ from the ‘99 Grammys leaps to mind right away.)  She’s come a long way from that chirping, girlish voice to which we were introduced those twenty years ago.  She sounded great, and she was able to sustain strong vocals throughout the whole show.  I was duly impressed.  Her voice isn’t the only thing in fine form.  Miss Thing looked fantastic!  Her hair was long, blonde and loosely curled, and her body just wouldn’t quit!  That she is a 45-year-old mother of two is astounding to comprehend—a 20-year-old would envy that body.  Her ass and thighs are indeed beautiful things to behold.  (Wait a second, what’s going on here . . .?)

The tour, being Re-invention, is about change, and change is represented everywhere.  Musical arrangements are changed, so that old songs become new.  After ‘Vogue’ opens the show, along comes ‘Burning Up’—a favorite for us oldies that became addicted at the first album—now a rousing rock number with La M playing an enthusiastic electric guitar.  Evolving musically, she’s been taking guitar lessons for several years now and it shows.  She plays it vigorously numerous times though the show, including more electric guitar in a rock rendition of ‘Material Girl’.  It was evident that Madonna is proud to be playing her guitar.  At times she almost evoked Sheryl Crow.  Later, we find her alone at the microphone strumming a fresh new version of ‘Frozen’.

Re-Invention.  We certainly can’t talk about change without mentioning costume changes.  From a Chanel cabaret chanteuse in corset and hotpants to a Jimmy Choo-shoed camouflage-clad guerilla.  From Prada and Gaultier to the black-and-white plaid tartan kilts at show’s end—likely a nod to her husband’s Scottish heritage.  (She also opened 2001’s ‘Drowned World Tour’ wearing a kilt of sorts.)  Here ‘Into the Groove’ is reincarnated to include a kilt-wearing bagpipe ensemble, culminating with Madge dancing enthusiastically with the lead piper.  Re-Invention, on a less superficial note, applies to persona changes as well.  Gone is the sexually charged Madonna, who so loved to push all those buttons.  (And we so loved her for it.)  In her stead is a humanity-charged Madonna, beckoning us to peace, as she does with her cover of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, which elicited a twinkling of cigarette lighters all around the auditorium.  Somewhere along the way, Little Miss Madonna has grown up on us.  She’s gone from a seemingly Material Girl to seemingly Mother of the World.  It’s no longer me, me, me—now it’s us, us, us.  And it does seem that motherhood has relaxed Madonna, since she appeared to be having a very good time with the audience that night, especially during a lively rendition of ‘Like a Prayer’.  (This wasn’t necessarily the case on ‘Drowned World’, during which she seemed a little standoffish.)  Reinforcing the night’s theme of change, constantly shifting imagery was projected on those video screens: various incarnations of her Madge-esty; arrangements of Hebrew letters spelling out the various names of God; Hussein and Bush lookalikes nuzzling one another; the Sacred Heart of Jesus; and various images of war, including some of wounded children.  The Queen’s desire for a global change to peace is endearingly evoked with the image of an Israeli boy and a Palestinian boy walking along arm-in-arm.  Imagine.

In total, she sings and dances her way through 23 songs during the evening.  We see skateboarder punks, saloon-hall girls, trapeze acts, and dancers in mini-skirted nuns’ habits and burkas.  Madonna effectively fuses disparate genres—burlesque, Cirque de Soleil, military choreography, dance theater, art installation—and creates an organic whole out of her two-decade career.  She did one or two songs from each of her first nine studio albums, and she did six from her tenth one, ‘American Life’.  Even though radio didn’t get behind this last album, it’s still a much-underrated record, and evidently M agrees since she focused a quarter of this Re-Invention Tour on it.  Her Madge-esty couldn’t have asked for a more loving and adoring audience.  They sang along with her on most every song, and they remained on their feet the entire concert—dancing in their rows and aisles.  Even I, with my glaring lack of vocal ability, loudly sang along—all the while very grateful that there were 20,000 other voices to drown mine out.  Certainly, I danced along with them as well, since no one can quite resist the Circe of dance whenever she starts her siren call.  It’s was a spiritual feeling to have my hands in the air, singing/screaming along at the top of my lungs, and to turn around and see thousands of others—everyone else in the sold-out arena—doing exactly the same thing.  It was celebratory—a kind of tribal thing.  My fellow tribemates were quite varied: there were thirty-something mothers with their adolescent children; there were 40-and-50-somethings, singles and families—all of us reliving our past.  There were some college girls sitting behind us with whom we chatted right before the show.  We learned that they were born just when Madonna’s first album was released.  It would be no understatement at all to say that I was feeling rather ancient indeed.  This feeling was somewhat salved by the fact that these girls sang along with every song—even the earliest ones.  These youngsters evidently knew their stuff.  Her Madge-esty’s dominion is vast.

Calling the show the Re-Invention Tour is at once redundant and tongue-in-cheek.  Clever.  Who possibly knows what the Mother of Re-Invention really meant when she named this tour?  Certainly, she’s re-invented her music; apparently, her faith and values too: as ever, she has Re-Invented herself.  At concert’s end a message flashes on the screen extolling us to re-invent ourselves as well.  (‘Re-Invent Yourself’—that has a nice ring to it.  Are we up to Her Madge-esty’s challenge?)  In reality she could have named the tour anything at all, and it would still have been the same thing—The Madonna Show.  And what a show it was.  How could it not be?  Madonna has a catalogue of 45 Top-Forty singles, 35  being Top-Tens and 12 Number-Ones.  When she decides to put together a Greatest Hits tour, Miss Thing can really put together a Greatest Hits tour.  It was the perfect concert—setting the bar very high for all that come after.  (Definitely worth every penny of the $150 I paid for my ticket.)  At the end of her Madge-esty’s awe-inspiring Fourth of July spectacle, red, white and blue confetti rained down on us supplicants from above.  It was if to say, ‘Let Freedom ring’!  And ring it did.  And long live the Queen who brought it to us.