Madonna in Vienna
Yesterday I have been to the Madonna concert in Vienna like tons of other Hungarians as well. It was a blast. I mean Madonna is a world star whom you cannot see every day. The ride there took about 2 hours from Budapest to Vienna. The concert was open air on “Donauinsel” which is a quiet big island on the danube in Vienna. More than 50.000 people were there. Fuck those black market ticket guys who were running around all over asking for tickets to buy for lousy 30% of the original price. On the other end they sold them for the full price. I mean it is not 2 or 3 people asking for tickets but really tons of them. Absolutly annoying.
Madonna played a mix of new and old songs, remixed songs and really good music even though I had the feeling that there was some decent playback involved. Mind you, the lady is 50 years old, absolutly fit and that show cannot be sung 100% live. Some songs really sucked but most of them were fantastic.
The only problem was the view on the stage. I mean we came a bit late but still we didn’t make it further than approx. 250m away from the stage which let Madonna appear maybe 5 cm tall. The screens were defintely not large enough to have a good view especially for the people standing far in the back. The next problem was that we had 3 bouncer like guys standing in front of us each minimum 1,90m tall so we had trouble to see the stage but in the end we could. Additionally they built up a lot of big tents for food and drink right in the middle where most of the people are standing or want to stand.
Pure horror was to get out of the venue. Basically 50k people had to cross 2 small bridges which led from the island to both shores of the island. From there the highway to Budapest was packed. I mean on a tuesday night you usually have no traffic at all but yesterday night there was high traffic at least till the border to Hungary. So I arrived home around 3 in the night. Overall it was a good concert except from some minor things but it was abig show.
Edit: Oh and what I forgot to say is that Madonna didn’t even come back on stage a second time. Just a big “Game over” appeared on the screens and on stage and that was it. But the audience didn’t even claimed it. Anyways that was a very sad end for many of the people.
I was also on the same concert, and i have to say, the show was quite ok, and to see that show i could have done it at home, even more because we got no reprise.
As to her singing capabilities, it just showed that she is now a studio singer and no longer able to sing and dance at the same time. In some periods was even painfull to hear her screaming to try to follow up. Regarding the mixes, i have to say that she seems to be ashamed of her power hits and so she needs to pump them up with bad techno remixes. Overall i would give the concert a 7 out 10.
I also agree with you regarding the organization, it was simply terrible, from bad choice of screens to people and tent placement. This is a common problem here, where there is no viable concept for queueing and organizing people.
Yes thats true, her singing was not the best and these remixes were more annoying than good.
Especially “Ray of light” and “Like a prayer” were absolutly shit.
I actually felt sorry for her when she sung Ray of Light. It was kind of sad to see her trying to sing and play the guitar at the same time.
And as far as I heart she cannot even play the guitar. At least not so good that she could play a concert live. So that was probably just show as well.
We went to the same concert. What people haven’t mentioned here is that Madonna called the crowd ‘mother-***ers’ and gave them the finger toward the latter part of the show. Not to mention she fell over right at the end.
Our observation was that the crowd was really dead (yes, thats all of us). There wasn’t the same enthusiasm, in terms of people jumping, singing and generally getting into it, as other concerts. When Madonna felt this, I think she also got a bit jaded, and from then on, you could see she was just going through the motions.
Shame. I will but the DVD of this show, as I really liked the remixes. Incidentally, this was another attribute of the show: if you came to hear the old songs sung the same way, you didnt get it.
Mike, as I have heart yesterday she said exactly the same in Athens so I think it is part of the show. But you are right she was not too happy with the audience.
If you buy a DVD I would buy one from somewhere else. You will have the same remixes but better atmosphere in the audience