Charles Jensen | Writer

Thanks to this:

I caught Madonna’s first Phoenix show last night. There was a bit of a hullaballoo in the paper the other day when Madonna reportedly told the building management she wanted the air conditioning turned off on a day scheduled to reach 108 degrees by sundown.

I have never seen Madonna in concert and I figured this was pretty much my only chance. I had pretty good seats and enjoyed the show for the following reasons:

1. Madonna really sings. There was no lip synching. You could hear her breathing, and her voice sounded great. She smartly toned down her dancing to focus on her vocals, which caused her to hire

2. A talented troupe of dancers, many of whom appeared in the videos for “Hung Up” and “Sorry.” They were fantastic.

3. It was fun. This is one of the only shows I’ve been to where the performer actually seemed to enjoy what she was doing, sincerely and completely.

4. She played guitar—a few times! Both acoustic and electric. Like me, she has to cheat by using a capo.

5. In the middle of the show, she said, “Can building management please turn off the fucking air conditioning? By this point in the show I should be dripping sweat and I’m dry as a fucking bone!” And I think they did, because the end of the show (which was fantasic!) was hot, and between all the dancing and all the bodies, we left there more than a little sweaty ourselves.

It was sort of amazing to see what must have been nearly every queer person in Arizona converge on one location. One particularly affectionate male-male couple caused both a mother/daughter and a family of four to get up and move. This was either due to their canoodling or the one’s very energetic, very go-go boy-like dance moves.

Worth the money? Yes. Will I ever forget? No.