Madonna 02 Arena London 6 December 2023

Madonna 02 Arena London 6 December 2023

After a pleasant journey on the train to London, I arrived at my hotel with my friendly assistants Jan and Elaine. This was followed by a short stay in the hotel, we were up and out again on our way to the O2 by taxi across London. We arrived at the O2 and took advantage of my O2 priority to spend a little time in the O2 blue room.

Time for a couple of drinks and then we were off to our seats on the wheelchair platform of the O2 with a perfect view of the proceedings. We were all looking forward to seeing Madonna celebrate her career at 65 years young!

This truly was a celebration of Madonna's music and career with multiple costume changes and some fantastic stage settings including Madonna coming down from the ceiling in a cage. There was also a heavy element of what you might call sensationalism and potentially shocking material involving Madonna dressed as a nun during "Like a Virgin" with images of Jesus on the cross behind her.

This all added to a fantastic performance by a veteran artist. It is many years since I have seen Madonna in concert: once in London's Earls Court arena with my late wife Marie, once in Manchester Arena with my son, David and more recently (if you can call 2025 recently) for a short set during Live 8 in London's Hyde Park. All of these performances were tremendous. Madonna is 1 of a small group of ultimate show people who always deliver sensational, challenging performances. When you go to a Madonna concert you know that you will be treated to a party atmosphere and lots of fun! And this concert was no exception.

Bob the Drag Queen opened the concert as a master/mistress of ceremony dressed as Marie Antoinette (resembling Madonna's "Vogue" 1990 MTV Video Music Awards performance). Throughout the show, dancers appear wearing recreations of a myriad of outfits originally wore by Madonna, representing many of her reinventions.  Bob the Drag Queen returned at the end to close the show alongside Madonna herself. Two of Madonna's six children also joined her on stage, including one who played magnificent piano and another who sang with her, representing her as a mother and celebrating her family.

From Wikipedia: "The Celebration Tour is a two-hour-plus set with multiple-costume-change and more than 30 songs. The show was separated into five different sections: Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, East and West "grids". According to tour creative director Lewis James, the stage and show also serves as an archive of her life, celebrating her fans, and is a "continuation of her legacy" more than just a biography."

After the show we had a good discussion about how fantastic this performance was and how career spanning it had been. We also discussed some of the sensationalism which we agreed to differ on! It is fair to say that we all had our own individual views on this aspect of the concert. Nonetheless we all greatly enjoyed it and thought it was absolutely wonderful and well worth the trip to London.