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Review & Photos: Madonna @ NIA, Birmingham [Live]

As part of the MDNA World Tour, Madonna slipped in an indoor show in Birmingham

by keti, July 20th, 2012 and has been Read 2273 times.
Last Edited by: Chris MUG5 Maguire July 20th, 2012.

As part of the MDNA World Tour, Madonna slipped in an indoor show in Birmingham between her two outdoor shows in London and Edinburgh. This also marks her first ever show in Birmingham!

Support tonight is by the largely forgettable Alesso, who is a DJ and made such an impression on the folks sitting behind me that they actually commented why there’d been no support act tonight!



Finally after a 45 minute delay, the house lights go down at 21.45, and then a ridiculous intro featuring robed monks swinging a bell chord. Finally at 21.50 we get our first glimpse of Madonna, in what would be the first of many outfits.

Madonna'sset was heavily based on the MDNA album, which was a shame given her ginormous back-catalogue, and the under-stated nod to most of her hits come in the form of a video interlude whilst Madonna's changing into another outfit.

The stage is constantly moving like the shifting sands, with dancers coming and going, appearing and disappearing from holes in the stage floor, not to mention a centre section which rises and falls. We even have a section of drummers dangling from the sky during ‘Express Yourself’, but this really is all sum and little substance.



Madonna tells us they’ve had some technical difficulties with part of the stage, but she needn’t have mentioned it because no-one really knew or noticed. She also seems to enjoy getting the crowd to shout “fuck yea” back at her and mentioned that we should be on our feet, not sitting down and that we ought to “contact our congressman or whatever they’re called here to remove those fucking red seats”! Congressmen? How many years did Madonna live in the UK?

‘Open Your Heart’ is re-worked to feature a trio of drummers that “I met on holiday” and frankly that ruined the song. ‘Justify My Love’ is lost to a video back-drop, and the only truly stunning song was ‘Like a Virgin’ where Madonna takes front stage, her shirt carefully cast aside to a waiting security member of staff (heaven forbid a paying fan gets hold of it) and we even got a flash of Madonna's thonged ass! “I’m not sure Birmingham is ready for that” she says before hoisting her trousers back up. Accompanied by a pianist, ‘Like a Virgin’ is also stripped bare, but whilst this works well on paper it also highlights slight flaws in Madonna's voice, and that it’s not quite what it was back in 1984 when the song was first aired.



The only real high-note was the penultimate song ‘Like A Prayer,’ sung with full flow as the original, it was brilliant and, had the whole show been like this, and to this standard Madonna's 2012 world tour would’ve been mind-blowing and probably one of the best shows ever performed. Sadly this was not the case.

WATCH // Madonna - Like a Prayer

Overall this show was poor. It was all about fancy stages and dancers more than anything else. The focus was off both Madonna and her voice, which is a huge disappointment given the ridiculous ticket prices! This however was reflected in the number of empty seats in Birmingham tonight. Merchandise was also a fortune, programmes being £25 and a hooded top coming in at £90!!

Review // Glenn Raybone
Photos // Steve Gerrard