Holiday

This changed my life 21 years ago. Just watching it again and I suddenly just started crying. Madonna has made me the person I am today. I'm so glad I have my fan friends, otherwise I could easily say that no one in this world understands what it's like to be me. Apart from maybe people who're someone else's fans. I don't have the words for what Madonna means to me. She's what runs in my veins. If someone thinks I'm crazy for it, then so be it. I couldn't care less - I've known who I am since I was 9 years old, how many people can say that?

The MDNA Tour: Paris, 14/7/2012

Okay, two more Madonna shows to write about. To be honest, I wish I could still see the show a couple of times...Not because of the show because as good as it is, I remember it all by heart by now, but to be close to and in the presence of Madonna again. It's been too long now, 2½ months! I so, so, so hope she'll continue with this tour next spring and summer...But yes, the Paris show. It was very much an out of the blue decision for me to go there, but since there were general standing tickets still left and we'd have been closeby in Brussels anyway, I just couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. My friend Tiina, who I was travelling with, was in once I presented my crazy idea to her, and not long after we were the happy owners of tickets to the concert at Stade de France.

Since we only had general standing tickets and not even Golden Circle, we decided to not queue at all. After all, we'd have no chance of getting into the Golden Triangle so we figured we'd spend all the extra time we had in Paris doing sightseeing. We arrived at Stade de France at around 6 pm and the first thing I noticed was that two people were taking pictures of their Golden Triangle wristbands...which were light blue, just like the one I had around my wrist from Copenhagen. Y-A-Y! I decided that I'd try and get into the Triangle with my old wristband. I mean what could you possibly lose? They can say no, but they can also say yes, so it's always worth a try if it means you can be closer to Madonna. Also, when we were outside the venue, there was an announcement that the show would be filmed. Y-A-Y all over again! I'm pretty certain it wasn't for the DVD release but I'll keep my fingers crossed anyway, like I always do with Madonna things.

In French...

...and in English :).

So, when we were let in, I told Tiina I'd go and see if I could talk my way into the Triangle, and she agreed to go and get us T-shirts (you don't want to know how much money I spent on tour merchandise this summer...but it was my first Madonna tour with a permanent job of my own so I had to splurge a little...okay, a lot). At first, the security guys weren't at all interested in letting me anywhere close to the stage, but then a French guy joined me, also with a light blue wristband, and together we managed to convince the security about our right to be in the Triangle, so in the end, I was in the Golden Triangle, against the main stage, with the cheapest ticket ever :D! SO LUCKY!

Guy O in the Triangle. I didn't want to lose my spot so I didn't go and talk to him this time around.

Waiting for the Queen.

There was a nice surprise in store for us, too, because once Martin Solveig had played his records for a while, he invited Will.I.Am onto the stage :D! Cool! He did maybe three songs, including I Gotta Feeling.

Martin Solveig, though you can't see him in the picture.

Will.I.Am.

Madonna started pretty late once again and was as amazing as always...

This is obviously a bad picture but I want to post it because it's the only one I have of Madonna wearing the killer version of her wedding dress.

Rocco in the Like A Prayer choir.

I was SO close to her at times, it was madness! Rocco's face was a few centimetres away from mine during Open Your Heart. You'll HAVE to have a look at these videos, at least the Rocco ones!

Madonna and Rocco right in front of me during Open Your Heart, eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And then some girl next to me ended up falling and ruining my filming...

This video is SO good! I'm so happy I had such a great spot for filming stuff like this! I got absolutely everything I wanted on film :D!

This is when I touched her in Sweden. This time I wanted to capture her being right there in front of me instead of trying to grab for her again.

My absolute favourite video of them all! Rocco dancing in front of the dancers during Celebration.

And that's it - it was a GREAT experience, and I didn't expect to get such an amazing spot again AT ALL! So, so lucky! Oh, and one more thing: Jean-Paul Gaultier was in the Triangle, too:

Now, just the Helsinki show left to update about...

Everybody, get up, dance and sing...30 years of Madonna!

Exactly 30 years ago today, Madonna's very first single, Everybody, was released. In other words, today, October 6th 2012, marks Madonna's 30th anniversary as a recording artist. In celebration of this great event, I'll give you various versions and performances of Everybody, which is one of my favourite Madonna songs ever. Happy 30th anniversary, Queen Madonna!

First of all, here's the original album version of the song, off Madonna's self-titled album also known as The First Album.

And the official music video for the song. Very sweet and simple in the style of the early 1980s.

This is the first time Madonna ever performed Everybody live. Danceteria, New York, 1982.

And this is Everybody, live in Detroit during The Virgin Tour, 1985.

It took a long time till she did the song again...this is Everybody, with Sly & The Family Stone's Everybody Is A Star as the intro, The Girlie Show, Sydney, 1993.

And finally, Madonna did Everybody while promoting her Confessions album at Koko in London, 2005.

I really, really, REALLY dream of one day getting to hear Everybody live, too. It's an amazing dance song, very raw and very 1980s...so yes, one of my absolute favourites ever.

Congratulations on your 30 years in the business, Madonna!

The MDNA Tour: Brussels, 12/7/2012

It's been a while since I updated this blog - my apologies, I've been focusing on my travel blog instead. I'm bursting with ideas for this blog, though, and can't wait to start turning my thoughts into reality once I'm done with these MDNA live updates.

Me and Madonna at Brussels Midi, the most horrible railway station in the world!

So, next up, Brussels! This time, I went to the show with my friend Tiina, and in the queue I also bumped into Joanna from Finland as well as Miguel from Spain. The weather in Brussels was bad throughout the week that we spent there, and we ended up joining the queue for Madonna as late as 10:30 am as it was raining so hard in the morning and it would've been pointless to spend the day outside, soaking wet. When we got to Stade Roi Baudouin, there were lots and lots of people there already and no order whatsoever in the way the people were queueing. No sign of that Scandinavian brilliance of writing numbers on people's hands to give them a certain spot in the queue - instead, new people just jumped the queue and no one respected the fact that someone had been there longer than them...Also, it was REALLY cold so queueing wasn't that much fun. I had something to eat with me and once I was done with what I'd brought, I took out my Finnish flag and wrote a message to Madonna on it.

As I've probably mentioned before, 2012 marks my 20th anniversary as a Madonna fan and I somehow felt the need to express that to Madonna. I was really pleased with how the flag and the message turned out, and this flag also made me extremely happy later on...

Once the gates were opened, everyone just rushed forward and it was just crazy, people kept pushing each other like mad and you almost couldn't even breathe. Insane, it was NOTHING like that in ANY of the other places where I saw Madonna this summer! I really can't recommend Belgium as a concert place, it just wasn't a very nice experience. I'm not one to complain and I was just laughing at the whole situation when I was squashed there in the middle of all the fans anyway, but of course an experience where you have space to breathe is always nicer. Even the iPad girl had to stop her quest of going through all the people as there simply wasn't any space for her to move among us. We desperately tried to make space for her but it just didn't work out at all, and as a result, this show remains the only concert on this tour that I didn't get to experience in the Golden Triangle. Instead, we got a spot on the right side of the catwalk, almost against the fence. I was really happy with my spot because now I actually got to see what was going on at the tip of the triangle - a new experience for me!

When we were let inside the stadium, Madonna was already on stage, doing her soundcheck, and I immediately noticed that her then 11-year-old son Rocco was on stage, too. YAY! I'd been wanting to see Madonna's kids for years and now I got Rocco! Yay yay yay yay yay! So exciting, I loved it! The soundcheck was much longer than in Copenhagen and Gothenburg - Madonna did five songs! We got Candy Shop, I'm A Sinner, Celebration, I'm Addicted and I Don't Give A. Eeeeeeee!

Madonna rehearsing Candy Shop.

Rocco's back :D.

Brahim filming Madonna while she does I Don't Give A.

Madonnaaaaaaaa!

Myself and Tiina.

Madonna's wlan :D.

Our spot.

And some rehearsal videos I filmed...Candy Shop, I'm Addicted, I'm A Sinner, I Don't Give A, and Celebration, also starring Rocco.

 

Ooooh, just amazing! While rewatching these videos, I just want to give up everything I have and just leave for the USA to follow Madonna around...I can't believe this tour isn't anywhere near being over yet, but somehow, when I know that the European leg is, it's hard for me to picture it only having started somewhere elsewhere. I want moooooooore!

Anyway, after the soundcheck, Guy O started taking pictures of the fans in the audience again and he took one of me with my flag as well. The following day, I got a text from my Spanish friend Bea that Guy had tweeted my picture (as picture #1 from the Brussels show, no less), and then I also found out he had posted it, among all the other fan pictures of course, on Madonna's offical Facebook page that had well over 9 million followers in the summer (over 10 million now). OMG! This means Madonna has seen the picture, and my message, too! OMG OMG OMG OMG O M G!!! Here it is:

Me and my flag, picture by Guy Oseary.

I'm SO happy about this! I don't have the words to explain what this means to me! Madonna is the biggest star ever, and the love of my life, and suddenly I've touched her AND had her manager take a picture of me that she most certainly will have seen after the show. OMG. That's all I have to say about it.

Martin Solveig did his set between 8:17 pm and 9:17 pm and Madonna started at around 10 pm. It rained heavily throughout the show. Honestly, why do people think England is the place where it always rains? I don't think they have been to Belgium...The suckiest weather in the world! Madonna was brave, though, and performed her show in the rain. During Like A Virgin, she had a huge umbrella, which reminded me of her show and Nothing Fails at Slane Castle, Ireland in 2004...I didn't mind the rain during the show, I was too ecstatic. Unfortunately, I only have bad pictures, but some of the videos turned out quite good, especially Papa Don't Preach, so that makes me happy.

A bad picture, but I just needed to post one of her with the umbrella :).

And the videos...Revolver, Papa Don't Preach & Hung Up (very much in the rain), Express Yourself/Born This Way & Give Me All Your Luvin', Open Your Heart/Sagarra Jo! (with Rocco), Human Nature/Like A Virgin (again - it REALLY is raining...) and Celebration, respectively.

In the video above, you can see Rocco dancing in front of all the dancers and his mother...by far the best bit of the night! I love Rocco :D! He makes a very cool DJ :D!

What a night, again! Aaaaah, this is simply a show, and a woman, you can't get enough of! Returning to central Brussels after the show wasn't as much fun, though. They'd closed the metro station we'd used in the morning and we had no idea where to find another one so we ended up wandering around in the darkness and in the rain for AN HOUR after the show before we found the metro. Once we arrived at our hotel, we went straight to bed as we were freezing cold and SO tired! Again, though, it was so completely worth it. The only thing that sucks is that I missed out on Bea WHO WAS STAYING IN THE ROOM NEXT TO OURS...boo! We'll have to meet up some other time. The night before the show, I got to meet my Spanish fan friend Franc, which was so much fun! Here's the picture, to conclude this entry...

The MDNA Tour: Gothenburg 4/7/2012

I'm sitting here, waiting for the Olympic Opening Ceremony to start. I thought they'd be getting straight to business, but noooo, they're interviewing Finnish sportspeople. How extremely boring! I just want to see a nice show! So, I might as well start writing about the Madonna show in Gothenburg instead. This is a very special update as July 4th is henceforth known as The Best Day of My Life. You'll soon find out why.

So. I took the train from Copenhagen to Gothenburg on the 3rd, just after finding out that one of Madonna's trucks carrying her sound system had keeled over on the highway on its way to Sweden. I was a bit stressed out for a moment, wondering whether the show would go on as planned despite this, but Live Nation Sweden assured the concert wouldn't be affected, so not to worry. Phew!

I was going to the show with Carola and another online fan friend from Sweden, Gabriel. However, both of my friends' arrival to Gothenburg was delayed as Carola's train was late and Gabriel missed his. So, I went to the queue outside Ullevi on my own at around 8 am and was number 18. Pretty cool! Now, THIS was the best queue I've ever been in! Not only did you get a number but you also put your name on a list so you could come and go as you pleased as long as you were back in the queue every two hours when they'd check if you were still around. That was just so brilliant - more proof that Swedes Do It Better! Also, there were toilets outside the venue, and you had time to go and have lunch so you actually had some energy when the show finally started past 10 pm. I loved it! The best thing of all, however, was that there were absolutely amazing people in the queue! I made some incredible new friends who're just as crazy about Madonna as I am. Miguel from Spain, and Ellen, Maria, Johanna, Helena, Charlotte and Sara from Sweden REALLY made the day that much more special! The girls had the coolest T-shirts ever as well - just have a look:

Miguel, Ellen, Helena, Maria and Johanna!

Me with the girls :)!

Eventually, Carola and Gabriel arrived as well - yay! Gabriel had forgotten to print out his concert ticket, though, so they had to leave to try and find a place where they could do that once they'd gotten their numbers for the queue. Luckily they found a place - what a relief! Once they got back, I went out for pizza with the Swedish girls. Fun! And once we were back in the queue, Carola and I had a look at all the tour merchandise and just hung around and chatted with Gabriel and Miguel.

Ellen, Charlotte and me :)!

Me with Miguel and Gabriel :).

Gabriel, Carola and me :)!

In the queue...

The day didn't seem long at all and it was seriously the best queueing experience I've ever had - which means that from now on I'll ALWAYS go to Sweden for Madonna! Since the company is so fabulous, too, I just don't see why not ;).

Right. Then the iPad girl and the wristband girl appeared...and they accidentally let me press the iPad twice! When I first got to press it, I didn't win anything. See, THIS is my luck with these things - I have none. But, then she accidentally gave it to me again AND I DID WIN!!!!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYY, can't believe it! Of course I didn't say anything about having already pressed it - the way I see it is that they tricked us with having a Golden Triangle there in the first place, so it's equally alright for me to trick them a bit with their contests as well. I gave the other wristband to Carola, and then we went and begged for one for Gabriel as well (though I had no idea we'd succeeded until I saw Carola actually give the wristband to Gabriel, heh).

The way they let us in was very organised as well - we went through the gates one by one, walking, showing our number and saying our name. Brilliant! I think we were let inside the stadium at around 6 pm this time, and once we were in, Madonna was on stage doing her soundcheck again. We got a great spot right in front of the main stage in the Triangle, a bit to the right, and we decided to stay there without moving around during the show, or the soundcheck, at all. I think this was a good decision because once you stayed put, you somehow got a clearer picture of the show as a whole. The spot was PERFECT! We were against the fence, so in the very first row of people. I couldn't believe our luck once again! Too good to be true!

Madonna did I Don't Give A and Turn Up The Radio during the soundcheck, and here's some picture and video proof of it all:

 

After the soundcheck, we had to do some hanging around again. Here are some very happy pictures from the Triangle...

FRONT ROW!!

Waiting...

Ullevi is ready for the Queen!

The show started past 10 pm, after Martin Solveig (who was good this time as well), and it was so amazing all over again! Where we were standing, the floor was shaking and rumbling from the music...it was one of the most incredible feelings I've ever had, it's like you have music inside you, coursing right through your body! For someone like me who lives and breathes music, it can't get any better than that! Carola and I were screaming to each other how great it was! The best thing ever!!!

And so here we go again, this time with more videos...Girl Gone Wild was STUNNING, once again! I just can't get past how unbelievably amazing the entrance is...have a look for yourself, this time I filmed it all!

Revolver.

And on to Gang Bang, which is one of my favourite MDNA performances...look!

It's so good, it's choreographed so well with every kick, hit and shot timed perfectly. It just looks amazing live, and I think it also shows in the video.

Gang Bang!

Hung Up!

I don't give a fu-fu-fu-fu...

Don't go for second best baby, put your love to the test!

That picture above. I took it. Can you believe it? Because I did. It's gorgeous, I can't stop looking at it! I'm so insanely proud of that picture that it's one of my best moments on this tour! Madonna doing Turn Up The Radio. "Turn down the noise and turn up the volume, don't have a choice 'cause the temperature's pounding, if leaving this place is the last thing I do, then I want to escape with a person just like you." <3 Yes I do.

Aaand on to another video, which is one of my favourites on the tour as well, Masterpiece <3. And Vogue <3.

Candy Shop!

Madonna and Brahim getting steamy!

Human Nature.

Like A Virgin.

NO FEAR.

Nobody Knows Me. "I don't want no lies, I don't watch TV, I don't waste my time, won't read a magazine."

Drawing attention to the teen suicides of the recent years...:(

"No one's telling you how to live your life but it's a set-up until you're fed up. It's no good when you're misunderstood but why should I care what the world thinks of me? Won't let a stranger give me a social disease."

I'm Addicted.

I'm A Sinner.

And then...the most incredible thing ever, that I thought I wouldn't care about, that I honestly hadn't even thought would EVER happen...Like A Prayer. And suddenly Madonna was right in front of us...AND I TOUCHED HER HAND!!!!!!!! I cannot believe it, just can't. The moment seemed to last forever, her hand was so soft and her skin seemed very thin...AAAAAAAAA, I'VE TOUCHED MADONNA!!!!!!!! I'll post one bad picture now, but it has to be done because I took it right after I'd touched her:

INCREDIBLE. I was in heaven and still am. I can't believe I've actually touched my idol of 20 years, the woman who changed my life when I was nine years old. The woman who taught me all the English I know. The woman who turned me into the person I am today. I can't explain how it feels. My left hand is my lucky hand (I'm left-handed as well) :D! I felt such extreme happiness at this show, like life is meant for living and I'm doing it NOW. Just incredible. I felt like I could do anything, and I'm still feeling like that! The best night of my life.

After the show, I basically floated all the way to my hostel, after saying goodbye to Gabriel and Carola, and buying the tourbook and an MDNA bag. 4/7/2012 will be hard to beat's all I'm saying.

Also, I want to take this moment to say that whoever thinks that pop music is light-hearted has to go to a Madonna show. Madonna can be light-hearted, sure, but more than anything, her shows are extremely dark and deep. They're packed with things that'll make you think, as are her lyrics if you care to pay them any attention. It truly pisses me off when people say that they have zero respect for pop music because it's commercial or whatever. Just because something sells, it can't be good? I never understood that kind of reasoning. Madonna is a genius and she has vision like no one else. She has opinions and she knows how to turn them into art - that then ALWAYS goes on to upset someone and make people attack her. I'm so proud of her for never letting anyone get her down and always continuing to be the brave person that she is and standing up for what she believes in.