And it feels like home.

On Thursday night, we had the pleasure of attending the greatest concert of our lives, so far. Never before had we witnessed such undiluted perfection, so much flawless choreography, epic performances and awe-inspiring energy all concentrated into one hundred and twenty minutes. We don't think we need to name the woman we paid £86 to share oxygen with, but for those fools who happened to come across this blog and still don't have a clue, we were standing around 25 metres in front of Madonna Louise (Veronica, when she feels like it) Ciccone-Ritchie.

What follows is a vain attempt to describe as accurately as possible the experience in words. An epic feat in itself.

Bursting on to the stage in a flurry of candy-lathered video screen effects, Madonna entered the stadium much the same way she did on the Hard Candy Promo Tour earlier on this year. When we heard this, we were disappointed as it seemed she was just being lazy... however, you do have to see it for yourself to appreciate the feeling you get when you watch that video screen turn around, and you know who's going to be sitting on glittering throne on the other side. It is at this moment that the video screens actually show their flexibility and the extent of their kinetics, separating and merging with others seemingly at will.

Whizzing through "Candy Shop", seguing into the flawless "Beat Goes On", she picked up the guitar for the first non-Hard Candy song of the night, "Human Nature". Yes, the performance could have been better if she had just been Madonna and not played heavy metal to a hip-hop based song, but the performance was still brilliant, heavily helped by the percussion arrangement and the fantastic Britney-starring video screens. It was a thrill to see Miss Spears defiantly proclaim "Express yourself, don't repress yourself", and the screams from the crowd at the "It's Britney, bitch" which ended the video gave us shivers. Next was the song we have been waiting two years to see live - "Vogue". The entire performance is a complete blur. We've been watching YouTube videos and it's hard to comprehend how perfect that performance is. Again, shivers in the bridge when Madonna reverted to the original dance piano riff instead of the "4 Minutes" sample which carried the majority of the song, admittedly working quite well with the 1990 beats and lyrics.

Madonna left the stage, and immediately a boxing ring rose to the stage at the end of the catwalk. Clips from the stunning tour programme photoshoot (see earlier Shiny & New posts for jizzness) were broadcast to a breathtaking remix of "Die Another Day", serving as a majestic backdrop to two dancers acting a choreographed boxing match. Round 13, it would seem. As quick as she left the stage, she re-appeared for a fantastic re-invention of "Into the Groove", featuring Keith Haring artwork on the screens and cleverly utilising samples of Cassius' 2005 dance hit "Toop Toop", and Madonna's own "Jump". Watching a fifty year old woman jump into a double dutch skipping rope, jump back out and sing a twenty two year old song as if it was last week's number one was a sight to be remembered. "Heartbeat", the first album track since "Beat Goes On", was enhanced with heavier bass and synth, and served as a welcome predecessor to the next song, a heavy metal version of 1982's "Borderline". Admittedly, it was a likeable re-invention, and we actually prefer it to the original. She forgot the words to the second verse, but recovered quickly and just repeated the first verse without giving a fuck. Classic Madge.

It was pleasantly surprising to see how well the Hard Candy tracks fitted with the old songs Madonna performed. One crack in the perfection that was the Confessions Tour was the uneasiness with which Madonna performed her classics between Confessions tracks - the entire bedouin section was disjointed and a bit loose to us, while the only section we enjoyed from start to finish was the final one - in which one out of five songs was from Confessions. The tracks flowed seamlessly into older tracks, and vice versa. An excellent example is "She's Not Me", which was a crowd pleaser due to the use of iconic Madonna clips and images on the video screens, and Madonna's four female dancers dressing up as old Madonnas while being attacked by new Madonna. The song itself had a fantastic vibe live - while Confessions songs were more effective in studio form, Hard Candy songs truly came alive in live performances, while their studio counterparts are more lacklustre.

Other highlights included a feisty rendition of "La Isla Bonita" - while a re-hash of last year's Live Earth performance, itself a re-hash of the previous year before that's Confessions Tour version, it was a brilliant crowd pleaser and the energy was unbelievable -, a spine-tingling performance of "You Must Love Me", and of course, the stand out track in entire set list, "Like a Prayer". While the most popular Madonna song anyway, the live performance was something else entirely. When the lights went down after segment opener "4 Minutes" finished, immediately, religious imagery and symbols were broadcast from the video screens, sitting alongside green and blue lasers, while the circular LED cage above the catwalk lit up in flames. Heavily sampling early 90s rave anthem "Don't You Want Me" and its descendant, 2004's "Feels Like Home", the crowd eagerly lapped it all up. With a backdrop of a mixture of apocalyptic and inspiring religious imagery, Madonna truly belted out her finest song in a performance which paid its respects to its 1989 original. In our humble opinion, this should have been the finale song, but whatever. Another highlight was the absolutely sublime "Devil Wouldn't Recognise You", performed from within the LED cage, on top of a piano being played by a Timbaland-lookalike, who actually surpassed the stunning album arrangement. "Ray of Light" thundered through the stadium, defying anyone to sit down, and the token Madonna political statement interlude video, "Get Stupid" bought boos and cheers in equal amounts from the crowd faced with imagery of Hitler and Barack Obama alongside Bob Geldof and Oprah Winfrey to enigmatic excerpts from "Beat Goes On". Only Madonna.

We don't think we'll see a concert like it, that is until her next tour. Many were worried Sticky and Sweet wouldn't surpass Confessions, due to that show easily being her finest tour ever - perfect in every possible way. Yes, Blond Ambition was flawless. Yes, the Girlie Show was visually stunning. Yes, Drowned World was her most artistic. But Confessions was art - and no, Sticky and Sweet doesn't surpass it, but we think it is just as good. We think Madonna knew she couldn't top Confessions, so she put her energy into changing exactly what she gave her fans, but at the same level of elegance, and mind-blowing effort.

Aside from the nightmare of trying to leave the stadium afterwards, and not actually getting back to our hotel until 4am, the concert was perfect. We completely got my money's worth, and reading other reports, we're ecstatic we were standing and not sitting in the higher tiers.

Madonna performed;

• "Candy Shop"
• "Beat Goes On"
• "Human Nature"
• "Vogue"
• "Die Another Day" - Video Interlude
• "Into the Groove"
• "Heartbeat"
• "Borderline"
• "She's Not Me"
• "Music"
• "Rain" - Video Interlude
• "Devil Wouldn't Recognise You"
• "Miles Away"
• "Spanish Lessons"
• "La Isla Bonita"
• "Doli Doli" - Dancers Interlude
• "You Must Love Me"
• "Get Stupid" - Video Interlude
• "4 Minutes"
• "Like a Prayer"
• "Ray of Light"
• "Hung Up"
• "Give It 2 Me"

9/10. Easily.