A trip back to 2004

This review will require a minor suspension of disbelief on your part. Fuck it we'll suspend our disbelief too. We need you to put yourself in 2004, or maybe 2005. Madonna's Re-Invention Tour has concluded and we are just writing down our Shiny & New review of the show.

(Unfortunately we weren't even Madonna fans in 2004. Our love blossomed after encountering a recording of the following tour, Confessions, on Channel 4 in early 2007. We are only able to review this magnificent show with such accuracy due to the recent leak of the show's only full professional filming in Lisbon. If you are bothered, our first (and second) encounters with Her Madj on the Sticky and Sweet Tour are available in archive.)

So we're safely in 2004. Razorlight are ruining ruling the charts, we are entering our GCSE examinations (time ago boi) and Madonna has returned to performing numbers from her catalogue that pre-date Ray of Light. The Re-Invention Tour was the first real showcase of a fully formed, complete Madonna of old and new. A Madonna who could reconcile the lusty disco beats of 1983's magnificent "Burning Up" with the 'deep' and soulful "Nothing Fails", one of the finest selections from her critically acclaimed (though it sank like a lead balloon with most of her casual fans) American Life (2004).

Beginning the show with a downright-fucking-scary visual assault of apocolyptic, chilling imagery filmed by Steven Klein set to an interesting remix of "Justify My Love" - with all the "Justify My Love" bits removed we hasten to add - Madonna made her first stage appearance performing a blinding version of "Vogue", her first in eleven years and a direct throwback to possibly her most notorious stage performance ever in which she lipsynced to the song in full Marie Antoinette garb without even the pretence of a fake headset microphone. The power piano of the song was a welcome partner to the following full-bodied rendition of "Nobody Knows Me", formerly a rather non-descript Mirwais composition but transformed into a thumping, full throttle call to dance. Fierce couldn't sum up the song justly.

An interesting and (even more so in 2004) defiant military section followed a stunning "Frozen", in which Madge paired "American Life" with none other than "Express Yourself" and brought "Burning Up" and "Material Girl" all the way into the 21st century using an electric guitar (it's an acquired taste). The interludes on the tour really do stand amongst her best. A brand new pristine, pure video set to a remix of "Bedtime Story" threw in hints not only back to the song's career-defining original but it's album partner "Human Nature". Our personal favourite from American Life, "Hollywood", was transformed into a dark and twisted showcase for her dancers complete with fire, skateboards and bhangra. It works. There are silly moments, like the sultry reprise of Dick Tracy's "Hanky Panky" but it all forms a cohesive, well thought out show. The stomping disco "Deeper and Deeper" is re-written into a bubbling pole dance and the heartbreaking and little known paen "Lament" is lifted from Evita.

It may seem natural to a Madonna fan now with similar practises on her 2006 and 2008/9 tours but previous to Re-Invention Madonna's only showcase of her work since the Girlie Show had been the dark - while very interesting - Drowned World in which only "La Isla Bonita" and "Holiday" saw the light of day in a setlist which otherwise refused to breach beyond 1994 for material. Re-Invention was almost a re-birth; Madonna had showcased her new material, she had gone to the places she wished to, and now she was quite rightly performing from the goldmine of classics she had to her name. It had to happen sooner or later.

An unusually not so thrilling rendition of "Like a Prayer" and such lead to a Highlands inspired performance of "Into the Groove", which began a truly nostalgia inducing string of fan favourites. "Papa Don't Preach", "Crazy for You" (!), "Music" and "Holiday" completed the show and ensured every fan left more than satisfied. From "Vogue" to "Holiday" and everything in between, Re-Invention truly showcased Madonna's catologue, talents and prowess as a performer as it should have done. She was on top form as a dancer, leading meticulously choreographed sequences in military garb, kilts, glittering corsets and fishnets. Her voice and it's 1997 Evita-led honing leant itself well to items from her history when her sound was likened to "Minnie Mouse on helium", and physically she was at her peak. Her breasts looked fucking amazing.

We will expand on this another time but Re-Invention stands as an example why Blond Ambition cannot and will not be the peak, be all and end all of Madonna's live career. Fourteen years after that notorious tour, she was still outdoing herself and proving she was not to be written off.

Come on boys, do you believe in love? Cos I've got something to say about it, and it goes a little something like this.