Don't go for second best

Tonight, Madonna premieres her ninth concert tour in Tel Aviv. The set list has been finalised, the costumes have been created, the dance routines have been rehearsed we're sure countless times. It's time to hold our breath and wait to see for ourselves what the effect of a return to cone bras, regurgitated choreography from previous tours and one of the shortest setlists she's done in recent years will have on our indomitable excitement.

We've been trying to write a far more eloquent and articulate piece on how we feel about a seemingly apparent 180 degree switch in one of the strongest attitudes Madonna has held over the past thirty years: that she never ever repeats herself or looks back. We're still not sure whether our feelings are a result of a lack of enthusiasm for the MDNA era overall, an isolated shift in our adoration for her as an artist, or a genuine drop in creativity and imagination on her part. Or maybe a combination of the three. Is it her, or is it us? As for the apparent and monstrously unnecessary dig at a much younger, albeit fucking annoying, popstar in one of her greatest songs...

Regardless, we haven't seen the show. We've seen the setlist, costumes and clips, but we haven't seen the show, and we don't intend on doing so until June 20th in Barcelona. We just had to get this out somehow on (digital) paper. If you're seeing the show before us, please do let us know what you think. We have no doubt it will be anything less than spectacular, but we're sticklers for the upholding of standards and whether it's her fault or not, Madonna has made it her career mission to set her standards sky high.

We mean... it is terribly exciting to know she'll be on stage again twenty two years later in a Gaultier-designed cone bra corset performing "Vogue". We love references, we love throwbacks, we love nods to the past. But when it arrives in an era plagued with possibly more flaws than the previous one, we're running out patience and we're craving signs of originality and imagination still left in the old broad. All fingers and toes are crossed a magnificent pulling-it-out-of-the-bag. And there's nothing more we love than eating our own words.