Madonna turns Copacabana beach into a gigantic dance floor

Brazil, a country in love with everything superlative, welcomed Madonna in style this Saturday night. Never before had the queen of pop performed before such a colossal crowd—1.6 million people, according to local authorities—as the one she gathered for a free concert on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, converted into a monumental dance floor. of dance. It was a magical night at 24 degrees – an unbecoming heat for this time – that closed a tour that started in October – delayed due to a serious bacterial infection with a stay in the ICU included – and that has taken it to 15 countries in Europe and North America . The artist hit the road for the first time without a new album to celebrate her four-decade career with her fans, many of whom had not even been born when she launched an unrepeatable career in the eighties.

“This is a dream come true,” said Neemias Alves da Silva, a 32-year-old nursing technician from Rio, who already saw the diva live the last time she performed in Brazil, in 2012. “I couldn’t attend any concerts.” of this tour, so having it here again, instead of watching it online is a dream. Even though we’re not so close to the stage, even though I see it on a screen, it’s contagious energy,” said this fan, who knew the lyrics to the 26 songs that Madonna has performed, in a brief interval between songs. Of course they have sounded Like a Virgin, Like a Prayer, Express Yourself, Vogue…

For two hours and ten minutes, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (Bay City, 65 years old) has offered a distillation of her career, including scenes, choreographies and outfits that have gone down in pop history. The most applauded moments, those that Madonna has shared with local stars. To dance the famous choreography of Vogue, was accompanied by one of her little daughters, Estere, 11 years old, and the great Brazilian diva, Anitta. For this occasion, the stage was 800 square meters, double that of the rest of the tour.

The moment in which two dancers simulated performing oral sex on the queens of pop and funk from Rio will probably be one of the most successful on social networks of this unique night in Copacabana. At that moment, Madonna was wearing a dress with the colors of the Brazilian flag (green, yellow and blue) with Gaultier’s now classic conical breasted bodice. The American has shown much more complicity with her other local guest, the drag queen Pabllo Vittar, who with Anitta. Vittar has jumped on stage wearing a soccer team t-shirt accompanied by a batucada by a group of young percussionists from samba schools.

Along with her most faithful fans from the LGTBI community, who have had her at an altar since the terrible times of AIDS, Copacabana received a compact crowd of the most diverse, including families with children, grandmothers and grandfathers. And since this is a very unequal country, close, but well separated, several thousand VIPS, invited by sponsors, a bank, a beer company, the State of Rio and the city.

Thanks to fifteen sound towers and vertical screens (which show the show as it would be seen on a mobile phone) the crowd has been able to follow the concert along a good part of this four-kilometer beach. In any case, a good part of the public has complained about the quality of the sound in a show that started 50 minutes late.

The deployment of more than 4,000 police officers and the search of all attendees have not prevented gangs of teenagers and children from hunting for cell phones and wallets, which are not lacking in other major Rio events such as carnival and New Year’s Eve, from making the night bitter. to some. The typical thing in these Brazilian mass shows is to wear the fanny pack inside your pants to minimize the risk as much as possible. In Copacabana there were also drones tonight with facial recognition systems that Brazil has adopted with enthusiasm and some controversy.

Madonna, an artist who was always modern, chose a unique setting, the most emblematic beach in Brazil, as the culmination of The Celebration Tour in which she reviews a career in which she has broken all kinds of taboos, sexual, religious, related to motherhood, she brought many out of the closet, she fought with the Vatican… All of this collected in a show that is the story of her life in seven acts. He now battles ageism.

She has sold more than any other artist (330 million albums), she has given birth to a good number of best-selling songs that are heard on half the planet and she invented this kind of pop opera, a giant musical show with theatrical language.

The queen of pop par excellence returned to a country she knows well. In addition to dating for a couple of years with a boyfriend from Rio 28 years younger, she filled Maracaná the first time she performed in the country, in 1993, she has gone up to the favelas to visit social projects — and there she was photographed dressed in camouflage with to a policeman with a rifle–, was seen at the Sambódromo during a carnival, has publicly revered Caetano Veloso and recorded a duet with Anitta…. Brazilians like to think that she has a special place in her heart for them. This time she has cloistered herself in the most prestigious hotel in the city, the century-old Copacabana Palace.

Her fans have come to Copacabana to celebrate an unrepeatable night with the great pop diva. For many of those present it is a personal issue, especially for those in the LGBT community. “He always celebrated us,” Leonardo Lopes stressed this Saturday morning.

For Maria Luiza Alves, 19, the singer, dancer, composer and actress is someone truly “inspiring.” For many reasons… for defending women’s rights in the industry, for defending the LGBT community when no one did, for talking about AIDS — “and teenage pregnancy,” notes one of her friends, “that affected our mothers.” ”—

Argentine Daniel Salazar, a 32-year-old pastry chef, says that he came from Buenos Aires after saving for a year because he had a feeling. While he stands guard in front of the Copacabana Palace hotel, he remembers how his relationship with the diva began: “When I was ten years old, my mother gave me the vinyl of The Immaculate Collection: ‘Take‘Listen to him’ She told me and I didn’t let go of her anymore. In Argentina at that time, listening to Madonna was considered gay, it was frowned upon, but my parents were always by my side, unlike the majority, who were very repressed.” Her dedication to the queen of pop is eternal.

Madonna’s, although huge, is not the most crowded concert in Copacabana. Rod Stewart attracted 3.5 million people in 1994, a Show who, as they love to remember in Brazil, entered the Guinness Book as the greatest of all time. But also the Brazilian Jorge Ben Jor (three million in 1993), the Rolling Stones (1.5 million in 2006) have gathered huge audiences on the great Rio beach.

Follow all the information from El PAÍS América in Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.