The old rebel- Madonna

Last week I was on to see Madonna live again. Yes, I know, some may say- Oh no! She can't sing, dance and act and so on... All those negative believing. 

Well, it's true she was never the best singer, but she never claimed to be one. 

But one thing was always sure. She can do a Show. Can she still?

For starters, she can and how she can! 

She still has a lot of power as the show starts without doubt with showing exactly this. BASS ON MAX AND DANCE AND SHOW ON MAX. 

One picture and symbol after the other and it all fits perfectly in style, to the theme and the songs are well chosen.  To say it right away, she did chose always the right songs for the part she was doing and she has several different, from asian, to religious, to artistic, to let's get on the countryside and back to let's celebrate the 20'tis and so on. Kind of a immaculate collection. 

The stage is absolutely up to date and bringing out all you can do these days with technic. She also added new artistic numbers which have been very much a fun to watch. 

Yes, she still does the D-train and mixed it with the Girly Show concept. That means the numbers come and go and the time flies and two hours are over like in five minutes. 

It also means she is more the old Madonna as the older fans known her that way and she is mixing the themes like she always does and caring less about what is approbate and political correct. After all it's a Rebel Heart Tour and the Girly Show was also much of a Rebel Show. Thought back then more then today as we are used to it more and know that symbols and the question of what is strong language has changed. Also we have started to expect this from Madonna and she is not failing to show all the scandalous symbols. She is not exactly doing it without reason but in some numbers there become like an ad just because we might do expect those. So not really dirty anymore, not really a bitch, but a rebel- yes she still is. 

Of course this became one of the things the press took to critics. 

Others claimed that she is old and can't dance. 

Well, it's true she is older, over 55 years to be exact and no, she still can dance and that in a very good way, but yes she danced less then before and took more focus to singing and keeping up a go0d show. She is a hard working women and don't be surprised that she expect this from her dancers too, which you can see more then clear. Her dancers are in fact one of the best you can find. It looks easy what they do, but they have a very clean and hard dance routine to do, thought it holds up all expectation. They also make it that you never felt bored while Madonna changed her cloths. 

Another critic I read was that she took to contact to the people and that this is wrong as she is a star and will lose her star being with doing so. She should stay untouchable. First I think she is still in the way of being a star, then for the fans it was exactly what they wanted. She showed that she can speak freely and has humor about herself (also she showed it within two numbers she made). Another complain was about her -La vi en rose- interpretation, but this is coming from misunderstanding. 

Yes, she turned the song in her own version, but otherwise it would not have function. Yes, she is doing it the american way and so the song has not really to do with the original, but here she was able to show what her soul, her voice was also capable to do. She has in fact more to give then she does. Her interpretation was a warm timbre and once again, not a big voice but if she wants she can sing very  nice. 

But she had it not easy to catch the fire from the German people. It needed the -Like a prayer- nearly a capella- and all went to be a big party, dance, sing together and having real fun. 

You maybe will have this in other countries too. 

Why so, if she starts with a firework and still needs more time to get the people up and dancing? Is it the turn from fast to slow and back again? No, this is not the reason. I believe it is more the fact that people have lost their whole trust in her with the last CD and MDNA Show. 

To unsure if this show will really rock and so it takes a while to let lose. Also I saw another problem, which most stars and acts have to deal with nowadays. Mobiles. People focus on getting pictures and a little film from the show instead of watching the show and diving in. To play over the mobiles is very hard work to do. It actually cost the people a part of her own fun. Thought I by myself took pictures, but not on many occasions. 

Another thing why it took time to bring up the fire inside us was the D-train she is doing. No time to breath, no time to let the symbols and songs sink into you. We have been glad when she spoke and actually stayed on stage to just hold her instrument or drink water or when she waited until the stair was down for the next number. 

Then she gave us the chance to celebrate. Thought she wants to be professional and have it all perfect, she is pressing a bit too much, thought at the end I enjoyed, with a completely sold out crowed, the show. 

But keep in mind, this is after all a CD promotion tour, so you won't have a collection of all songs, thought she did put some of her old one into the show and actual they came from each Album she did. 

Of course in new interpretations which maybe not all liked that much. Some fans also have been sad that she did not use the songs - Ghost town and Joan di arc- as those are some of her stronger songs from the actual CD. 

Fashion, Stage, technics, dancers, choose of songs is absolutely worth a 5 star. Her singing, as always not stable but better as years before is a 3-4 stars. The show went by like a wind blows into your face- 4 stars, as I wished to have a bit more breath in the beginning. 

So, the result? 4 of 5 stars I will say as this is sure not her best Show she ever did, but could come as near as possible to the high level she had put up herself. The Confession Show is the mark she will never reach again I believe and is unable to do for most of us actually as the level is damn high. Hopefully Madonna finds a way to make it different with the next shows and find some new ways to make a show. She is a smart women and has once's changed how we make a show with the -Blond ambition Tour-. 

She will for sure go on again on tour and you know what: I believe if the album is good as the last one, the shows will be sold out again and as she has obviously fun this time, we will believe she will have it once again. Yes, you read right, this is what also reminds us old fans from the Girly Show, she has fun doing her thing. You may like it or not. If not, simple stay away from it. If you do- go on to see the show!

Love&Light

Dangerous Game- a movie

A film by Abel Ferrara. Surely not his most known film. Actually I think most of you will never heard of it. The movie came out in the 1990tis and was not played in many cinemas.
Is the film that bad? No, actually not. 
What is the film about? 
O.k. This movie is about a man, a film director who makes a movie with two main actors. 
These two main actors, a man and a woman have been a couple, more or lesson and play a couple in the story of the movie.  
A couple on a point of no return, because the women became religious and the man stayed where they have started. He still is on drugs and alcohol and Rock'n Roll. So they try to figure out how to do now. As it is, the man can't understand his wife and wants everything back as it was. 
Harvey Keitel plays the director and the film shows how he struggles to finish it, because the man who plays a drug addicted husband is on drugs itself. Then the wife playing actress on one hand tries to stay with him together, on the other hand she is separating from him and takes her own life and that means she does not know, not really know what to do. She is unsure, but plays the game in film business. 
Then as this is not enough she sleeps with the director, which will be the fall of his own marriage. 
So this movie shows the life and fiction couples and a film in a film, but also it shows the dark side of the film business and celebrity live. 
Abel Ferrara uses the elements of drama, uses the fact that pictures can also show different between film and film reality of the movie and he uses fiction and ties a knot with all the stories he is telling, but such a knot that the real actors have more and more the problem to find the difference between their own life and the roles they play. Then the words the actors use are clearly though as a critic to Hollywood. 
The movie itself is more a silence talking. Going from the slow start to the big drama at the end, although the drama is to find already on the way.
What more to say? The actress who plays the women in an anti Hollywood movie is Madonna. 
Most of you will now think she is a bad actress, but actually she is not that bad, neither a very good one, but her problem was always she herself, she was always to big as a star the most time for her roles. 
Yes, the first two or three minutes you may still think this is a women putting in a movie. That women! But then you will see, that she fades as Madonna and the longer the movie goes the more you forget who is playing this religious wife. 
When the end of the film had arrived and you start to read the names, you just think: "What?, How!?". 
So once again I will recommend to try a movie you maybe never thought of watching.

LOVE & LIGHT

Stockholm...one more time...

Art in the park in front of one of the museums

Jean Paul Gaultier

click on the pic

click on the pic

that was the blond ambitions corset ...

click on the pic to see it big

right Mylene Farmer was wearing this during her concert tour

love this one and if I had the body i would wear it...

punk it is...

made for the Eurovison Song Contest

Dana International

remember this year Eurosvison/ ESC? Who had those dresses on.. Yes it was Petra Mede the Woman who "helped" you through the show...

  ......And so it is time for another Museum and now if you let me introduce you.. Jean Paul Gaultier. His first Art and Vision Excipition. 
When you first step in, you see a lot of "Muppets" and they are also talking to you. Well, not really that good as the idea sounds. It was too much of a sound cloud in this room and I just thought- Oh the poor young man standing at the door just to watch us tourists not to touch the cloths and to do it right when making a foto without flashing lights, he has to hear it all day long, this cloud of horrible sounds. And then I though the cloths for Pret- a -Porte are not looking that glamourous as it known from papers and TV or movies. 
But then again, it was just the first room and when we went on, it became a very fascinating and lovely show of his work and art and so this, this was very good and nice and we enjoyed it very much at the end. Just watch the pics.
 
After seeing all this, we though going to Skansen- to "Allsang pa skansen" a show which is every year through the summer time, where everyone meets and sings together, but heaven was full of clouds and we where unshure if it would rain or not and to be honest we needed to eat and also we had a bit of a cold. So changes of planes and looking out for a place to eat in the " Gamle Stan" and then see what comes. 
At the end part of us went home, too tired, feeling this would better- like me- to be home and getting not sick and part went to the "Allsang" and had bit of fun and it did not rain after all. Although I really wanted to be there, at least I think I try it next year again. Health is more importand then a party.
 
Next days I took it very calm. Above my dayly meditations. I was shopping- did not find all what I was looking for- had my quite Birthday- I never liked to celebrate my b-days, not even as a child and was watching films, which you can read about, when I write my point of view about them in the next days. So watch out for the next postings!

What more? I was meeting friends and having a very loving time in Stockholm, saw more new parts of the town and went to the borough Husby on wednesday, where- you maybe remember the fire in the beginning of spring, the burning cars and the shooten man, shoot from a Policeman to dead- I meet another dear friend, who volontaired the week before for the Pride week, which is as he told mea lot of work, but fun, which I can imaging, cos helping people can be fun. And after all you feel good, that you did something meanful and not got drunk instead.

Husby was quite, maybe it was because it was the last day of Ramadan, but to be true it is not the nicest place, but not at all the dangerous place like the press use to tell people.

Husby underground station and it's the blue line where you can find a lot of art on the walls

it's nature, it's pure and it's art... and bigger inside then in London... you an breath...

So being in Stockholm, in Sweden was also, talking in swedish next to all the time, reading in swedish and dreaming in swedish. It was home for me and I really did not want to go home to Berlin, but as it use to be- every must have an end and the rain starts, when I was leaving. 
Back in Germany the clouds where there too but oh so colorful, it was so nice to watch at and the hot weather was over again. But as life is. being back in the bus, driving through town, who was I listening to? Swedish people and at last I started thinking in english. 
Never ask what does this mean!

Shizmo didn't wanted to fly back ether...

you have a little child which wants to sit instead of walking? Well here you have enough to roll your kid on the floor!

Starting all over again, the usual life now. Much is to be done the next days and weeks. For a lot of changing will come. The job, the new hearing pots, the big holiday in Bali awaits and a new flat is on the way. Also to plan the rest of the year to go to school for three weeks to learn, maybe a better english or spanish as a beginners. And so will the next kid in my family go to school. Is it already time for that?

Well... as always... enjoy the summer..  LOVE & LIGHT

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