# Madonna Concert - Author: Joichi Ito - Date: 2006-09-22T15:12:07Z I'm on the board of Pia, which organized the tickets for the Madonna tour in Japan. It was the first time that the official ticketing agent used an auction system to sell the premium seats. Yesterday, I went to see the last show of the world tour in Tokyo Dome. We watched from the box seats or "suites". (I was probably supposed to be taking care of our VIP guests instead of playing with my camera phone but...) It as a bit weird having staff in uniforms pouring wine and bringing food while watching Madonna flipping the audience the finger and talking about the "universal 'fuck you' and 'don't fuck with me'"... ;-P In one act, she was wearing a "Japanese do it better" t-shirt. I wonder how many Japanese caught that. It was quite an interesting event. The audience was very emotional. For me, it was a very weird experience. She mixed covers of lots of tunes from the 80's and 90's that we all grew up with and didn't do many of my favorite Madonna tunes. I'm a big fan of remix and she did a very good job of making a sort of medley of songs down memory lane. She sampled riffs, took bass tracks, melodies, and lyrics from all kind stuff. In retrospect, I guess a lot of her work has been about picking up underground trends and presenting them to the main stream. I did have a weird feeling that in the case of many of the tracks I would have rather heard the original than her version. She did have a fairly strong "lets all get along and not fight about religion" theme, although I'm not sure how this went over with her fans. However, while waiting for the elevator leaving the stadium, I heard a girl talking about how she cried. I think "dancing with Madonna" for people who have been fans of hers for decades is an experience worth crying about. It was a bit strange watching her doing a sexy dance on a leather saddle with a pole that moved around in the air while singing "Like a Virgin". I've probably heard more renditions of Like a Virgin by foreigners in Japan trying to find a song to sing in tiny Karaoke bars. She helped me reset the context, albeit positioned slightly off-center from where I remember it being positioned. All in all, it was a fun concert that brought back lots of memories of being a DJ in Chicago and being a bad boy in New York. Here are some flickr photos. --- #### Categories Music