Even at 50, the queen of pop exactly can't hitch courting controversy.
More Photos
As Madonna kicked off her outside "Sticky and Sweet" tour Saturday night, she took a none-too subtle swipe at the presumptive Republican nominee for U.S. president.
Amid a four-act show at Cardiff's packed Millennium Stadium, a video interlude carried images of destruction, spherical warming, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Zimbabwe's authoritarian President Robert Mugabe � and U.S. Senator John McCain. Another sequence, shown later, pictured slain Beatle John Lennon, followed by mood activist Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi and finally McCain's Democratic rival Barack Obama.
The rest of the point had the usual Madonna fixtures: sequins, fishnets, and bondage-style outfits drawn from the 3,500 items of vesture reportedly whipped together by 36 designers specifically for the tour. Dancers sauntered across level in top hats and tail coats, and Madonna tried her hand at break-dancing and pole-dancing.
Some 40,000 fans � many in pink cowboy hats and boas � were treated to a fleshy metal version of "Borderline," while "La Isla Bonita" served as backdrop for a flamenco routine. The show, billed as a musical melange of "gangsta pimp," Romanian folk, rave, and dance � was an court to Madonna's continuous reinventions over the past three decades.
She took a playful take on her varicoloured career, gibelike dancers togged up as her previous incarnations � including the "Material Girl" and "Blonde Ambition" � before they sank into the stage to the tune of "She's Not Me." Madonna finished off the concert with her clunk "Give it 2 Me" from her new urban-inspired album, "Hard Candy."
If the world's top-selling female recording artist is still wriggly, shaking and shimmying with the best of them, her personal life has recently been unsettled. Earlier this summer her pal Christopher Ciccone published a gossipy memoir, and she has faced speculation around her relationship with New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriquez and rumors that her wedding to British filmmaker Guy Ritchie is on the rocks � which she hotly denies.
More info
