April 30 2006 // Madonna is the queen of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. No doubt about it.

Madonna helped Coachella set a two-day attendance record Saturday and Sunday when at least 60,000 people a day crammed into the Empire Polo Club in Indio.
The demand was so great for Madonna, it took the crowd 30 minutes to inch their way across the field after her performance. Coincidentally, that was just how long her performance was.

The Queen of Pop started 25 minutes after her scheduled start time, emerging out of a disco ball with her ensemble of spacemen-like dancers in a black outfit and shades. After opening with her recent dance hit, Hung Up, which she sang to open that year's Academy Grammy Awards, she told the audience this was her first festival and 'give me some love.'
Madonna, 47, then sang songs from her most recent album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, with a throbbing, enhanced electronica beat. She played guitar on I Love New York. Then she asked the fans - perhaps 30,000 people including beer garden patrons and indie rock fans for The Editors at the next tent over - if they wanted her to do an old song.
Then she asked if she should take her pants off. "It's too hot to wear clothes," she teased. Then, stripping to her tights, she asked, "Does my ass look good?" knowing she is incredibly buff.

Then she sang an old song, One song. Everybody. She writhed around the floor a bit and then the concert was over.
There were people who didn't want to see Madonna at the alternative-oriented festival.
Fonzie Hernandez of Coachella wore a T-shirt he designed that said, 'Madonna killed Coachella.'
"She doesn't belong here," he said. "She's pop."
But even fans stuck in the glacial-like retreat from the Madonna set said it was worth it to see Madonna.

"I think it's awesome and incredible," said Kymberly Whitaker of La Quinta. "She'll probably never be here again in our little Coachella Valley."
Paul Tollett, founder of the Los Angeles-based Goldenvoice promoters, said the increase in attendance presented few challenges. Madonna was as easy to work with, he said, as the management for Tool and Depeche Mode.
"From the beginning," he said. "They wanted to fit it and not overpower the show."
Tool was the Coachella Stage headliner. Other top performers included the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Matisyahu and Paul Oakenfold. (source: The Desert Sun)

Comments

The Making of Madonna’s First Album Cover

Carin Goldberg — the art director behind Madonna’s debut album cover — spoke to the Cut about her first experience with the then-unknown pop star. It’s the first question that anybody asks me, even today: What was it like to work with Madonna? People think that maybe something dramatic or interesting or kind of wild might have happened, based on, you know, Madonna’s persona. But I would say that Madonna was probably the easiest job I ever had — the most cooperation from a recording artist I think I ever had. She was a true professional, even at that young age. It was ’83, and at that point I had my own small design firm. Warner Bros. called and asked me to do her cover as a freelance designer. When I got the call, I rolled my eyes, because it was another [musician with a] one-word name. At that time it had become cliché to have a one-word name, because of Cher, so I remember thinking, God, it’s going to be one of those. So I really went into it with very little expec...

September 24 1992, Madonna baring her breasts and blowing kisses, At The Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion show.

September 24 1992, Madonna baring her breasts and blowing kisses, Billy Idol in double leather... we explore the fashion show that raised $700,000 for AIDS research Jean Paul Gaultier is renowned for many things – his exceptional tailoring, his conical bras, his impassioned approach to sociopolitcal causes in fashion – and, on September 2, 1992, all of these elements united for a show that definitely mattered. In honour of amFAR (The American Foundation for AIDS Research), Gaultier held a fashion benefit whose runway included everything from lip-synching to Dr Ruth dressed in rubber to raise money for a cause that devastated (and continues to devastate) communities around the world. "Tonight will be about protection... wear rubber and protect yourself!" – Jean Paul Gaultier "Tonight will be about protection... wear rubber and protect yourself!" explained Gaultier before the show. "I think fashion can make people thin...

On July 10 1985, The Playboy magazine issue of nude Madonna photos was released !!

Playboy publishes nude photos of Madonna taken before she was famous. The singer did a number of nude photo shoots from 1977-1980, starting when she was an 18-year-old student at the University of Michigan looking for some extra cash and trying to form a band. Now a huge star, Playboy publishes some of the shots taken in 1979 and 1980 in a revealing spread. A year earlier, the magazine turned down nude photos of Miss America winner Vanessa Williams , which their rival Penthouse published. "We think Vanessa genuinely didn't know what she was doing, didn't know her photos might be published," the article states. "Madonna, on the other hand, posed repeatedly for two noted photographers who routinely publish what they shoot." One of the photographers, Lee Friedlander, says of the shoot: "She seemed very confident, a street-wise girl." Madonna has little to say on the matter, but doesn't shy away. "I'm not ashamed,...

Madonna Extreme

Search This Blog