Madonna Performs At Camden Palace In London October 13, 1983 Madonna hits the stage of London's Camden Palace. This could be the way pop promotion is going – new artists launched not with a full concert, but with the live equivalent of a video clip. The scene at the Camden Palace in the early hours was like something from a British version of Flashdance. The place was packed with the usual exotically dressed clientele – there to see and be seen rather than just listen to the music – when the dancing was interrupted by what's known on the American disco scene as a "track date." Pioneered by the likes of Grace Jones, this is a cut-price promotion device in which a disco artist suddenly appears for half an hour, singing live to backing tapes. This demonstration was by a white girl in her early twenties, known simply as Madonna, a dancer who moved to New York from the Mid-West as an ambitious teenager and is currently the most important new figur...