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MADONNA WITH TECHNOTRONIC. Like a voyeur. Nassau Coliseum. Monday. (Madonna will also be at Nassau Coliseum tonight, and at Giants Stadium June 20 to 25.)
THE ADVANCE WORD on Madonna's Blond Ambition tour was that it was shocking and outrageous: boys in bras, simulated masturbation, crotch grabbing, hints of S & M, Sondheim tunes, what have you. But what brought most of the crowd together at Nassau Coliseum Monday night, for the first of three shows, was that we weren't shocked. Amused, tickled, stimulated or diverted, maybe, but not shocked or outraged. If other folks were, fine - that was part of the spectacle, part of what made it an event. But we were definitely spectators to any shock or outrage, not participants. Any pique only added to our entertainment.
This was an audience with values of its own, many of them derived from MTV. When Madonna wanted to tease the crowd with a hint of the truly shocking and immoral, she said, "Let's do something really naughty. Let's lipsynch." In a show in which Madonna appeared to get some vocal help from the wings, the lipsynching that followed cut closer to the edge than most of the negligees.
For a little under two hours, Madonna ran through a series of accent and costume changes, reinventing herself with each change. Even her speaking voice was theatrically contrived, as she became, by turns, a New York tough, a gun moll, Betty Boop and a "Clockwork Orange" Brit. The concert was divided into six segments, each tied to an outfit and a theme.
The costumes and...