Got back from Edinburgh yesterday and I have to say I had an AMAZING TIME! I went with my friend and we decided to make it into a week long holiday with the concert on the final night; it really was the jewel in the crown of a great week!
We left the hotel at about 15:30 and got to Murrayfield for about 16:00. We didn't really know where to go so asked one of the stewards who pointed at the queues and told us to wait with those people. We went over and got chatting to a friendly couple who asked where we were sitting. We explained we were in the West stand and roughly where. They then told us we were in the wrong place; these queues were for the South stand. So, we went and checked with another steward who told us to go round the corner for the West stand.
We followed the road round and came to another entrance. There were two stewards who told us this was the way to the West stand and that once we went through we couldn't come back out. So, we went through, following the path round to another group of stewards. The first set checked my friend's back to ensure she had no cans or bottles, then we walked a couple of metres to the next steward who scanned our tickets and let us through.
Once through we could see the merchandise stall (there was only one here) along with some food stalls and a very long beer tent. Opposite these were the gates into the stadium and a huge group of portaloos. There was only one queue at this point (it was just past 16:10) infront of the largest gate and it wasn't too long. So, we went over and bought the merchandise before joining the queue. At about 16:45 the sound checks started and we could hear the bass coming from the stadium itself. A steward came out and told us, 'don't all run, but all these gates with stewards in front will open too, if you like you can queue in front of those.' I told my friend to stay in our queue, I knew everyone would disperse to try and get in faster, so we waited whilst everyone moved and then moved forward. Because of this we were left at almost the front of our queue. At 17:00 the gates opened and we went through, making our way up the stairs (it was a long way up) to our stand then going through where the steward directed us to our seats. We were lucky; our seats we on the end of our row right next to the stairs.
Once we were seated we looked around and took everything in. The stadium was huge and not very full at this point. The VIPs in the pit were all in along with some of the Golden Circle; a few seats around the venue were filled and the general standing area was starting to fill; albeit very slowly. Madonna was already on stage doing her sound checks and chatting to the audience. I was very pleased we had gotten in so early; it was great to see this. It felt very personal; she was speaking between each song and clearly enjoyed showing them off before the show. It was great to see her relaxed and not really in 'show' mode. Every time she stopped singing a woman from the pit starting chanting 'L U V MADONNA' at the top of her voice and after a little while Madonna asked the same woman if she could count to ten in Scottish for her so that she could replicate it. The woman took great joy in this and then Madonna followed suit. She sounded a tad more Australian than Scottish but she gave it her best. Soon after she performed TUTR and told us 'this is the part of the show where you sing along so I want you to practice it now.' Those in the pit and GC really went for it but those of us in seats didn't make any attempt; the seats were still very empty and it wouldn't have had much impact if we had. After performing TUTR Madonna told us she wanted us to do better during the show, lol. She really was working the pit and GC during the sound check. She performed a few more songs, including 'I'm Addicted' (which I'm very glad of seeing as it was cut from the actual show; at least I saw it in some form) and 'Express Yourself' which was great to see; it was stunning even with just her singing and the videos. She then had a little talk where she said that she may get cut off during the show but if she did, not to blame her, 'blame your local authorities and write a letter to your MP or something.' After this she told us she wanted to wait for the dark to begin the show as, 'everything is better in the dark.' I think the cut off speech was meant as a slight joke but there was a hint of seriousness to it. She performed a little more (the LUV chanter was still chanting between each song, it was quite funny) before we heard her say 'oh, we're done?' and she left the stage. This was about 18:20 so we were quite lucky in that she was out for well over an hour and we got to hear a few songs and she was interacting with the audience on such a personal level.
About 19:30 the support act came on, a DJ name 'Alesso' who I've never heard of before and who didn't leave much of an impression. By this point the stadium was mostly full but he only really managed to engage the pit and GC, no one in seating seemed interested (I can't say I blame them, he wasn't great). Most of those in the seating area around me seemed older, a few 30s-40s much many looked over 50! I think this is probably the reason they weren't really bothered for the DJ; he was really aimed at a much younger audience. Anyway, he came off about 20:15 and we sat there for another hour before anything happened.
At about 20:50 the screens at each end of the stadium, which were displaying messages about exiting and toilets on a cycle turned off and we knew Madonna would be out soon. The South stand suddenly started cheering but we couldn't work out why. A few minutes later they cheered again and we looked over; this time they started a mexican wave. It went from the centre of the South stand and went both left and right. Everyone in the stand where I was took part and I think there were three before they finally stopped them. Then, about 21:15 we saw a car come round to the back of the stage with an escort (we were on the West stand and the car came in from the North-West entrance so we saw it clearly) and everyone began to cheer. Everyone in the seating started to stand up and most people were cheering and clapping. At 21:20 the show began!
I won't go into details on the show; I don't want to ruin it for those that haven't seen it and may be planning to do so, or waiting to see the DVD, and I don't think I need to go into detail for those of you that have already been lucky enough to see it! I will just list my highlights though. The opening act was amazing; very haunting (Act of Contrition) and Girl Gone Wild was great, though I felt the vocals were maybe a little lacking in parts. Revolver was fantastic; especially the Lil Wayne backdrop video. Gang Bang was performed exactly how I expected and was done brilliantly; the timing between the video playing in the background and Madonna's acting with the fake gun were great. Unfortunately the audience in my stand seemed a little damp, I could hear only one other person singing about (the lady sat right behind me infact) and none of them seemed to know these songs. I suppose it was because of the ages; they just booked the tickets expecting two hours of old school Madonna and didn't really know of the new songs. I don't know why you would book tickets to a concert promoting a new album and not bother to listen to it, or just expect to hear older songs and not the new ones, but there you go. As soon as the violins started for Papa Don't Preach however, my stand lit up. Everyone got in there feet and started clapping along; the atmosphere just changing so quickly. Unfortunately this seemed the case for most of the show. The people in my stand only seemed interested when she started the older tracks but it didn't bother me too much; I was having the time of my life. I was left a little disappointed that PDP was so short however; I knew it would be, I heard read it was the shortest part of the show, but I really expected more than just one verse and chorus; it was one of the songs I was looking forward to most. I enjoyed the latter half of Hung Up, but for the start of it these was far too much of that mechanical sound effect added to Madonna's voice. Open Your Heart was great to hear, she sang it well, although I wasn't all that keen on the drums that went with it. TUTR was a great performance and the guitar didn't damage it at all (as I had expected it to; she murdered Hung Up on SAS. It was a pity that most of my stand didn't seem to know the words and therefore didn't sing along, but the pit and GC were really going for it (but then I guess they would know the words, having spent all that money to be at the front I would expect those people to be the ones who knew the album word for word; maybe I should have been at the front? Lol). Moving on, Express Yourself and the mashup, plus She's Not Me was certainly one of my favourite parts of the show; it was fantastic. I through the remix of GMAYL was superb and was a great way to do the song; and the drummers coming down from the roof were just amazing! I also loved I Don't Give A, especially the Nicki Minaj backdrop. I was surprised to enjoy the CS mashup and HN, especially with their inclusion on SAS, but they worked perfectly. Vogue was another great performace, made even better by the fact it was now somewhat dark; it did seem to make things a lot better, I can see why she wanted the dark now! I'm A Sinner was certainly one of my biggest highlights; it's probably from favourite song from MDNA and she sang it perfectly (although I'm sure she hesitated on the line 'Saint Christopher' (maybe she forgot which saint she was supposed to be naming?) but it was brilliant in any case. Like A Prayer was actually probably my favourite part of the show; strange as I didn't think it would be, but once she told everyone to clap and sing along the atmosphere on the stadium just changing completely. It was electric and everyone seemed to be enjoying it so much. Probably my favourite part of the show simply because of the interaction between everyone. When Celebration started up I turned to my friend and pointed out the fact she had missed out LAV and IA but my friend insisted she hadn't missed IA. It had started to rain during LAP so I wondered if that was maybe the reason, or if it was the curfew. Celebration wasn't great to be honest. Lot of people were leaving during the performance (though some had left in the middle of the show!) and her vocals were pretty poor. Maybe it was because we were so far away they sounded bad, but I certainly wasn't impressed with it as the finale; I had always said before I saw it, and still maintain now, that I'm Addicted would have been the perfect end to the show. I did think maybe my opinion would be swayed after watching Celebration as the finale, thinking it would have been made so good that it couldn't be rivaled, but the truth is, it shouldn't have been the final song choice. After she ended the show, the screens at either end of the stadium came back on, telling everyone to leave via every possible exit and the lights came on all around so we could see. It was at the point that a group of people who had been sat adjacent to our row, on the opposite side of the stairs, started to boo. At first I thought they were booing because they didn't want to leave, then one of them shouted '£70 for an hour and a half! What a rip off! Gaga is so much better!' I thought this was a bit childish to be honest; I would think most people would know by now how long Madonna generally stays on stage and if they weren't willing to shell out that amount of money for it, if they thought it was a rip off, why did they bother? Urgh, it really left a sour taste in my mouth to be honest; kinda ruined what had been, up until that point, an outstanding day and evening.
We all began to leave, this was about 22:55 and made our way out of the stadium. I took a good fifteen minutes or so to get back onto the main road; the crowd was slow moving and kept stopping (the path out of the stadium got thinner towards to end). Most people were drunk, some of them very, and myself and my friend were getting pushed around quite a lot. Once on the main road we sped through the crowds and made out way back to the hotel. Luckily we were very close the stadium and didn't have far to go. The downside was that everyone else had been directed past our hotel to get home themselves so we were stuck in the crowd until we got back. It turned a twenty minute journey into almost fifty. Once we were in though, all was good.
I've already listed my highlights on the show, but there were a few things that annoyed me. Firstly, the lack of organisation from the stewards. The first one we spoke to spent us to the wrong place, and once we were in the right place there were several people with GC tickets who were in our queue. The stewards told them that even though their tickets said an earlier time, they couldn't go in until the rest of us at 17:00. This was clearly not true as we saw many GC ticket holders going into the stadium itself (we were behind our gates and fence, they were actually inside) and they had been let in from other entrances. When we first arrived, we had actually seen a sign pointing VIPs and GC holders into the main entrance to the stadium, but clearly, this couple had missed it and had been spent round here. They weren't allowed back out so they were stuck waiting. They must have been disappointed when they got in, as most of the GC people seemed to have gotten in already and the front few rows around the stage were taken up. I felt quite sorry for them really. It was just a complete lack of management from any of the stewards. The one we had on our stand didn't even know where our seats were; we actually found them ourselves. Pretty poor to be honest.
My second issue was the sound. It reverberated around the stadium in an awful way and I don't feel the vocals were loud enough, I feel the microphone should either have been turned up, or the bass turned down. It was okay on most songs, but on some, and especially when Madonna actually stopped and spoke to us, I couldn't make out a word of what she was saying/singing. I'm glad I wasn't any further up or back from the stage; it would have been impossible.
My third and final issue was the two songs which were cut. Luckily I saw IA during sound check, but that's not the point. I feel, that to pay the same as other people who attended other venues, and then to lose out on two songs just isn't fair. It's not just that it wasn't fair in that way; there's still some debate over why the songs were cut. If it was the rain, and it was down to H&S to do with the catwalk not being safe, fair enough. However, I cannot see this as the reason. We've all seen the SAS tour on DVD, where it was clearly raining, and it never stopped her using the catwalk there. I know this is Britain, and we've gone a little H&S mad, but still; she should have had a backup plan to play them under the stage roof where it was dry. I'm sure this is more than possible. There people saying she didn't want to get wet; I can't see this as true at all so I'm not even gonna go through it. This brings us to the curfew. Firstly, if it was down to the curfew then she should have been on stage sooner. She knew it was there, she had spoken about it during sound check. It's not fair for fans to lose out on part of the show because she wasn't out soon enough to complete it before the curfew. Secondly, I have heard that the security around the stage had told many of the GC and pit audience, that the show would not be cut off because of the curfew in any case (this is when she mentioned the curfew during sound check). Which leads me to wonder, was it the curfew that caused the cutting of the songs? The police and security seem to think not. It's really, apart from the booing at the end, the only thing which has left me a little sour.
I should mention, when I got back to the hotel and was outside having a cigarette, a couple of women were talking about how lots of people in their section were leaving because she wasn't performing enough older songs. Apparently it was the same at Hyde Park. The two women were saying how no one knew the newer songs and no one was interested in them. I did get this feeling from my own stand; only the pit and GC seemed to really be into the new album. This leads me to think she really needs to promote the next one better. Because eventually, these people who are just booking tickets to see Madonna perform old songs will realise that half of the tour is the new album and they haven't listened to it and aren't interested in it and will stop booking the tickets. She really needs another COADF I feel. If the next album isn't a hit with the more casual fans I can see a lot of them not bothering with the tour which would be a great pity.
Anyway, that's my story, opinion, highlights, and lows. Sorry for the long post but I had a lot to say.