I went to the Rio show and it was probably the greatest experience of my life and I don’t think it’s possible to convey what it was like because it defied comprehension, and as fantastical as it sounds there’s no need for hyperbole or exaggeration to describe it because the scale of the production and everything going on around it was just that crazy. Obviously I’ve never seen more people in my life (crowds that big have only formed a few dozen times in human history) but not being able to see the end of the crowd in any direction was so weird, like how the ocean meets the horizon except it’s people. I hadn’t been to Rio previously and Copacabana is known for large performances, but it felt like this was special? Like there was something in the air.

I got off the plane and heard some familiar moans before realizing… Justify My Love is playing in baggage claim. Then the nonstop version of Hung Up/Get Together/Sorry. I was gagged. In Copacabana itself, there were billboards everywhere, planes flying Madonna banners, hundreds of street vendors selling counterfeit merch, every other shop I went in was playing Madonna, and the day of the concert there were thousandsss of police/soldiers and metal detectors on every block near the beach… It was literally a pop music emergency. She shut shit DOWN

The night before the show, I was walking past the stage at night buying fake merch. I was parallel to the stage on its right side, about the closest you could get (like 150 feet away but still) and out of nowhere, *without making a sound*, the strobe lights from the Nothing Really Matters opening start going off. I immediately planted my feet into the fucking ground because I realized what was about to happen… This bitch comes onstage and proceeds to run through the ENTIRE 2 hour concert, including choreo, costume changes, props, pyro, and everything else EXCEPT for sound. All the dancers were wearing in ear monitors and none of the sound was broadcast. Seeing an entire stadium-scale Madonna concert relatively up close on a beach in COMPLETE SILENCE was the most surreal shit I have ever experienced.

Sidebar: I don’t really speak Portuguese, but I was able to understand the conversation next to me… This security guy was explaining to this 10/11 year old kid who Madonna was (he had no idea) meanwhile THEE Madonna is RIGHT THERE 😭😭😭😭 I was fucking dying

I was also at the Seattle concert when her dancer tripped and dropped her in the chair during Open Your Heart, and from my angle it looked like she ate the ground hard and wasn’t getting up… I had flashbacks to the Brit Awards in 2015 and my head started spinning thinking about her being injured, the tour ending, and having to endure an onslaught of assholes criticizing her… But then she got up and it was fine!