Madonna

Last night Jill and I and some co-workers went to see Madonna in concert. My boss represents a company that does the security for her and other big name concert people so he hooked us up with some tickets. I would really LOVE to see someone like Pinback, Modest Mouse, or Broken Bells, but he doesn't represent anyone like that. So Madonna it was. I do really like some of her old stuff- Holiday (favorite), Vogue, What it Feels Like for a Girl, Like a Prayer. Jill was super excited and has asked me for months about the status of our tickets!

The cause for such frequent asking is that we weren't actually issued paper tickets months ago, we had to go to the "Madonna Friends and Family" line at the will-call and we got our tickets and wristbands for 'the golden triangle' area in front of the stage.

Paul Oakenfeld was her opening act, so Jill and I went down to that triangle area and danced and took pictures in front of the big Madonna stage curtain. It was pretty crazy people-watching. There were some quite extravagant people to say the least.

So then Madonna comes out and right away we knew it was going to be questionable. A huge cross comes down and it was like a scene from a church and these winged dancers were crawling around and it just seemed almost evil. Followed by songs 'bang bang you're dead- shot my lover in the head' with screens of giant blood spatters. She gave a speech about how much she loved Obama and most people cheered, but there were a few boos I was pleased to hear. It's just crazy anyway, the election is over and she doesn't even really live in the US anymore. People are here to hear you sing not talk about Obama. The rest of the night degraded with her doing a striptease, laying on the floor asking for money for Hurricane Sandy (but hey- YOU are richer than everyone in here combined probably, why don't you donate 10%, or even 1% of this concerts proceeds!?!), and singing about how "we're all sinners and I like it that way".

The whole thing was just actually really sad. I think we kept hanging in there hoping that the next song would be a fun oldie, but it was mostly all her latest new-agey stuff, or stuff that seemed like it worshipped her even.

We drove home and actually had a really good talk about how as Christians we are sinners but God has redeemed us and does not leave us in our sin. And also how we are called to be salt and light in the darkness. This is really hard, as stuff like last night- and life being so broken in general, makes me feel so discouraged about the world we live in. And I daydream about some place that is wholesome and good. I guess that place probably doesn't exist outside of heaven though, and again, the mission is to show Jesus love to people who don't yet know him, which is a lot of people right here.