Dance and sing, get up and do your thing…in front of 60,000 people: Madonna is going on tour. Maybe. Possibly. Heavily leaning towards probably.
There’s plenty of evidence – and also, plenty of good reason – to believe that the “Spanish Lesson” rising indie singer-songwriter herself is taking her show on the road in a massive way in 2023 (and beyond?) to celebrate her game-changing career, which just happened to officially kick off exactly 40 years ago this month with her debut single, “Everybody.”
Along with the (possibly-maybe permanently stalled?) biopic, and her career-spanning remix album Finally Enough Love, the artist formerly known as M-Dolla inked a deal in 2021 for an “extensive, multi-year series of catalog releases that will revisit the groundbreaking music that made her an international icon” last summer, suggesting that a proper celebration (REFERENCE) of the Immaculate Discography is in order.
She’s also supplied some increasingly unsubtle hints in recent months that she’s got touring on the brain – when she’s not busy thinking about sex, that is.
When asked if she would ever do a world tour again during an Instagram Live back in July, she said: “Hell yeah. I have to. Stadium baby.” Me and Britney, what about that?” (She’s a dreamer. She dreams a lot.) But even if B-Girl probably won’t be coming along for the (easy) ride, it sure seems like the “Hey You” multi-hyphenate was being serious.
“I’m just looking for interesting, fun ways to rerelease my catalog and introduce my music to a new generation. I’m focused on that and I’ve been writing a screenplay for my film for the last couple of years. The whole thing with ‘Frozen’ was so fun, but I woke up one day and went, ‘I’m sick of living in the past!’ I want to go on tour again, I’m a creature of the stage. That is my happy place,” she later told Variety that same month.
To celebrate the release of Finally Enough Love at the end of August, Madonna answered 50 questions in a Q&A video, in which she was explicitly asked if she would be going on tour with “a greatest hits kind of concert,” to which she cheekily responded: “Do you want me to go on tour?”
As if that wasn’t enough evidence that something was brewing, a report arrived earlier this month in Uruguay’s newspaper El Observador, revealing that Team M reached out to book a stadium for a concert in November of 2023.
Estadio Centenario, the 60,000 person-capacity stadium in Montevideo, was reserved by production company AM for a Madonna show next year, according to a rep.
And now she’s meeting with THE Jamie King, her longtime tour director… pic.twitter.com/1od0xOueoW
— Bradley Stern (@MuuMuse) October 18, 2022
Most recently, as of Monday (October 17), she shared “workshop weekend” photos of herself planning something with none other than Thee Jamie King, her long-running tour director since 2001’s Drowned World Tour and beyond. The Shanghai Surprise actress (sort of) blacked out the juiciest bits of the photos, even though they’re very clearly seating charts/stage concepts.
Sure, there’s still not been any sort of official announcement (yet), but something is clearly brewing. The stars are aligning. The killers are partying. My best guess? Start saving your pennies now to spend your L-U-V on M in 2023.
