Sweet and Sticky Tour 2009 in Tallinn – Review
Well I admit I did not go with high expectations…
But the full moon, warm summer evening, tickets to the spacious fanzone sector (so we did not feel like sardine) helped we warm up to the idea that it might be a special night.
BTW boy, am I glad we did not buy VIP tickets -they were seated and probably had snacks and nearer toilets but they were way off the action – we were a few metres from the stage 
and could almost see the wrinkles (great make up team she has).
Anyway now my scores:
Overall show/entertainment value: 10
Madonna’s Dancing: 7-8 (short bursts of good stuff but mostly pretty mundane – hey give the girl a break she is 50!)
Madonna’s singing: 5-6. Am I the only who noticed that:
a: she cant sing anymore
b. she mimed have the stuff (easily noticed when she dropped the mike and her voice (not the excellent backing vocals) still carried on. Tut tut- surely we shouldn’t have been able to spot that. Very unprofessional.
c: the backing vocalists took over most of the hard stuff
Other moans:
I doubt my review of any other Madonna concert on this tour would be any different. there was zero localisation. Pure cut and paste and “insert country name here”.
“Come on [country name] you can do better than that”
“[country name] – this is for you” – was followed by spinning maps and world videos that made zero reference to Tallinn or Estonia but instead focused on Bucharest, Moscow (faux pas imho) and Rajistan (if I remember right) etc.
Transport: Ok it was a lovely evening but given Tallinn just got a huge tourism boost and must have made a fortune (great stuff- thanks Madonna for attracting so many tourists to Tallinn) – I think Tallinn City Council could have provided free bus shuttle services to and from centre. The traffic planning was pretty poor.
So overall was it worth the money – yes. My wife loved it and so did her mates and i confess I tapped my foot a bit and the last song was pretty damn good (Give it to me).
However if I had been in the main sector standing near the back I think i would have felt otherwise.
Up close and personal is the only ways to see live music IMHO – it really makes the difference.
I think the reals stars of the show were the technical team- wow- they did some very cool stuff with screens, lazers, moving stages etc etc. Really impressive.
As i said overall the score was 10 but she could have personalised and said thanks to the team who made this event special – all the singers, dancers and technical team but I suppose that would deflect attention her…ho hum. That attitude does not realy fir with all the eco-ethical-moralistic screen messages we were pumped throughout the show (about being nice etc.)
So that’s it.
Your comments are welcome.
