Madonna converted the beach Copacabana of Ro de Janeiro in the largest nightclub in the world with a historic concert on Saturday night attended by an audience estimated at 1.5 million people, who did not stop dancing during two and a half hours of show.
The queen of pop did not give her fans a break and was chaining one after one the biggest hits in her 40 years of career before an audience, mainly women and people from the world. LGTBI collective who sings and dances to all the songs.
The 65-year-old diva did not disappoint those who waited up to twelve hours to see her and approached the public several times along the three catwalks that led off from the gigantic 812 square meter stage set up on the sands of the best-known beach in Brazil.
He did not deny greetings to him or to the hundreds of people who attended the concert from dozens of boats anchored in front of the stage.
And her admirers applauded her at all times and accompanied her several times with a concert of sonorous fans – obligatory given the unusual temperature of 30 degrees Celsius at this time -, mostly decorated with the colors of the rainbow.
The audience was already animated by the time his idol appeared on stage, at 10:36 p.m. local time (1:36 GMT on Sunday), as the American DJ Diplo was in charge of warming up the engines with a selection that included several funk classics, the musical genre born in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
The American, as in all her presentations, changed her outfit several times during the show and even wore a suit with the yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag, the same ones with which she painted her nails.
But she also won over the public by bringing a group of child percussionists from a samba school to accompany her in the performance of ‘La isla bonito’, a song in which she wore the shirt of the Brazilian soccer team and in which she performed. with the popular singer and drag queen Pablo Vittar.
Nothing better than Copacabana
During the presentation in praise of Brazil, in which he declared his love for the country and said that there was no better place for his concert than Copacabana beach, the screens displayed photos of Brazilian personalities such as the educator Paulo Freire the soccer player Marta the murdered councilor Marielle Franco and the indigenous leader Raoni.
Shortly before he had appeared on stage alongside the also popular Anitta, the only Brazilian with whom he has recorded a song, during the performance of ‘Vogue’.
There was also no shortage of applause for the numerous tributes he paid, mainly on the gigantic television screens, to idols such as Prince y Michael Jackson to Brazilian personalities who died of AIDS, such as the singer Cazuza already famous black leaders.
With this Saturday’s concert, Madonna put an end to the tour commemorating her 40 years of career, ‘Celebration Tour’, in which she reviews her entire career with her greatest hits, such as ‘Like a Virgin’, ‘ Vogue’, ‘Holiday’, ‘Like a prayer’ and ‘The Beautiful Island’.
The concert was historic for Madonna, who had never played for such a large audience, but also for Rio de Janeiro, which recorded a mobilization of about 56 million euros with a single musical event and hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Although the authorities had not yet announced the public at the end of the concert, it is most likely that the American had surpassed the mark achieved by the British. Rolling Stones in February 2006, when they also attracted 1.5 million people to Copacabana beach.
The same beach has been the scene of two other even more massive concerts, that of Rod Stewart in 1994 with 3.5 million people and that of the Brazilian Jorge Ben in 1993 with 3 million, which appear in the Guinness Book of Records.
The massive mobilization caused by Madonna forced the Rio authorities to set up an infrastructure similar to that used in the Reveillon festivities, when up to five million people say goodbye to the year in Copacabana.