Madonna Brixton Academy, London SW9
'I have a pet theory about Madonna,' says a mate a few hours before we're due to see the Queen of Pop perform. 'Every time she releases an album, women finish with their boyfriends. There's always one track on the LP that does it. With Music, it's "What It Feels Like For A Girl". Women wake up, put that on, and shazam! he's out.'
The man who told me that is a recent dumpee, so his relationship doctrines should be taken with a sack-load of salt. Yet his claim falls on receptive ears. We consider it, and nod sagely. This is because for the past few months, we have all been witness to The Unique Powers Of Madonna: her witchy charms, her blast-all-before-thee charisma, her special magic. Quiver! as the prospect of winning tickets to her concert reduces grown-ups to blubbering wrecks live on national radio. Cower! as you realise that touts are selling said tickets for £1,000 - each! Be very afraid! when you finally acknowledge that all the usual ligging methods - chatting up PRs, pulling in favours, even offering to pay for a sodding pass - are not going to work this time and you're going to have to watch the gig over the internet, all small and jerky... Or, of course, be very smug! because you've got a spare invite and you are the suddenly the most interesting and important of all your friends. Hee hee. Such is Madonna's current voodoo that you feel as though her ticket could spontaneously combust: you keep your hand in your pocket, to check that the precious paper is still there. This concert is the first she's given in Britain for seven years, the first since the pointy-bra-ed Blonde Ambition days. It's a one-off in London's 3,000-capacity Brixton Academy: an intimate affair for Madge, who could fill Wembley Arena several times over. And she's promised an intimate gig: she herself has chosen the support acts - Richard 'ex-Verve' Ashcroft, Sharleen Spiteri from Texas, with The Prodigy's Liam Howlett as DJ - and has declined to let tickets be sold in the usual manner, instead inviting true fans, properly dedicated Madonna nutters, to win their places by queuing at HMV, or winning radio or internet or magazine competitions.
Which means, of course, that many have been disappointed. The unlucky hang over the barriers erected all around the Academy, stare mournfully at the entrance, scan the ground on the off-chance that someone's dropped a VIP wristband... so near, yet so far: the very essence of Madonna's recent elevation to the position of High Sorceress of Pop. Before she moved in with Guy Ritchie last year, Madonna seemed so remote as to be a hologram. She existed in videos and magazines, in Hollywood and New York, in a world that included Warren Beatty. Now, she's moved to London and we see pictures of her washing the car, hear of her eating in local(ish) restaurants, know that if we take a trip to Notting Hill we could be within miles, yards, centimetres of her life. It's this proximity that has resulted in Madonna Fever, given her such current potency. Ironic, really; for, of course, she's as far away as ever. She may live a British life - but it's not yours, it's not mine. She lives Madonna-style. A proper pop star in an era of pubescent pretenders, a musical icon who has ridden at least two major career slumps, old enough and dazzling enough to have fans of an age to produce Madonna fans of their own. Or Billie fans, at least.
Mind you, even the special powers of New Madonna are tested by the faded Brixton Academy, though she - or someone of her employ - has worked hard to sprinkle the old place with fairy dust. Her sparkly cowboy logo shines over the entrance, and once you're finally in (after a 40-minute check-your-bag queue), you're confronted with tinselled walls and twinkling lights, with glinting rhinestones and golden cowboy hats and... the usual sticky carpet. A large M glows up high, between a pair of musical notes and a lucky horseshoe, which my eye reads as M U, and makes me think of Manchester United. Or the noise of a cow.
Anyway, the foyer's packed with star-spotting audience members who want to catch the celebs as they traipse up to the balcony. Mick Jagger, Mel C, Jarvis Cocker, Donna Air, Stella McCartney, Chris Evans, Kelly Stereophonic. We fight our way through the rubber-necked and slack-jawed to check the merchandise at the back. A T-shirt for a friend? But, surprisingly, they're all hideous (lime green? a bowling shirt?), so we pick a souvenir rhinestone off a polystyrene cactus instead.
Inside the venue proper, Liam Howlett is playing his scuzzed-up, scratch-and-burn mix of indie and hip-hop. To about 700 people. It's 8.40pm but the hall's barely a quarter full. Everyone's still queuing: for the toilet, for a drink, for a T-shirt, to get in. We've missed Sharleen's performance: I ask a punter, who informs that she played 'that hip-hop one' and 'she had a dead nice T-shirt on'. Top marks for our Shar then.
At about 9.15pm, Richard Ashcroft appears. What such an insufferable music snob is doing among the pop plebs, we don't know. Other than earning himself a tidy wedge and the complete indifference of the still small crowd. He sings beautifully - 'Bittersweet Symphony', 'Lucky Man', 'The Drugs Don't Work' - but only gets a cheer when he attempts a couple of lines of 'Material Girl'. Off he slopes, and Liam Prodge gets back on the decks. The venue is filling nicely now. At two minutes to 10, Liam plays the opening bars to 'Music' and... BLAM! She's on!!
A huge Union Jack is whisked away to reveal Our Lady in a pick-up, surrounded by beef-cake dancers. She grins and launches into 'Impressive Instant' - 'Hello London! Thank you for coming to my party!' - flinging herself on to her dancers' arms and being lifted centre stage. Blimey - she's so close! I am right down the front and by hopping up and down, can make out her safety-pinned T-shirt which bears the names of her children (Rocco on the front, Lola on the back: no Daphne and Celeste, then), can spot her enormous jewelled belt, the glitter on her arms, her necklaces, everything. Finally, the Academy does feel intimate.
Madonna performs six songs: 'Impressive Instant', 'Runaway Lover' (weakest), 'Don't Tell Me', 'What It Feels Like For A Girl' (best), a barnstorming 'Holiday', and a triumphant 'Music'. The gig lasts exactly half an hour. She introduces a guitar-playing Mirwais (Music 's producer) who says something incomprehensible; she shouts: 'This one's for all the pop bitches out there' - a reference to a music-insiders' Madonna-loving chat-room; she gets two audience members to 'boogie-woogie', rather unsuccessfully; she dances fantastically, and she sings. She sings very well. Her voice has changed from its Minnie Mouse origins: it's bright and clear, a good strong experienced pop voice. Images from her many-imaged past flick behind her on a video screen.
And then, she's gone. A whirlwind passing, a swift exhilaration. Goldie comes on for the graveyard slot. We wander off to the sound of pots'n'pans drum'n'bass, through shredded tinsel ground into the floor. All the rhinestones have been picked from the cactus. We go for a drink round the corner, in a hard-to-find upstairs bar called the Brixtonian. We leave at 11.45pm. At midnight, Madonna and Guy Ritchie walk into the same bar and have a drink... See? See how close she is? How far away?