Energetic Springsteen puts music and fans first as Madonna slips up

ARGUABLY the lowest point of Tuesday evening came when Madonna dropped her trousers.

Fortunately, she had some underwear on for her bit of mooning to the Lansdowne Road crowd at her concert. There were some cheers from her diehard fans, such appears to be their devotion, but most of us yawned as the pictures were displayed on the two giant screens on either side of the stage. A poor concert was not getting any better. This was not what we had come for.

There was a time when I probably would have cracked a lewd smile at the sight of Madonna’s ass. But I was younger then, and so was she. Now, before anyone wants to accuse me of ageism, or of becoming a grumpy old fart myself (having just turned 46), let me say this: The 53-year-old Madonna appears to have a very fine, toned and shapely set of buttocks, a backside that any woman would envy, and most men admire, irrespective of age. But so what? We went to see a concert, not her arse. There’s a time and a place, Madge, and a soaking wet night in Dublin wasn’t it.

Just after it happened, I tweeted “#madonna just dropped her trousers. Sad woman. Don’t think anyone got excited”. It hadn’t been my first tweet of the night. That went: “At madonna. As Aileen says, it is more Jane Fonda workout video than concert.”

Encouraged by the reaction to it, I amused myself with a few more during the evening: “#madonna now showing old videos of when she used to look amazing. This is a poor concert. Seems to have forgotten that she had good songs.” And I finished with: “First time ever leaving Lansdowne Road early. Bye #madonna”.

Sometimes tweeting comments like this runs the risk of drawing the ire of those who populate that social media space, but I found overwhelming support for what I was saying, and not just from those who were at home. There were many very disappointed people at the concert who had taken to Twitter too. Many people left early and the fizz even seemed to have gone out of the spectacularly dressed transvestites a few rows behind me, who headed for the bar long before Madonna was done. Many of those online simply didn’t feel that they had received value for money and were somewhat embarrassed by the pretentious, vain, and self-indulgent display they had witnessed.

Madonna had her supporters who retorted upon somewhat predictable lines. “You must need the auld Viagra,” alleged one, and in reference to her bottom one said “bet it looks better than yours”. (I would certainly hope so.) Another charged that “you’re obviously not a fan then are you, so don’t bother going” and “I suppose she doesn’t look amazing cos she’s 53 right. Pathetic!” I was also accused of making comments that I wouldn’t make about a man. (I responded by referring to a Rolling Stones concert I had seen in Dublin eight or nine years ago, memorable to me only for a ridiculous strutting performance phoned in by Mick Jagger, who might as well have being parodying his old image as a sex idol as he thrust his hips and pelvis around repetitively and equally boringly).

As it happens I went because Madonna has produced some brilliant pop music and excellent videos. It would be rare for me to switch channel as a Madonna track played on the radio. She has made some of the best party music of recent decades, that most people would be happy to dance to.

I presumed, wrongly, that she would do as other concert artists do, that she would seek to engage the crowd, making them feel glad to be part of a communal event rather than being mere witnesses to her performance.

Instead we were treated to an exercise in self-indulgence that tripped over into pathetic narcissism when she dropped her trousers. Clearly she is fit and still well able to dance and yes, that is part of any Madonna performance. And she wants to broadcast that she has new music — she has a new album to shift — and wants to display to her fans that she can still trump pretenders, such as Lady Gaga for example.

But heck, there comes a time when artists from a previous generation have to realise that while such forays into the present will be tolerated, they cannot dominate a concert. People who were soaking wet wanted reason to get up and dance and to sing along to songs they knew. They got only a few well-known songs and even then they weren’t all done the way they grew up singing along to. She owed something different to her wet crowd. Her problem perhaps was that the autotune hadn’t been set up to help her voice on different songs to those on the set list.

Madonna could have learnt something from her compatriot Bruce Springsteen, who played at the RDS a week earlier. The contrast between the pair is instructive.

I went to Springsteen more in hope than expectation. I had seen him do a solo gig in Dublin in 2005, when he played a variety of instruments simultaneously as a one-man band, and did not particularly enjoy it. I would not have regarded myself as a fan but having been told by many that a Springsteen gig with the E-Street Band was something to experience I went along.

It was a fantastic night. Springsteen hammed up the debacle at Hyde Park the previous Saturday night — when the promoters pulled the plug on his duet with Paul McCartney — and turned it into a running gag. But that was secondary to the music he played. He played as if he cared, about the music, his performance, and — here’s the key — how the crowd engaged with it. It was in some respects an awesome performance as Springsteen threw his heart into it for well over three hours. It must have been physically exhausting for a 62-year-old, but a careful lifestyle, including an intense fitness regime, meant that he was up for it. And he didn’t have the need to pull his trousers down to impress us.

Friends have told me that he made 16 changes to the set-list for the following night, effectively giving a very different performance and giving great value for money to those who came along for a second night. Everyone went away happy from that gig too. But what really struck me was how much I hope that when I reach that age I have half of the energy and enthusiasm that Springsteen demonstrated. He is an inspiration to those who are facing towards their older years.

Madonna instead fell back on her old crutches of trying to shock, often through sado-masochistic images. (One of Madonna’s weaknesses has also been acting as if she was the first woman in the world to discover how to enjoy sex, or how to always be in control of it. It has also appeared as contrived).

And there was one part of her performance on Tuesday that was offensive. While her use of religious imagery is old hat at this stage, her performance of a song called Gang Bang was simply crass. Her staged shooting of a man in the head, leading to the splattering of blood images on a large screen behind, may have been modelled on movies such as Kill Bill, but it was nothing more than offensive). If a man had straddled a woman on stage in such a way and pretended to kill her, with images of blood splashing on the screen behind him, there would be a damn lot more critical things said about it.

Maybe at this stage people think it is best to ignore Madonna, rather than giving her the attention she craves, or her influence is waning to the extent that few enough people notice or care. Maybe the lack of reaction is why she flashes breast or drops her trousers. Either way, Madonna’s problem is not that she is growing old but in that her desperation to remain relevant she has merely become boring.

* The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30 pm to 7pm.