Madonna performed a free concert on Copacabana Beach on Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro’s vast stretch of sand into a huge dance floor packed with a crowd of her fans.
It was the last show of The Celebration Tour, their first retrospective, which began in October in London.
The ‘Queen of Pop’ started the show with her 1998 hit ‘Nothing Really Matters’. Huge cheers arose from the bustling, packed crowd, pressed against the barriers.
2 million people singing madonna’ ‘like a virgin’ in river pic.twitter.com/tvNjxfLmCY
— 2000s (@PopCulture2000s) May 5, 2024
Others held house parties in brightly lit apartments and hotels overlooking the beach. Helicopters and drones flew overhead, and motorboats and sailboats anchored on the beach filled the bay.
“Here we are in the most beautiful place in the world.” Virgin, 65, told the crowd. Pointing to the view of the sea, mountains and the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking the city, she added: “This place is magical.”
Madonna performed her classic hits including ‘Like A Virgin’ and ‘Hung Up’. For the introduction of ‘Like A Prayer’, her head was completely covered with a black cape and a rosary was in her hands.
The star paid a moving tribute to “all the bright lights” lost to AIDS as she sang “Live to Tell,” with black and white photographs of people who died from the disease flashing behind her.
Later, he was joined on stage by Brazilian artists Anitta and Pabllo Vittar.
Rio spent the last few days preparing for the performance. An estimated 1.6 million people attended the show, G1 reported, citing the Rio Municipality tourism agency. That’s more than 10 times Madonna’s record attendance of 130,000 at Paris’s Parc des Sceaux in 1987. Madonna’s official website touted the show as the largest ever staged in her four-decade career.
In recent days, the commotion was palpable. Fans gathered outside the majestic beachfront Copacabana Palace hotel, where Madonna is staying, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pop star. During the sound check on the stage set up in front of the hotel, they danced on the sand.
At noon on Saturday, fans gathered in front of the hotel. A white-bearded man carried a sign that read: “Welcome Madonna, you are the best, I love you.”
Flags with “Virgin” printed on a background of Copacabana’s iconic black and white wavy pattern hanging from balconies. The area was packed with street vendors and concertgoers dressed in themed t-shirts, sweating under the scorching sun.
“Since Madonna came here, I come every day in this outfit to welcome my idol, my diva, my queen of pop,” said Rosemary de Oliveira Bohrer, 69, wearing a gold conical bra and a black cap.
“It’s going to be an unforgettable spectacle here in Copacabana,” said Oliveira Bohrer, a retired civil servant who lives in the area.
Eighteen sound towers were placed along the beach to ensure that everyone in attendance could hear the hits. His two-hour program began at 10:37 p.m. local time, almost 50 minutes late.
The City Council prepared a report in April estimating that the concert would inject 293 million reais ($57 million) into the local economy. Hotel capacity was expected to reach 98 percent in Copacabana, according to Rio’s hotel association. Fans from all over Brazil and even Argentina and France searched for Airbnbs for the weekend, the platform said in a statement.
Rio’s international airport had planned 170 additional flights between May 1 and 6, from 27 destinations, the City Council said in a statement.
“It’s a unique opportunity to see Madonna, who knows if she’ll ever come back,” said Alessandro Augusto, 53, who flew from the Brazilian state of Ceará, about 2,500 kilometers (1,555 miles) from Rio.
“Welcome Queen!” read the Heineken ads plastered around town, the letters above an image of an upturned bottle cap resembling a crown.
Heineken was not the only company seeking to capitalize on the enthusiasm. Bars and restaurants prepare cocktails ¿Like a Virgin¿. A downtown neighborhood store famous for selling Carnival costumes has completely reinvented itself, filling its shelves with Madonna-themed costumes, fans, fanny packs and even underwear.
The organization of the mega-event was similar to New Year’s Eve, when millions of people gather in Copacabana to watch the fireworks show, local authorities said. That annual event often results in widespread robberies and muggings, and there was some concern that such problems could occur at Madonna’s show.
The security plan for the state of Rio included the presence of 3,200 soldiers and 1,500 civil police on alert. In the period before the concert, the Brazilian Navy inspected the ships that wanted to position themselves on the high seas to follow the show.
Several major concerts have previously been held at Copacabana Beach, including a 1994 New Year’s Eve show by Rod Stewart that attracted more than 4 million fans and was the largest free rock concert in history, according to Guinness World Records.
However, many of those spectators also came to see Rio’s fireworks show, so a more apt comparison might be with the Rolling Stones in 2006, when 1.2 million people crammed into the arena, according to the Rio military police, the newspaper. Folha de Sao Paulo reported then.
Ana Beatriz Soares, a fan who was in Copacabana on Saturday, said Madonna has left her mark over the decades.
“Virgin He had to run so today’s pop artists could walk. That’s why it’s important because it serves as an inspiration for today’s pop divas,” Soares said.
“And that was 40 years ago. Not 40 days, 40 months. It’s 40 years,” he said.
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