Rio de Janeiro is already in Madonna mode because the great queen of pop will close her international tour The Celebration Tour this Saturday night with an unrepeatable concert: in Copacabana, the most famous beach in Brazil, and free. The authorities expect 1.5 million people to listen to the queen of pop live in a country that loves shows of colossal magnitude. Most of the fans arrived this Friday but Raquel Souza, a 29-year-old waitress, and Bruno Mendes, 30, an information technology analyst, arrived earlier. They disembarked last Tuesday with a group of friends and a mission: to get a pass for the VIP area, but if that dream does not materialize – and for now that is the situation – the objective was to thoroughly inspect the terrain surrounding the huge stage. , and choose the most appropriate place to have a privileged view of a groundbreaking artist who was already a global icon when they were both born.
Brazilians had been waiting for the 65-year-old artist for twelve years. Souza says that she was born in 1994, “the year of the Bedtime Stories album,” and chooses Nothing really matters as her favorite song, and Mendes, from ’93, “the year she came to perform in Brazil for the first time,” says that “It can’t reduce more than the trio formed by Hung Up, Sorry and Vogue, what choreography.” This Friday, both were some of the most dedicated fans standing guard in front of the Copacabana Palace, the century-old hotel where Madonna settled last Monday with a team of 200 people.
Since then, the artist has only broken her confinement to cross the promenade on an elevated walkway built for the occasion and rehearse for a few hours on the stage set up right in front, on the sand. Next to her was one of the local stars, the dragqueen Pabllo Vittar. There are more than 800 square meters of catwalks, double the size of the one that has accompanied her on a tour of Europe and North America with which he celebrates his 40-year career after a scare to death due to a bacterial infection.
This fourth concert by the American artist in Brazil will begin at ten at night on the Rio beach par excellence, Copacabana, a four-kilometer stretch of sand. The singer and dancer will perform behind her compatriot DJ Diplo, who will open the Show. The public will appreciate the schedule because Rio is in the middle of a heat wave and for this Saturday a maximum of 33 degrees is expected while the south of the country suffers very serious flooding with dozens of deaths.
Beyond the fans gathered at the door of the diva’s hotel, it is evident that the city is counting down to the concert of the year in Basil. As expected, the street vendors have renewed their merchandise to give all the prominence to Madonna and the terraces on the promenade have added several zeros to their prices. It is more striking to hear Papa don’t preach on the loudspeaker that a mattress store has placed in the middle of the street, finding a spontaneous person emulating their choreographies in a traffic intersection or the queue that forms in front of a pharmacy to get a sunscreen for the lips designed for the occasion.
Madonna arrives in Brazil after performing five nights in Mexico City. The fact that those were the only Latin American dates led to months of rumors in Brazil until last March it was confirmed that Madonna would come to the country to perform for free at Copacabana, sponsored by the Itaú bank, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Globo, Brazil’s largest media group, will broadcast the concert to all corners of the country and has led a powerful campaign to promote the occasion. The state of Sao Paulo and the city of Rio, which have each contributed two million dollars, hope to generate 30 reais for every real invested thanks to the arrival of thousands of visitors in the middle of the low season in the southern hemisphere.
Most Brazilians and foreigners arriving in Rio will have to content themselves with watching the diva through the 16 screens placed along the beach with their corresponding sound towers. The security deployment will be enormous, with more than 4,000 police officers and 800 firefighters.
Waitress Souza says that she has temporarily left her job in Fortaleza to come to Rio to enjoy this occasion that she considers unique. “Free! In our country and on the beach! ”She exclaims before remembering with delight that she saw the star during the rehearsal the day before. She “continues to be groundbreaking on her tours, in her way of presenting herself, she never stops innovating.” On stage, she is expected to be accompanied by four of her children and, probably, the great Brazilian diva, Anitta, whose presence has not yet been confirmed. They both recorded a song together a few years ago.
Souza and Mendes are repeat fans, as much as their age allows them. In the first concert they were not even born, in the second they were minors, but in the third, in 2012, they camped with other dedicated Madonnas for 45 days, recalls Mendes, who boasts of the place they got on that occasion in a stadium in São Paulo and of the photos he managed to take, with a small camera, of that memorable event.
After these days of inspection of the stage area, they have decided that this time they are not going to be placed in the front. The pop diva is recording a documentary of the tour, so mobile phones are banned from hotel rehearsals and the most privileged spaces in front of the stage will be occupied by cameras and light cannons, so they have already found the ideal space in one of the sides. Their plan was to try to stand there, on the sand, on Friday night and wait 24 hours until what they consider the most exciting moment in many years.
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