Madonna: Tears of a Clown
Tears of a Clown[1] was a show by American singer Madonna, first held at the Forum Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on March 10, 2016. The singer had not included Australia during her previous five concert tours, until the Rebel Heart Tour (2015–2016), so she created the show for her Australian fans since they had waited so long for her to perform there. Madonna explained that the idea behind Tears of a Clown was to combine music and storytelling, being influenced by clowns. Tickets for the first show were made available to members of Madonna's official fan club, Icon, and were non-transferable, with the person's name printed on them.
Start date
March 10, 2016
- 1 in Australia
- 1 in North America
- 2 Total
2,000
The first show of Tears of a Clown started four hours late, with the delay being caused by Madonna rehearsing. It consisted of Madonna singing acoustic versions of her songs while dressed as a clown, interspersed with the singer telling jokes and anecdotes. Tears of a Clown received positive reviews from critics who appreciated the stripped down, confessional nature of the singer's performance and the choice of the songs and the comedy. Madonna denied reports of her being drunk on stage, calling them false and sexist. She revived the show on December 2, 2016, performing at Miami's Faena Forum as a benefit gala, to auction memorabilia and raise money for her Raising Malawi charitable foundation. Tickets were expensive, and the auctioned items included Madonna's tour dress and wedding photographs, as well as paintings that she owned.
Successive show[edit]
In October 2016, Madonna announced plans of collaborating with Art Basel to revive the Tears of a Clown show, at a benefit gala on December 2, 2016 at Miami Beach's Faena Forum. The location was developed by Argentine hotelier and real estate developer, Alan Faena, and the show would coincide with the opening of the Forum.[18] The concert was held along with an accompanying art auction and dinner, to benefit Madonna's Raising Malawi foundation to support their projects like Mercy James Pediatric Surgery Hospital in Malawi, as well as art and education initiatives for impoverished children in the country. Madonna herself auctioned some of her art collection, as well as never-before-seen pictures from her marriage to actor Sean Penn, photographed by Herb Ritts.[19] Tickets were highly priced, at general admission of $5,000 with VIP meet-and-greet packages coming at $150,000.[18] She also auctioned the flapper dress from Rebel Heart Tour, modelled by singer Ariana Grande during the show. Penn was present in the audience and bid on several items, and at one point handcuffed Madonna and crawled through her legs for generating a higher bid.[19]
Madonna was aided by her son David Banda, who was adopted by the singer from Malawi; Banda introduced Madonna and told the audience who bought the tickets about how "lucky" he was. The Tears of a Clown show was over an hour long, with Madonna giving her opinions on the 2016 United States Presidential Election, panning President elect Donald Trump.[19] One of the new songs included in the set list was Britney Spears' "Toxic" (2004), which Madonna sang slowly, as images of Trump were displayed in video backdrops. The singer also spoke about the turmoils of the Native Americans and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and then sang "American Life" (2003).[19] Other songs performed included "Express Yourself" (1989), "Beautiful Stranger" (1999), and "Don't Tell Me" (2000). During "Holiday", one fan got the chance to hold Madonna's microphone as she played the ukulele and sang, as well as another fan donating $10,000 in exchange for kissing the singer.[20] In total, Madonna raised about US$7.3 million from her own items. The Associated Press reported that "[the] night was punctuated by [Madonna's] sardonic humor, corny clown jokes, controversial political statements and heartfelt moments about how much the hospital project means to her."[19]