Sticky and Sweet – Madonna’s latest triumph

A concert tour to Europe is no longer new to American singer Madonna. Her last tour was the Confessions tour which started in the U.S. and ended in Europe. Sticky and Sweet kicked off in Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium (which has a capacity of 60,000 people) and all Madonna tickets were sold out.

It was reported that her seventh world concert tour raked in a total of $194.8 million USD and this with a total of 60 shows. The attendance was well over 1.2 million throughout North America, Europe and Japan. This concert tour is currently the highest grossing tour for a female artist.

This year, we see Madonna heading out on her eighth world concert tour entitled Sticky & Sweet Tour. There is a huge sense of anticipation and critics are on their toes as they all watch if this 2008 concert tour would break the Confessions Tour record. Sticky & Sweet is set out to support her studio album entitled Hard Candy. This is her eleventh studio album and she aims to give her best once more to the series of concerts. The show will, once again, tour Europe and North America. Sticky & Sweet Tour is her very first venture from her business and recording deal with Live Nation.

Guy Oseary, Madonna’s manager, was the one who officially confirmed Madonna’s eighth world concert tour. He along with Arthur Fogel of Live Nation announced this to the public on May 8, 2008.

Madonna is a walking controversy but speculations have been brewing that equally-controversial Britney Spears might appear alongside the Queen of Pop.

Here’s a partial schedule of the Sticky & Sweet Tour:

1. August 23, 2008 at the Millennium Stadium in Wales
2. August 26, 2008 at the Stade Charles Ehrmann in France
3. August 28, 2008 at the Olympic Stadium in Germany
4. August 30, 2008 at the Military Airfield, Dübendorf in Switzerland
5. September 2, 2008 at the Amsterdam Arena in Netherlands
6. September 4, 2008 at the LTU Arena in Germany
7. September 6, 2008 at the Olympic Stadium in Italy
8. September 9, 2008 at the Commerzbank Arena in Germany
9. September 11, 2008 at the Wembley Stadium in London
10. September 14, 2008 at the Parque da Bela Vista in Portugal

The other half of September is to be spent in different stadiums from Spain, France, Austria, Montenegro, and Greece. October and November 2008 are slated for Madonna’s North American Tour. From October 4- November 30, 2008, Madonna will be touring the states of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Illinois, to name a few. She will also visit Mexico, Toronto and Montréal in Canada. Madonna tickets are now being sold online (you can buy and sell on the Internet) so better hurry.

Madonna’s enduring legacy

Madonna’s creativity knows no bounds. Her latest album “Hard Candy” shows her collaborating with artists like Justin Timberlake and Timbaland. The single “Four Minutes” is already hitting the top of the charts and the video gives us an almost fifty Madonna keeping up, if not leading Justin Timberlake on the dance floor.

Her history is an interesting tale, and well chronicled. Born Madonna Louise Cicconne, she was raised in Detroit but moved to New York to work. She hit the heights of pop stardom early on in her career with an early album Like a Virgin topping the US Albums Chart in 1982 and selling over 12 million copies worldwide. She moved on to make more albums, tours, sold-out concerts and films (she has starred in 22 films).

Madonna’s endless creative ways of expressing herself makes her one of the world’s most interesting celebrities. In a time when sex was still taboo, she blatantly spoke and sang about it. And all this belies the fact that her upbringing was as an Italian Catholic. With her religious imagery and icons mixed with brazen outfits of fishnet stocking shirts over capri pants, she has defined fashion in the 1980s as well as provoked uproar in the conservative side.

Her artistic style earned the praise of critics for her ability to constantly reinvent herself. From punk princess to androgyny personified, from sex kitten to maternal woman, her looks have become the definitive fashion icons. She has contributed much to pop culture as she has to fashion, film and music.

Her last album was also not without uproar. Her title track “American Life” is her attempt at having a say in the war in Iraq. The track was made before the war started and she tells her fans to find ways to divert attention from entertainment to the conflict in Iraq. Critics however view the video of the track as nothing more than an endorsement of Bush’s war.

Madonna has always been a stirrer, with her often provoking statements (going as far as picking a fight with the Roman Catholic Church by lambasting a nun’s habit or French kissing Britney Spears in the MTV Awards), we can see that Madonna has since mellowed out. There seems to be a sense of domesticity in Mrs. Ritchie’s life with their children always in tow
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Madonna still has plenty to offer. Her Hard Candy World Tour is set to start in August starting in Cardiff, Wales. Madonna tickets are already available online as well as concert tours and dates. Madonna tickets are now available for her world tour which includes Berlin, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Rome, Frankfurt, Berlin, London, Paris, New York and Boston, among others.

Miley hits Number One

Miley Cyrus new album "Breakout" has gone straight to Number One on Billboard Top 200. Although this is the second album of hers to reach Number One, this is the first time without her (life-imitates-art) Disney character Hannah Montana - this time Miley does it all on her own. "Breakout" sold 371,000 copies in its first week.

Miley's not on the road at the moment, but her good friends the Jonas Brothers are...tickets are available here...

Neil Diamond returns in triumph

There are some truly legendary performers, and Neil Diamond is one of them. And he is showing no signs of slowing down. Be warned, tickets to his upcoming shows are already available and his legion of supporters are snapping them up. He is immensely popular to both young and old in the audience. It would be best to get your Neil Diamond tickets as soon as possible.

Born January 24, 1941, Neil Leslie Diamond first played guitar at age 16 and immediately realized what he wanted to be. He developed a love of singing and was already exploring the option of becoming a life-long musician singing in a choir with the then unknown Barbra Streisand. However, after graduating from high school, Neil Diamond decided instead to go to college and pursue a pre-med course. However the thrill of music and the offer of $50 a week to write songs did he realize that he wanted a musician’s life instead of a doctor’s.

His first recording venture was not very successful. He also wrote songs for other artists until he signed with Bang Records where he got his first hit, “Solitary Man”. He also wrote and recorded during this period “Cherry, Cherry”, “Do It” and “Kentucky Woman”. But his ambition went beyond what Bang Records could offer so he signed with MCA Records in the late 1960s.

Neil Diamond’s first number 1 with “Song Sung Blue”. He also produced great hits such as “Sweet Caroline” (written for Caroline Kennedy), “Cracklin Rosie” and “Holly Holy”. Neil Diamond also starred in movies such as the remake of The Jazz Singer. He has written and sung numerous soundtracks for films. He didn’t produce hit songs during the 1980s to the 1990s but his shows still commanded great billing and huge crowds. His concerts were sold-out and he was 1986’s “most profitable solo performer”.

Neil Diamond continued to be very busy through the last two decades, producing albums as well as cover many of the classics. “Sweet Caroline” continues to be a favorite song and Michael Dukkakis made “America” his presidential campaign theme song. He has become a pop culture icon with many of his songs being covered by other artists such as a highly successful reggae cover of “Red Red Wine” and Smash Mouth’s version of “I’m a Believer”.

His ongoing concert tours are selling tickets like hotcakes with fans from all over the country still coming out to see him. Neil Diamond is a living legend, and one of those “must see” acts’. There are concert tours and his shows will run in St. Paul, Sioux City, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Washington, Hartford, Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh and Albany, among others.

Madonna tickets Denver - some still available

The mighty material girl continues to reinvent and surprise. Madonna's latest album, Hard Candy, debuted at number one across the globe and has been dominating the charts since it's release on April 25, 2008. But why should we be surprised? She has been doing this since the early 1980's.

Always in touch with the current "state-of-the-art" (or should we say leading it?), the Queen of Pop’s album features vocal appearances by today's hottest pop artists such as Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. The producers of the album are the highly respected Timbaland and Pharrell Williams who receive both performance and production credits on the album.

Madonna’s 2008 Sticky and Sweet tour is on its european leg, and packing out stadiums wherever she goes. All this in readiness for her tour that will be unleashed here in October. Her shows have been selling well, and many shows are near sell-outs. In Denver, her only show is scheduled for Tuesday 11th November 2008, and if you act quickly you can snare some tickets at reasonable prices. The show in Denver will be held at the Pepsi Center

And what are we to expect in Denver? It will be the usual stunning array of music, stage antics, dancing and a song list that goes back to 1984!! During her Paris show earlier this year, always the one to stir up a bit of controversy, Madonna tried a bit of push-it-to-the-edge sexual antics by kissing one of the female dancers, or one of the female audience members. Swigging champagne bottle she yelled at the crowd “Who do you love more, me or the Rolling Stones?”

The Material Girl always puts on an amazing concert, and this is one show not to be missed. Her current single with Justin Timberlake has hit the top of the charts all around the world. It seems the world can’t get enough of this amazing lady, half way through her third decade of constantly reinventing herself and of being a superstar. And her catalogue of songs is awesome including “Like a Prayer”, “Vogue”, “Get into the Groove” and “Holiday”.

M Paul is a mad Madonna fan and runs the ticket selling site www.big-ticketdeals.com To get those hard-to-get tickets to see Madonna in Denver, follow this link.