There’s no shortage of people who have argued that Madonna’s appearance at the 2006 edition of Coachella is what truly “killed” the festival. Or rather, solidified its mutation into what it is today: a high-budget, overblown affair wherein everything about it is overpriced—from the tickets themselves to the bottles of water. Hence, the circulation of stickers that read “Madonna Killed Coachella” at the time. Of course, that little detail doesn’t make it into a documentary released in 2020 called Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert. And it’s gained traction anew this year as many can’t help but be galled and gobsmacked over the shift the festival has taken from a modest, shoestring-budget affair that had its roots in punk and going against the Ticketmaster monopoly to becoming, in essence, the very thing it was once fighting. In a sense, that’s what Madonna herself became after spending years on the underground music scene of New York. Before transcending into a juggernaut within pop culture.
Which is why her arrival at Coachella in the Sahara dance tent on April 30, 2006 was a mirror of Coachella’s own transformation into a juggernaut. Twenty years on, the festival has become unrecognizable from its original incarnation, or even its 2006 one. Sabrina Carpenter’s headlining performance was just one of many indications of that, with her Weekend 1 show pulling out all the stops (not just in general, but also to ultimately faux honor Los Angeles). However, she waited until the second weekend to pull out the ultimate stop: a Madonna “cameo.” Even though it’s far more than that, with three songs from M’s oeuvre performed. And it began just after Carpenter sang the usual lines during “Juno,” “Wanna try out some freaky positions/Have you ever tried this one?” That’s when, all of the sudden, the opening sound of “Vogue” played as the lights dimmed, and the screen color turned to black and white (in an homage to the original David Fincher-directed video) as Carpenter and her dancers proceeded to snap along to the intro.
Enter Madonna center stage with her back briefly turned to the audience (loosely snapping her fingers a bit herself) and then whipping around to join Carpenter in singing, “Strike a pose” before they each descended their separate staircases while Madonna opened with the “rap” part of the song that lists off the many actors’ names of Old Hollywood. She then concluded it with the “Oooh, you’ve got to just let your body move to the music/Oooh, you’ve got to just let your body go with the flow” advisement before transitioning into her new song from Confessions II, “Bring Your Love” (at which time the camera restored itself to being “in color”), opening with her asking, “Sabrina?” Carpenter answers, “Madonna?” (it’s all very, “Hey Britney, are you ready?”). Allowing M to reply, “I’ve got something I wanna talk about.” Rephrasing it at another point as, “Sabrina, I got somethin’ I wanna say about it,” which of course echoes the opening to “Express Yourself” that goes, “Come on girls! Do you believe in love? ‘Cause I got somethin’ to say about it.”
And what she’s got something to say about is an increasingly “naysaying” public. One that has prompted Madonna to declare in her lyrics, “Don’t comment on my ideas/I don’t want your judgment or your expectations.” Carpenter, who has been in the business long enough to feel the same, chimes in, “Don’t wind me up like a toy/Your vision of me is a killer of joy.” They then both join in to sing, “I know where the bodies are buried/Don’t try and shut me up.” And yes, at this point, everyone, no matter what generation they’re from, ought to know that it’s pointless to try “silencing” Madonna or “wishing her away” from the spotlight. One she could still easily steal from a pop star forty-one years her junior. Not that Carpenter took any issue with offering up her spotlight, having made her devotion to “the Queen” well-known over the past few years, whether it’s wearing a replica of her 1991 Oscars dress, emulating her “Like a Virgin” stylings or imitating Madonna’s own imitation of Marilyn Monroe.
That’s part of why she had no trouble letting Madonna deliver a speech after their debut of “Bring Your Love,” allowing her to remind those zygotes who didn’t know that, “Twenty years ago today [not exactly, but close enough], I performed at Coachella. Um, I was in the dance tent and it was the first time I performed Confessions on a Dance Floor Part I, in America. And that was such a thrill for me, so you can imagine what a thrill it is for me to be back twenty years later. Twenty years later. In the same boots, with the same corset, the jacket I had on earlier—the same Gucci jacket. So it’s like a full-circle moment, you know. Very meaningful for me.” To be sure, this performance was a key part of the Confessions II album rollout, with Madonna being all about the “kismet” and “full-circle” nature of things. With circumstances conspiring to make Carpenter’s own success an important part of Madonna’s at this moment, when presenting her new music is in progress. For there are few other musicians in the mainstream at this time that can go mano a mano with Madonna’s long-standing brand of having a bawdy sense of humor and stage presence.
Carpenter, however, is plenty known for her sexual innuendos (and sexed-up performances) by now. So when Madonna tells her, “You’ve been incredibly accommodating,” Sabrina replies, “You can have whatever you want.” Madonna asks, “Wow, do you really mean that?” Sabrina assues, “Yes. Clothes off my back.” This in itself being an unwitting callback to Madonna telling her dancers in Truth or Dare, “I’d give you the shirt off my back.” At which time they rip her top off to make good on her promise.
That doesn’t happen here, but there’s a moment where it feels like it could. And one where it also feels like Madonna might give in to her kissing “shtick.” Which she not only did most famously with Britney and Christina at the 2003 VMAs, but also with Drake when he headlined on the Main Stage at Coachella in 2015. Illustriously, that kiss did not go very well, branding Madonna as some kind of predatory harpy who gave an unwanted beso to Drake even though it was blatantly preplanned.
In any event, after such a humiliation, it’s no wonder it took Madonna another eleven years to appear at the festival again (not bothering to reference her presence there in 2015 at all). And oh, how she relished the chance to say whatever she felt like to a rapt audience. Who, whether they wanted to or not, listened to Madonna’s astrology reading as she continued, “Also I want to point out that it is the new moon of Taurus.” She then points to Sabrina, who explains to the crowd (as if most of them didn’t know already), “She’s pointing to me because I’m a Taurus just so you guys know, in case you guys were confused at all.” Madonna thus confirms the Taurean cliché, “She’s very stubborn” before adding,
“So yeah, it’s an auspicious evening for so many reasons. Um, new moon of Taurus and seven planets lined up in Aries. You know what that means. Here’s what it means, people. Quick course in astrology, okay? So we need to work on our communication skills, yeah? ‘Cause we all think we’re talking to each other on the phone, but we’re not really communicating so we need to work on that, right? Do we need to work on that? Okay. The other thing we need to do is to avoid confrontations, okay? Why? Because Aries is ruled by the planet Mars, Mars is the planet of war. So, in all circumstances, for the rest of the month, let’s try to get along, okay? Let’s try to be together, let’s try to avoid disagreements and, to that point, the great thing about music is that it brings people together [as she once said on 2000’s “Music”]. Right? It brings people together, am I right? It’s the one place that people have to put their differences aside, put their shit down and just everybody have a good time together right? So I am thrilled to be a part of that healing experience bringing people together. And I just wanna say four lines from my Confessions I record, okay? It goes like this: Can we get together?/I really, I really wanna be with you/Come on check it out with me/I hope you, I hope you feel the same way too.”
For those in the audience who were unversed in Madonna’s manner, they probably couldn’t grasp the significance of what she was saying/tying together, instead quicker to write her off as a “prattling on” “old lady.” But, in fact, Madonna’s message of togetherness (whether related to the alignment of certain planets or not)—not to mention her shade thrown at smartphones—is more relevant than ever, particularly at a festival that now contains people who are there not really because of the music, but because they just want to be seen there (by posting it on the internet). To prove their “value” somehow. That Madonna performed her “Confessions I” set at a time when phones hadn’t managed to find their way into everyone’s hands must have also been part of the stark contrast for her between then and now. Not to mention performing with someone shorter than her. Which she was sure to call out with the quip, “The other thrilling, thrilling thing I need to point out to everybody right now is this is probably the first time I’ve ever performed with someone who’s shorter than me. So, thank you for giving me that experience.” “Amen,” Sabrina says.
Madonna then goes into what has become one of her staples of live performing, “Like A Prayer,” singing from the part that goes, “I hear your voice, it’s like an angel sighing/I have no choice/I hear your voice.” As both are on their knees, Carpenter incorporates her country twang into it by adding, “I close my eyes/Oh god, I think I’m falling out of the sky/I close my eyes.” Soon after, the expected choir element joins in, with those contributing their backing vocals dressed in black robe-like costumes.
At a certain moment, Madonna, who has been wearing translucent-lensed sunglasses the entire time (in keeping with her “revisiting” the 2000s with this upcoming album), takes off her shades and throws them into the crowd, presumably into the hands of one fortunate audience member. The blonde duo then holds hands together as they strut down the catwalk-y stage, with Madonna allowing the choir to take over before she eventually concludes with the lyrics, “Your voice can take me there/Take me there/Like a prayer.” At which time Carpenter materializes again to offer an embrace (this being the instant when it feels like it would be on-brand for Madonna to kiss someone on the lips again, but thinks better of it).
“And now, you guys didn’t know this but she’s a magician…and she’s gonna make me disappear!” Madonna says as a hatch in the stage allows her to descend into its depths. But not without having left a lasting impression on the audience, regardless of whether they’re of an age and/or mind to fully grasp that, without Madonna, there is no Carpenter.
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