With Britney Spears’ The Onyx Hotel Tour being present in many ways throughout Addison Rae’s 2026 Coachella performance, it bears reminding that Madonna was the blueprint for Spears’ performance style (read: mad sexual). And while that influence is noticeable during many parts of the show, it is during the back-to-back performance of “Touch of My Hand” and “Breathe on Me” that the “Madonna-ness” of it all really shines through.
Granted, Madonna wouldn’t do something so 00s-level skeevy as to segue into a performance with the pre-taped conceit of a pair of security guards watching her in her hotel room through a “hidden” camera as she, in turn, watches TV while lying in bed in a robe. Which is exactly what Spears does—all in keeping with the “hotel theme,” of course. When the manager of the two security guards catches them drooling, he initially acts angry about it, only to join them in watching her as she seems to realize there’s a camera in the room—and still decides to put on a not-so-private show anyway.
When she takes off her robe to get into the bathtub (at which point, all three men lose their minds), the Hamish Hamilton-directed (side note: three years prior to this, Hamilton directed Madonna’s Drowned World Tour for HBO) concert special cuts to Spears now “live,” and back in her robe again. This robe part of it channeling Madonna during the “Material Girl” portion of her Blond Ambition Tour, when she, too, is wearing one (albeit a much flashier [and monogrammed] style). Only her intent in wearing it is for more of a comedic effect, complete with her Judy Holliday-reminiscent voice (the same one she tried on for her role as Nikki Finn in Who’s That Girl) as she sings the lyrics.
But Spears wasn’t yet in her “comedic sexy” phase yet (and arguably never was, mostly taking her sex appeal very seriously—save for a cameo like the one she did for How I Met Your Mother). So no, the use of her robe is strictly for sex appeal purposes (hence, no curlers to go with it à la Madonna). And as she sits on a chair next to a clear bathtub (this while one of her dancers cosplays a real-live security guard “watching” nearby), Spears begins to have the same masturbatory awakening that Madonna does during another iconic performance from the Blond Ambition Tour: “Like A Virgin.”
As she reverently touches her hand and sings, “The more I come to understand/The touch of my hand,” Spears then proceeds to remove her robe, revealing a flesh-colored bodysuit whose illusion of nakedness is broken by the presence of allover rhinestones (similar to what she did at her 2000 MTV VMAs performance and for the “Toxic” video). Spears then slowly makes her way into the bathtub while, down below (for she’s situated on a “second tier” of the stage setup), two other dancers (in addition to the male “security guard” from before) with beds of their own have appeared to add to the “hotel” quality of it all (though “brothel” might be a better word choice). But, more to the point, the freaky-deaky things that people get up to in hotels…even when they’re by themselves (perhaps especially when they’re by themselves).
Accordingly, Spears starts to lift her leg up as she reaches her hand for “down there,” emulating the salacious dance maneuvering/masturbation pantomime that Madonna does throughout “Like A Virgin,” ratcheting up the sexual nature of it as she goes in full “humping the bed” mode by the end so that the contrast of her saying, “God” as “Like A Virgin” leads into “Like A Prayer” can be extra pronounced. Spears, instead, leaves the bed-humping to her lone female dancer during this performance, who helps to complement the overarching auto-erotic motif. Spears, of course, does plenty of her own wriggling and jiggling in the bathtub, which is equipped to rise up from the floor to fully showcase Spears in writhing mode as she delivers the “moaning” vocal breakdown of the song.
The bathtub then descends into an unseen part of the stage as the two dancers with beds continue on their own self-delivered orgiastic journey. In this moment, too, the scene resembles one from Madonna’s “S.E.X.” interlude during the Rebel Heart Tour, which itself includes a verse from “Justify My Love” (specifically, “I wanna kiss you in Paris/I wanna hold your hand in Rome/Make love on a train, cross-country/You put this in me/So now what?”). The video for which is another clear visual influence on the song that Spears transitions to next: “Breathe on Me.” Yet another hyper-sexual number from her In the Zone album (which, fittingly, has hyper-sexual Madonna on it as a feature [for the also sultry-sounding “Me Against the Music”]).
To lead into it, the male dancer who was on the bed during “Touch of My Hand” gets out a remote control to feign changing the channel until another moaning vocal of Spears’ commences “Breathe on Me” before she urges, “Just put your lips together and blow.” Spears then reemerges in a matching hot pink bra and underwear set with thigh-high tights (and detached garters) as she slides down a pole to get the lower level of the stage. It doesn’t take long for her to join the male dancer on his bed (one that is very reminiscent of Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour bed—it’s the red covers) for a bit of seduction in the vein of the “Justify My Love” video (that is, between Madonna and Tony Ward). An homage that makes sense not only considering the “sexy”/“sexually fluid” nature of said video, but also because, it, too, takes place in a hotel (granted, Madonna’s was a real-live Parisian hotel, and Britney’s is just a construct).
What’s more, Spears really commits herself to the horny aura of it all by even legitimately kissing her “main squeeze” of a dancer after engaging in the erotic push-and-pull with him. Something that echoes Madonna’s The Girlie Show energy, particularly during a not-so-pantomimed orgy with her dancers at the end of “Deeper and Deeper.”
And, as if truly wanting to get the audience themselves to start masturbating and/or fucking each other, Spears makes just as strong of a commitment to oozing the onstage sexuality required of songs as lascivious as both “Touch of My Hand” and “Breathe on Me.” Performances that remind just how lackluster and, well, sexless most pop stars’ concerts are au present. Except for Addison Rae’s—and that’s just because she’s borrowing from Britney, who borrowed from Madonna. Hence, why Rae’s sexuality is even more watered down.
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