Ending her last hometown appearance — more than eight years ago at Joe Louis Arena — Madonna gushed, “My hometown, it’s so good to be home!”
The feeling will likely be the same when she returns Monday night, Jan. 15, at Little Caesars Arena.
The global superstar is, of course, a local product — born in Bay City and raised in Pontiac and Rochester, where she graduated from Rochester Adams High School early in the middle of the 1975-76 school year. While there, Madonna — who also attended St. Frederick’s elementary school in Pontiac and St. Andrews and West Junior High in Rochester — was a good student, active in the Thespian Society (she won the club’s first Outstanding Senior Thespian award), the choir and the Latin club, and she was a junior varsity cheerleader.
And she was driven.
“She had this attitude, like, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna be somebody, you all just watch me,” one teacher remembered.
We started watching, and listening, in 1982, when Madonna — who’d moved to New York after one semester at the University of Michigan — released her first single, “Everybody.” And seemingly everybody embraced her.
Since then, Madonna has become the top-selling female recording artist of all time with more than 300 million records sold worldwide and more than $1 billion in concert ticket sales. She’s won seven Grammy Awards and 20 MTV Video Music Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
Her acting career, meanwhile, netted her a Golden Globe for “Evita” in 1996 — for which she sang the Academy Award-winning song “You Must Love Me.” And her provocateur nature, pushing sexual, religious and political mores throughout her career, has ensured Madonna’s never far from the headlines.
A global superstar — but still a hometown girl. With her Celebration Tour hitting town this week — delayed from August due to a “serious bacterial infection” that put her in the hospital — it seemed like a good time to recount Madonna’s 11 previous performances in the metro area and the hometown flavor that gave them something extra than other cities get.
May 25-26, 1985, Cobo Arena
Madonna’s first homecoming was a two-night affair as part of her appropriately named The Virgin Tour. The 13-song set featured material from the Material Girl’s first two albums — with a bit of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” slipped into “Like a Virgin” — and brought out plenty of friends and family. The latter included father Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, who appeared onstage to drag her off stage for being a “bad girl” as part of the tour’s regular show-ending gag.
August 7, 1987, Pontiac Silverdome
“I used to ride my bike there when it was just a field,” Madonna said before playing the then-home of the Detroit Lions on her Who’s That Girl Tour. In addition to the performance, the appearance was marked by the arrival of then-husband Sean Penn, freshly out of jail (they divorced in 1989) and a post-show visit to Club Taboo in Detroit’s Rivertown area.
May 31-June 1, 1990, Palace of Auburn Hills
Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour flaunted over-the-top sexuality and a cone-shaped bra designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. It offended Christians with much of its imagery, but produced the documentary “Truth or Dare.” And on the second night at home, Madonna’s visibly ill-at-ease father made another appearance on stage, this time so she could lead the Palace crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to him.
Dec. 21, 1993, Palace of Auburn Hills
The hometown got one of just five North American dates on The Girlie Show Tour, selling out in just 10 minutes. It came with Madonna at another controversial peak, just a year after her graphic “Sex” photo book and equally provocative “Justify My Love” video.
August 25-26, 2001, Palace of Auburn Hills
“I’m sure half the people in this place I have babysat, gone to school with or am related to,” Madonna quipped during the first of her two Drowned World Tour shows at the Palace — one of only a dozen North American venues it visited. She expressed gratitude for “the great start you gave me” but was clearly looking for a little bit of love in return: “You … better give it up for me.” Both nights’ crowds did and proof can be found via “Madonna Live: The Drowned World Tour,” an Emmy Award-nominated HBO special filmed on the second night and subsequently released on home video.
Nov. 18, 2008, Ford Field
“I don’t come home very often, so, please, make a big deal out of it,” Madonna told the crowd of about 30,000 at her first Detroit proper concert in 23 years. The nearly two-hour Sticky & Sweet Tour show, which started two hours after the advertised show time, assured that was the case, living up to its “rock-driven, dancetastic journey” billing. Madonna was full of hometown bonhomie, too, noting before “Evita’s” “You Must Love Me” that, “I want to take a second tonight so say there’s no place like home,” and, during “Ray of Light,” boasting that, “you can’t take Detroit of the girl, ’cause a Detroit girl don’t take s*** from anybody!”
Nov. 8, 2012, Joe Louis Arena
Madonna was “ecstatically happy to be here” for this MDNA Tour stop, but not just because it was home; she’d been an outspoken supporter of President Barack Obama, who had just been elected for a second term that week. The show, another that started more than two hours late, was a night for family as well; Madonna noted her father was in the arena, adding, “We don’t have the same political opinions and we still love each other.” And her son, Rocco Ritchie, breakdanced during “Open Your Heart.” She also left the crowd with a prediction: “Detroit is going to come back. I feel it in my bones.”
Oct. 1, 2015, Joe Louis Arena
“Motor City; the hometown girl is back!” Madonna declared at the start of this Rebel Heart Tour stop, and she was making amends as much as celebrating. She ruffled some feathers earlier in the year when she referred to the metro area as “provincial” during an appearance on Howard Stern’s satellite show, but Madonna was in booster overdrive throughout the two-hour and 10-minute show, with her father (to whom she dedicated the song “Rebel Heart”) and daughter, Lourdes — then a second-year student at the University of Michigan — in attendance. “Detroit’s making a comeback people, so watch out! … We are gonna bring this city back up. Believe that!” she said, noting her own involvement in women’s empowerment and youth boxing programs and “some new schools we’re building.” Fans also were pleased by the inclusion of more of her ’80s hits, which she’d steered away from on preceding tours.
Madonna and Bob the Drag Queen perform at 8:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 15 at Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit. 313-471-7000 or 313Presents.com.
