¥A SMADONNA’Scareer was taking off
in the mid-Eighties, most of her tours
were relatively straightforward af-
fairs, based around her singing and
dancing. But for the stadium blow-
outs that supported her 1989 classic,
LikeaPrayer,shewantedtoupher
game. In the process, she reinvented
thepopmegatouritself.“Ireallyput
a lot of myself into it,” she said. “It’s
much more theatrical than anything
I’ve ever done.” That year, Madonna
hadcausedanationwidecontroversy
with the video for “Like a Prayer”,
whichdaringlymixedsexualandre-
ligious imagery. Blond Ambition ex-
tended that provocation and upped
the spectacle.
TheshowopenedwithMadonna
climbing down a staircase into a fac-
toryworldinspiredbyGermanex-
pressionist filmmaker Fritz Lang.
Shesanginagiantcathedralfor
“LikeaPrayer”andunderabeauty-
shop hair dryer in “Material Girl”.
And, most infamously, she simulated
masturbation while wearing a cone-
shaped bustier on a crimson bed
during “Like a Virgin”. “The Blond
AmbitionTourwaswhatreallycat-
apulted her into the stratosphere,”
says Vincent Paterson, the tour’s co-
director and choreographer.
Madonnatookahands-onap-
proach to the show, working with
her brother, painter ChristopherCiccone,todesignsets,andcreat-
ing the costumes with fashion de-
signer Jean Paul Gaultier. “I tried
to make the show accommodate my
own short attention span,” she said.
“We put the songs together so there
was an emotional arc in the show.
I basically thought of vignettes for
every song.”
StartingoutinJapaninApril
1990 and hitting the U.S. the follow-
ing month, the tour grossed almost
$63 million. But it didn’t go off with-
out any complications: Madonna
had to ditch the blond-ponytail hair
extensions she wore early in the tour
becausetheykeptgettingcaughtin
her headset microphone. And in To-
ronto, the masturbation sequence
almost got her and her dancers ar-
rested in what became a bonding
moment for her entire crew.
Madonna’s close relationship with
her collaborators would be a major
theme in the blockbuster 1991 tour
documentaryTruth or Dare,espe-
cially in memorable scenes where
she invited her backup dancers into
her bed. Today, Blond Ambition’s
over-the-top intimacy is a staple of
livepopmusic,fromLadyGagato
MileyCyrus.In1990,itwasarevolu-
tion.“Itwasakindofturningpoint,”
says Darryl Jones, who played bass
on the tour. “A lot of young girls were
watching.” STEVE KNOPPER¥FOR THE TOURto support their groundbreaking LPFear of a Black
Planet,PublicEnemywantedashowtomatchtheirmusic’scom-
bativeassault.“OK,ifwe’regonnafillastage,everything’sgottabe
moving,” leader Chuck D recalls of the band’s approach. They’d built
theirlivereponshort,explosivesets.Nowtheypackedanhourwith
ChuckasbullhornMCandFlavaFlavashisfirecrackercomicfoil,
leapingacrossthestageanddivingintothecrowd.InHouston,Ice
Cube joined them to perform his guest verse on “Burn Hollywood
Burn”,asongthatbecameeachnight’sincendiaryhighpoint.“We
didn’tneedtousepyro,”saysChuck.“WhenIseeactsusepyro,I’m
like, ‘What lazy fucks.’ ” CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN1991 EUROPEANTOUR
1990 PUBLIC ENEMY
1990 BLOND AMBITION TOUR
SONIC YOUTH
AND NIRVANA
MADONNA
¥ IN THE SUMMER before they released
Nevermind, Nirvana were still a
largely unknown band. They booked
a series of European festival dates,
opening for their friends Sonic Youth- and witnessed for the first time
their power to convert and ignite
huge crowds. “It was passionate. It
was reckless,” says Thurston Moore
of Sonic Youth, who also astounded
audiences with their New York
noise-rock. “[Nirvana] were going
on at 2:00 in the afternoon, playing
a 20-minute set. But there was this
massive amount of pogo’ing going
on.” With drummer Dave Grohl on
tour with the band for the fi rst time,
and the new Nevermind material,
Nirvana were received almost like
headliners. Kurt Cobain biographer
Charles Cross called it Cobain’s “hap-
piesttimeasamusician”.Recalls
Grohl, “Everything was still very in-
nocent.”Adocumentaryofthetour,
1991:TheYearPunkBroke,captured
Cobain spraying champagne all over
adressingroomandGrohlandbass-
ist Krist Novoselic gleefully tearing
through a backstage cheese plate.
The high point for Moore was in
Brussels, where security tried to stop
Nirvana’s nightly ritual of smashing
theirgear,andNovoselichadtobe
pulleddownashetriedtoclimbup
theclosingstagecurtains.“Itwas,”
says Moore, “the most perverse, de-
constructed, psychedelic freakout
concert I’ve ever seen.” JON DOLAN
SIZZLING
SUMMER TOURJuly, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 71
Cobain at
the 1991
Reading
Festival