Madonna Releases Rebel Heart Tour Live Album, Talks Smaller Shows

Bridgehampton pop icon Madonna released her Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour live album and DVD/Blu-ray film chronicling her 10th world tour on Friday, September 15. She’s now considering smaller shows.

The live double CD features 22 tracks recorded during her Rebel Heart Tour, and the film captures the final performances at Sydney, Australia’s Allphones Arena on March 19 and 20, 2016. Madonna’s tour began in September 2015 and included 82 shows in 55 cities and four continents over seven months in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. It grossed grossed $169.8 million.

Madonna’s fifth live album, Rebel Heart Tour offers songs spanning four decades of music, with tracks such as “Like a Virgin,” “La Isla Bonita,” “True Blue,” “Like a Prayer,” “Holiday,” “Material Girl,” “Burning Up” and more. The Queen of Pop re-imagines several of of her classic hits in the live performances.

During an interview to promote the new record and film, Madonna told BBC News that after years of epic world tours and massive venues, she’s now considering doing  more intimate shows, perhaps even a residency akin to Billy Joel‘s series of Madison Square Garden concerts, but likely smaller.

“I’ve done so many shows – world tours, stadiums, sports arenas, you name it – that I feel like I have to reinvent that now too,” she said in the BBC News interview. “This is something I’m exploring right now: the idea of doing a show that doesn’t travel the world, but stays in one place and utilizes not only humor and the music in a more intimate setting but other people’s music, as well, and other entertainment.”

Madonna said she’s still working on the concept, but she imagines “a revolving door of amazing, gifted, unique talent – dancers, musicians, singers, comedians, me, humor…” and more interaction with the audience.

In addition to footage from the Rebel Heart Tour, the new DVD includes Madonna’s stripped-down, vaudevillian Tears of a Clown show performed in Melbourne, Australia. This concert could be a basic blueprint of her next series of concerts, she explained to BBC News, noting the new shows would also leave room for mistakes and improvisation.

“I like doing intimate shows and being able to talk directly to the audience; to play with them and use humor and pathos and truth, and share my life – and also make up stories,” Madonna said in the interview, adding later, “If I look back at the Rebel Heart Tour, my favorite [part] was really the last section where I got to just sit on the stage and play my ukulele and sing ‘La Vie en Rose’ and talk to the audience. [It was] just more intimate. More audience participation and connecting to human beings – I feel I’m craving that more and more.”