The Myth of Madonna
30 years ago this week ‘Material Girl’ performed at Hofheinz Pavilion
If you had cable TV back in 1985, and if you were young enough to have baby boomers for parents, you knew who Madonna was. All you had to do was watch just a few minutes of MTV.
But no matter what you thought of her sensual image or even her music, you couldn’t deny the fact that she sold records. By the truckload.
So it should be no surprise that -- 30 years ago this week -- a mass of fans clad in lace, fishnets and crucifixes filled Hofheinz Pavilion to see her in person.
But did she live up to the hype? Here’s how the Houston Chronicle’s Michael Spies described it:
“In the movie ‘Desperately Seeking Susan,’ she at least had a certain sensual arrogance. On stage Saturday at the Hofheinz Pavilion, for a sold-out Houston appearance during her first-ever U.S. tour, she displayed a tempting midriff and sang her hits, but the voice is puny and the material punier.
“The traces of ego are not appetizing, either. She is already wanting to know if one side of the audience loves her more than the other because she can’t go on unless everybody loves her.”
Jerome Weeks of the Houston Post wasn’t any more complimentary.
“She’s trained in dance, and she danced Saturday night much better than the usual rock show hops and struts. And there was plenty of lascivious crawling and writhing, especially during ‘Everybody’ and ‘Burning Up.’
“But Madonna’s voice is on the thin side, reedy and cold, despite all the heated panting. The problem with her image is not the dumb sexual easiness implied by her ‘Boy Toy’ belt that causes many to dismiss her as a bimbo, but quite the opposite: sexual utility. Madonna implies that she enjoys sex, but as in ‘Material Girl,’ she’s also cooly determined to use it to get what she wants.
“All of which only heightened the concert’s feeling of a rather unfeeling, flashy manipulation and of an act that, at best, is still practicing.”
Ah well. So-so reviews like these didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Madonna would return in 1987 on the “Who’s That Girl” tour. That time, she appeared a few miles away at the Astrodome.
Both reviewers, though, saved their worst for the opening act, a heretofore unknown white rap group from New York called the Beastie Boys.
Weeks summed up the act in a single word: horrible.