The Virgin Tour

The Virgin Tour

Tour by Madonna
File:Madonna tvt.jpg Promotional poster for Madonna's 1985 North American tour
Associated album	Madonna Like a Virgin
Start date	April 10, 1985
End date	June 11, 1985
Legs	1
No. of shows	40 in North America
Madonna concert chronology

The Virgin Tour is the debut concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna. The tour supported her first two albums, Madonna and Like a Virgin. Although Madonna gained an international audience, the tour only visited North America. The tour collected a total of more than U$ 17 million.

About the tour

Madonna's first concert tour was strictly one for the United States and Canada; it did not cross over to Europe, Asia or other continents. After a series of track dates in 1983-1984 in New York City and parts of Europe and Asia to promote her debut album Madonna, early on there were plans to schedule dates in England and Japan due to Madonna's large fan base in both countries, however the final schedule did not reflect the idea. Madonna later toured these countries during her 1987 Who's That Girl World Tour. In the end several more U.S. dates were added and moved to larger concert venues due to overwhelmingly strong ticket sales. Madonna notably performed every date on the tour with no cancellations.

In San Francisco, tour shirts were selling at a clocked rate of one every six seconds. All 17,672 tickets for Madonna's show at New York City's prestigious Radio City Music Hall were completely sold out in a record-breaking 34 minutes. The same happened for the rest of the shows as most other shows were sold out in almost the same record-breaking time.

Madonna performed her concerts with the enthusiasm of a new kid on the block, excitedly proposing to her audiences "Will you marry me?" and seducing them with her energy and a series of club, radio and video hits like "Gambler" and "Burning Up". The look was pure Boy Toy, with costume changes including colorful New Wave jackets for "Holiday" (she looked like "Susan", the title character she portrayed in her film debut Desperately Seeking Susan) and white wedding gowns similar to the one worn in her "Like A Virgin" music video. In an obvious reference to her Detroit roots, Motown influence, and same-aged pop superstar rival, Michael Jackson, Madonna even sung a verse of "Billie Jean" during "Like A Virgin". After her concert tour, Madonna performed "Holiday", "Into The Groove" and "Love Makes The World Go Round" at the historic African famine benefit concert Live Aid in Philadelphia.

During a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, interviewer Austin Scaggs asked Madonna regarding her feelings and emotions during the tour, since it was the first time she was playing in arenas. Madonna replied saying,

"That whole tour was crazy, because I went from playing CBGB and the Mudd Club to playing sporting arenas. I played a small theater in Seattle, and the girls had flap skirts on and the tights cut off below their knees and lace gloves and rosaries and bows in their hair and big hoop earrings. I was like, 'This is insane!' After Seattle, all of the shows were moved to arenas. I've never done a bus tour. Everyone says they are really fun."

Opening acts

• The Beastie Boys
• Run-DMC(select venues)

Set list

File:Madonna-like a virgin-bride.jpg

A Barbie doll in a wedding dress, like the one Madonna wore on the tour at the time

1. "Dress You Up"
2. "Holiday"
3. "Into the Groove"
4. "Everybody"
5. "Angel"
6. "Gambler"
7. "Borderline"
8. "Lucky Star"
9. "Crazy for You"
10. "Over and Over"
11. "Burning Up"
12. "Like a Virgin" (contains excerpts from "Billie Jean")
13. "Material Girl"

Source:

Tour dates

Date	City	Country	Venue
April 10, 1985	Seattle	United States	Paramount Theatre
April 12, 1985
April 13, 1985
April 15, 1985	Portland		Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
April 16, 1985
April 19, 1985	San Diego		SDSU Open Air Theatre
April 20, 1985
April 21, 1985	Costa Mesa		Pacific Amphitheatre
April 23, 1985	San Francisco		San Francisco Convention Center
April 26, 1985	Los Angeles		Universal Amphitheatre
April 27, 1985
April 28, 1985
April 30, 1985	Phoenix		ASU Activity Center
May 3, 1985	Dallas		Dallas Convention Center
May 4, 1985	Houston		Hofheinz Pavilion
May 5, 1985	Austin		Frank Erwin Center
May 7, 1985	New Orleans		UNO Lakefront Arena
May 9, 1985	Tampa		USF Sun Dome
May 10, 1985	Orlando		Orange County Convention Center
May 11, 1985	Pembroke Pines		Hollywood Sportatorium
May 14, 1985	Atlanta		The Omni
May 16, 1985	Cleveland		Public Hall
May 17, 1985	Cincinnati		Cincinnati Gardens
May 18, 1985	Chicago		UIC Pavilion
May 20, 1985
May 21, 1985	St. Paul		St. Paul Civic Center
May 23, 1985	Toronto	Canada	Maple Leaf Gardens
May 25, 1985	Detroit	United States	Cobo Arena
May 26, 1985
May 28, 1985	Pittsburgh		Pittsburgh Civic Arena
May 29, 1985	Philadelphia		The Spectrum
May 30, 1985	Hampton		Hampton Coliseum
June 1, 1985	Columbia		Merriweather Post Pavilion
June 2, 1985	Worcester		Worcester Centrum
June 3, 1985	New Haven		New Haven Coliseum
June 6, 1985	New York City		Radio City Music Hall
June 7, 1985
June 8, 1985
June 10, 1985			Madison Square Garden
June 11, 1985

Critical reception

Music critics were extremly critical in all cases:

• Robert Palmer, The New York Times: "Madonna... simply did not sing very well. Her intonation was atrocious; she sang sharp and then she sang flat, and the combination of her unsure pitch and thin, quavery vocal timbre made the held notes at the end of her phrases sound like they were crawling off somewhere to die."
• Paul Grein, Billboard: "Cyndi Lauper will be around for a very long time. Madonna will be out of business in six months. Her image has completely overshadowed her music."
• Paul Evans, Record: "Perhaps every generation needs reminding that rock and sex are sometimes indistinguishable. At the moment, Madonna's the apostle of the body gospel, and, as her show makes apparent, it's hard to recall a more fetching zealot."

In response, Madonna said: "I ignored these critics because I knew deep down in my heart that it was good and ... I always will meet up with a certain amount of controversy, a certain amount of opposition to what I'm doing."

Broadcasts and recordings

Main article: Live - The Virgin Tour

The 1985 Live - The Virgin Tour VHS documents a Detroit, Michigan stop on the tour. "Angel", "Borderline" and "Burning Up" were part of the tour set list but were not included on the official VHS release. In addition, bootleg video of the Dallas and New York dates have surfaced over the years, primarily on the internet.

The complete audio from a Los Angeles date was professionally recorded directly off the soundboard and soon leaked as a bootleg LP in the United States. It has been speculated that this recording was originally meant to be an official live album for The Virgin Tour that never materialized. As of April 11, 2010, there has been no official DVD release for this concert tour.

Later, a Laserdisc version of the Virgin Tour was released, then many fans copied it and transferred into DVDs to resell them on eBay.

Personnel

• Vocals: Madonna
• Set Designer: Ian Knight
• Choreographed / Staged by: Brad Jeffries
• Keyboards: Patrick Leonard and Billy Meyers
• Drums: Jonathan P. Moffet
• Bass: Bill Lanphier
• Guitars: James Harrah and Paul Pesco
• Dancers: Michael Perea and Lyndon B. Johnson
• Personal Management: Freddy DeMann for Weisner-DeMann Entertainment
• Show Mix: Dave Kob
• Music Produced by: Madonna and Patrick Leonard

External links

• Official website