Last night I had the distinct pleasure of having Madonna come to visit me at the Pepsi Center for her Sticky and Sweet tour. The music was great, the show was incredible, and I had a fantastic time. She played a lot off of her new album, and a lot of the classics, too.

Say what you will about a grown man going to see Madonna in concert, but I had a good time. However, I will say that it seemed like my presence at the concert may have doubled the number of heterosexual males there. And I’m pretty sure I got hit on at least once, but I choose to take that as a compliment.

Here are a few reasons why the concert was most literally awesome.

• 40 semis. On our way into the concert we saw them all outside. That’s how many it takes to haul the equipment for a show if this magnitude.
• Upgrades! I decided to buy the cheapest tickets (for the low, low price of only $80 each) and they put me in the third tier, in the corner, behind the stage! But when Madonna heard I was coming, she had my tickets flagged, and when I got them scanned at the gate, I was waved over to the upgrade stand. They exchanged my tickets for lower-level tickets off to one side of the stage. This totally made the show, thanks, Madonna!
• LED screens, more than you could shake a stick at and of impressive quality. She had three 2-story screens, and one of them accordionned apart. There were major screens, and minor screens, screens on wheels that moved around, a DJ booth coated in screens, man-sized screens to simulate extra extras, and, the coup de grace, the Magic Cylinder screen (awesome enough to warrant its own bullet point, below).
• The gun show. Madonna has always been famously fit, but I never appreciated it until I saw her live. Her arms show more veins than a Ninja Turtle’s! Kudos, Madonna.
• A Ukrainian mariachi band featuring the Latino Lord of the Dance. Why not?
• Treadmill, the world’s largest. It was probably about 60′ long and 3′ wide. It was a little bit Jamiroquai and a little bit OK Go, and they came no where close to realizing its true potential.
• I’m Britney, bitch. There were lots of celebrity cameos in addition to Britney; Kanye West, other miscellaneous R&B artists I don’t recognize, Al Gore, and four Justin Timberlakes.
• “I’m working my ass off up here!” That’s what you say when you’re 50-years-old, you’ve been literally running around and dancing for two hours straight, and the people in the front row are sitting down. I probably would not have been as kind.
• Google Earth. The backdrop to one of the songs was various zooms into different parts of the world on google earth. I probably found this more enjoyable than the average person.
• Die Another Day feat. Scorpion. She played title track to one of my favorite Bond films (Die Another Day, starring Madonna, co-starring Pierce Brosnan) mixed in with various cuts from Mortal Kombat while two guys were dance-boxing. Finish him!
• Like a Prayer. It’s a dance club staple and so overdone that I really didn’t expect to hear it last night. But she sang it and she blew the roof off the place. This was no simple dance remix, it was, quite simply, to die for.
• The Magic Cylinder. It was an LED screen in the shape of a cylinder about 20 feet tall. Madonna was inside the cylinder on a piano. When the screen was off you could see through it like a mesh and when it was on it looked like a regular screen. BUT when they mixed the two (images against a black backdrop) you got these ethereal floating images. She did a song with a water theme and had rain and waves splashing all around her. All I could do was stare slack-jawed. I have no idea what song she was singing, it could have been ‘happy birthday’ for all I know; I was totally entranced.

Madonna is a music icon, her show is top shelf, and I’m glad I could be a part of it. Give me a call next time you’re in town, Madonna, and we can hang out again.