Tel Aviv was preparing for the first concert date in Madonna’s highly anticipated 80-nation MDNA world tour on Thursday.
Much has been made of her choice to stage the first show in Israel, in what she has termed “a peace concert”.
The 35,000-seat Ramat Gan Stadium has long been sold out, yet the renowned Kabbalah devotee still found 600 spare tickets to gift to Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, during a brief meeting with members of (the Palestinian-Israeli non-profit organisation) Peace Now from the rehearsal stage, on the eve of the concert.
According to the director of Peace Now, Yariv Openheimer, the Queen of Pop told the activists she would “say much more than a word about it (peace)”. In fact, a series of carefully leaked rehearsal images posted to her official Facebook page shows the veteran singer posing with a pistol, whilst her backing dancers hold machine guns. A probable reference to the Israeli Defence Force and another sign of the shock tactics for which her performances have become known, further images also showed other dancers donning gas masks in scenes likely to conjure memories of the 1991 Gulf War for much of the crowd. The one-night-only concert is said to have brought 4,000 tourists to Israel, with fans paying up to NIS 5,000 (€1,000, $1,300) to attend the show. Reaction to her arrival in Israel has been frenzied, with fans and media camping outside her Tel Aviv hotel (she is rumoured to have taken over the Dan Hotel for her entourage of 70 people) as well as rehearsals.
With the Tel Aviv show alone rumoured to be costing in the region of $3.9 million (€3.1 million) and costumes designed by high profile fashion names such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Alexander Wang and Dolce & Gabbana, it comes as little surprise that high profile attendees are anticipated, included famed US blogger Perez Hilton and Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in the guise of his latest character General Admiral Aladeen of the fictional Republic of Wadiya.

EJP