It should have been something momentous to the locals. But perhaps when Madonna said long ago of Chicago (in Truth or Dare), “We’re in a conservative town,” she was foreshadowing her debut in Sacramento, a city that people still often forget is California’s capital (so much so that the recent primary debate was held in Los Angeles rather than the state’s supposed “political hub”). Prior to arriving on February 24th for her first concert ever in the city, Madonna’s only notable connection to the town was dating someone who was from it (Ahlamalik Williams) before moving on to another. Apart from that, Madonna’s “allegiance” to Sacramento appeared to be nonexistent. Until her arrival at the Golden 1 Center for The Celebration Tour. And yet, this once-in-a-blue-moon event did not seem to move any of the scant few print media outlets that might actually cover entertainment. These being, essentially, the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento News & Review. Though, for some reason, the latter found it newsworthy to announce, “Billy Idol and partner in crime, Stevie Stevens, to play Thunder Valley on Feb. 9.”
Sure, the town was “good” enough about announcing the pop star’s presence here and there on radio stations and the news, but it was the fact that no one even bothered to make space in their publication to review the show that was most shocking (especially since, as mentioned, there’s really not that many publications, so one could have easily made it a priority). Because, again, this bia has never seen fit to show up in Sacramento. It truly is an occasion. She’s gone to fucking Fresno (back in 2006) before ever choosing to grace the capital with her presence. To tap into the market of the NorCal area outside of San Francisco, Madonna has usually instead performed in San Jose (which she seemed to swap out this time around in favor of Sacramento). Though, during her second tour, Who’s That Girl, she opted for Mountain View, about forty-five minutes south of San Francisco (to San Jose’s roughly fifty-five). Granted, most musicians rarely actually “opt” for anything, so much as they’re told by tour managers what will work best for the roster of dates and the markets they want to tap into. Sacramento never entered the equation for Madonna at any point on these previous tours. Indeed, the most “curveball” city on her round of U.S. dates over the years was probably East Troy, Wisconsin and Richfield, Ohio (both during the Who’s That Girl Tour).
Even “small towns” (in the same spirit as Sacramento being deemed small) like St. Paul and Pittsburgh could be bothered to give M a review during her The Celebration Tour stops there (and yes, she’s been to both of those places many times on her tours before). And they did so immediately after the show, whether good or bad. In St. Paul’s case, the reviews (that’s right, reviews plural) were generally favorable, save for the errant shade-drenched comment (e.g., “the show told Madonna’s story—her version of it, anyway—through a loosely chronological series of acts” and “she never broke a sweat, despite some occasionally murky sound and the sweltering eighty-degree heat in the arena that’s apparently one of Madonna’s contractual demands”). By and large, the main critique of Madonna live is the fact that she is always, but always, tardy to her own party. Hence, the St. Paul review that stated, “Some may excuse Madonna as she’s always been like this, but others are correct to note that it’s pointless and even rude to stage a tardy weeknight concert attended almost entirely by Gen Xers and Boomers.” The appearance of that generational pool tracks considering Madonna is one of the few artists a person can document their own life’s “eras” through (with Taylor Swift coming up the rear). The clientele at the Sacramento show, per a Reddit deep dive (because, to reiterate, there was no coverage of the event in any of the town’s media), seemed to lean more toward the boomer category, with one user stating, “I was quite impressed with the age range of Sacramento fans. Way WAY more baby boomers than I’ve seen at her shows in San Jose, Oakland, Fresno, LA, Vegas…and a huge number of them dressed up in Susan outfits, Like A Virgin wedding dresses etc etc. I did not expect that from my fellow Sacramentans—a very pleasant surprise.”
Unfortunately, there was no surprise about the lack of attention given to the event in Sacramento’s so-called mainstream media. Which is ironic in a way because Sacramento actually suits Madonna solely because, somewhere inside, she’s still a Midwestern girl. She can still “relate” to such a place known for being “simple” and perhaps “old-fashioned.” And yes, Sacramento is frequently called “the Midwest of California” (a line immortalized in Lady Bird). Madonna, to be sure, wasn’t so different from Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) in her bid “get the hell out of Michigan.” The way Lady Bird phrases such a desire is: “I have to get out of Sacramento… It’s soul killing.”
Part of the reason both Madonna and Lady Bird so intensely craved to escape from their respective middling hometowns was to stave off the aura of ordinariness they felt radiating from them—especially if they got trapped staying there. In truth, despite Madonna not being “for everyone,” her popularity and impact means that, at least on the surface, she ought to be “pedestrian” enough to appeal to Sacramentans. Just not, for whatever reason, the city’s media outlets. Yet everywhere else along the way, Madonna’s performance at [insert city here] managed to snag national (and even international) news headlines—most recently, from Pamela Anderson joining her onstage for the vogue ball in Vancouver to “falling off” her chair (a.k.a. being forced off it due to circumstances out of her control) in Seattle. The lone date to emanate nothing but the sound of crickets has been Sacramento. And that’s extremely telling for a number of reasons. For a start, the town’s aforementioned conservatism. For another, a certain lack of appreciation for that which is more “cosmopolitan.” No wonder there was more coverage about a Mardi Gras parade that took place the same weekend than the first- (and probably only) time appearance of Madonna performing live.
Thus, without any information about the show on mainstream outlets, it took a fair amount of trolling to find out that Detox was the person M chose to bring up onstage during the vogue ball (in keeping with her recent parade of RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants joining her onstage, thanks to the “in” Bob the Drag Queen has with everyone). A coup for someone so well-known as a fan—though perhaps not to the extent of fellow Drag Race alum Venus D-Lite, who spent hundreds of thousands on plastic surgery to help perfect his Madonna impersonator look.
But yes, Detox must be a fan indeed to have flown out to Sacramento…since, clearly, there was no one else famous readily on hand to pluck from the crowd the way there will be in San Francisco and L.A. Not even the state’s own governor, Gavin Newsom. And. it says something that there is no one famous from the arts that can be easily dug up for such an occasion. Any talent that does crop up in the town ultimately flees. And the lack of coverage about something so auspicious speaks to a larger truth about the city continuing to thumb its nose at anything “weird” or “overly” artistic. This, in part, being why the few creative types who are born here tend to leave (see: Joan Didion, Molly Ringwald and Greta Gerwig). What motivation is there to stay?
With the dates of 2006’s Confessions Tour being the most “love” Madonna ever showed to Northern California by turning up in both San Jose and Fresno, she tended to keep her distance after that, throwing a bone to Oakland for the 2001’s Drowned World Tour and 2008’s Sticky and Sweet Tour and elsewhere sticking to San Jose for 2004’s Reinvention Tour, 2012’s MDNA Tour and 2015’s Rebel Heart Tour. For the more intimate Madame X Tour, three dates were scheduled at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theater. Bringing us up to the present with Madonna’s lone “cameo” to date in Sacramento. And one wouldn’t be surprised if it was her last based on the total non-reaction.
In 1993, Madonna threw up her biggest middle finger yet to pretty much all cities in the U.S. after the major backlash against her “hyper-sexuality” a.k.a. the trifecta of the Sex book, Erotica and Body of Evidence. Thus, The Girlie Show only played U.S. dates in New York, Philadelphia and Auburn Hills, of all places, near her hometown of Detroit. That Madonna was so willing to bypass the West Coast altogether is indicative of her long-standing lack of affinity with it. Apart from her “80s L.A. years” with Sean Penn, one doesn’t much associate her with the state. Sure, she’s always had property in Los Angeles, but she’s never made it a secret that New York is her preference. So maybe one could say that Californians, especially “salt of the earth” ones like those in Sacramento, can sense a certain emotional distance from her. Therefore, why should they revere her with a major acknowledgement/review? Or having the town named after her for a day à la “Swiftie Clara.” The answer is that this is still someone who changed the shape of the culture, especially in a place as repressed as Sacramento. Someone whose impact is significant, and so should their first-time performance in such a town be. Alas, it clearly wasn’t.
Incidentally, during the time of The Girlie Show, Madonna stated, “Taking the adventure one step further is to play in front of a different audience every night. dealing with different cultures, different expectations, different ways of expressing pleasure and bewilderment—this to me is the ultimate thrill. The ultimate risk. And I love taking risks. You may have heard that about me.” Perhaps she couldn’t have known just how big a risk it was to gamble on coming to Sacramento and expecting to find anything like the “royal treatment” for her trouble, let alone a review. Even if a bad one, as would be expected from the likes of Sacramentan reviewers of the same Midwestern mentality as St. Paulites.
