On Thursday night, the Madonna concert at l’Olympia concert hall was cut short after she performed for only 45 minutes. When Madonna left the stage after the brief show the fans decided to boo and yell insults at her. One word thrown around was that of ‘salope,’ the French word for ‘slut.’ Madonna went on stage at 10:15 p.m. and concluded her concert at 11 p.m. The concert hall was filled with major Madonna fans because tickets were sold exclusively through her fan club. The event was also broadcast on YouTube live. The event was added to her docket last week and only took two hours to sell out of tickets. Concertgoers paid anywhere from 80 to 280 euros for a ticket.
Hours before the show, hundreds of concertgoers gathered outside the concert hall so they could get a good seat in the 2,700-seat theater. Hundreds of people also slept on the street the night before. When the show ended, hundreds of fans entered the street and began yelling “remboursez! remboursez!” (“give us our money back!”).
Twitter was abuzz with comments about Madonna and the incredibly short concert. For example, one message said, “280€ for a seat + 10 minutes of a speech + 40 minutes of a show + 2 days of camping in front of the #Olympa = #Madonna #MDNA #Paris #thatsucks”
Another fan wrote, “#Madonna 45min/250€ vs @springsteen 3h40/65€ … what’s the better deal, there’s nothing left to say! #MDNAOlympia.”
Then, another fan wrote, “How much does it cost to see Madonna at l’Olympia? It’s 6.3 euros per minute!”
A concert earlier this summer at the Stade de France angered Marine Le Pen, the French right-wing politician, who is pressing charges against Madonna. Madonna put a picture of Le Pen on the screen at her concert that had a swastika photo shopped on her face.
Madonna responded to Le Pen with, “I know that I made a certain Marine Le Pen very angry with me. And it’s not my intention to make enemies. It’s my intention to promote tolerance. And when we start saying that we have to get rid of this person or we have to get rid of that person, because then we’ll have a better place, it starts to sound like something else, it starts to sound like something scary. So the next time you want to point the finger at somebody and blame them for a problem in your life, take that finger and point it back at you.”
Madonna is scheduled to perform in Nice, France on August 21.
