The Tours — 07 · 2006
The Confessions Tour
Every night began inside a mirror ball.
At a Glance
Dates
21 May 2006, Los Angeles — 21 September 2006, Tokyo
Route
North America | Europe | Japan — 60 shows
The record
The record it set
At the time, the highest-grossing tour ever by a female artist
Behind the scenes
Jamie King | Costumes by Arianne Phillips and Jean Paul Gaultier
On film
The Confessions Tour (2007), filmed at Wembley Arena, London
MADONNA | The Confessions Tour © kissme_thatsright
The dance floor as church, gym and battlefield — the tour that put Madonna back where she began, and made more money doing it than any woman before her.
The Story
By 2006, Madonna had turned the dance floor into a confessional booth, a gymnasium, a church, a disco and a battlefield. The Confessions Tour took the sleek pulse of Confessions on a Dance Floor and expanded it into a high-gloss live spectacle: part club ritual, part pop sermon, part endurance test. After the political tension of American Life and the retrospective force of Re-Invention, this was Madonna moving forward again with mirrored surfaces, relentless choreography and the throb of a catalogue rebuilt for the body.
The Confessions Tour was Madonna’s seventh concert tour, launched in support of her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor. Opening in Los Angeles before travelling through North America, Europe and Japan, the tour placed dance music back at the centre of Madonna’s live language. The production moved through equestrian, religious, glam-rock, disco and urban club imagery, combining new material with reworked classics including Like a Virgin, Live to Tell, Erotica, La Isla Bonita, Lucky Star and Music.
The Mirror Ball
The opening is one of the great entrances in pop. A giant mirror ball descended from the roof, opened like a flower, and Madonna stepped out in riding gear for “Future Lovers”, with a nod to Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”. The equestrian theme ran through the first section; from there the show moved through glam rock, a Bedouin-inspired world of devotion, and finally a full-tilt disco that ended with “Hung Up”.
The Cross
For “Live to Tell”, Madonna sang from a mirrored cross, wearing a crown of thorns, while the screens counted the children orphaned by AIDS in Africa. Church leaders protested in Rome, Düsseldorf and Moscow; she kept it in the show. It remains one of the most argued-about moments of her career — and one of the most deliberate.
The Verdict
As a Madonna tour, Confessions is sleek, athletic and spiritually charged, a glittering machine with a pulse underneath the chrome. It does not simply recreate the album’s continuous-mix structure; it turns it into theatre, using bodies, screens, lights and controversy as moving parts in one disciplined system. The result is one of her most visually coherent live productions: devotional, decadent and engineered for motion. The disco ball descended, and Madonna made it look like a commandment.
The Dates
North America
21 May 2006 – Los Angeles, California, USA – The Forum
23 May 2006 – Los Angeles, California, USA – The Forum
24 May 2006 – Los Angeles, California, USA – The Forum
27 May 2006 – Las Vegas, Nevada, USA – MGM Grand Garden Arena
28 May 2006 – Las Vegas, Nevada, USA – MGM Grand Garden Arena
30 May 2006 – San Jose, California, USA – HP Pavilion
31 May 2006 – San Jose, California, USA – HP Pavilion
3 June 2006 – Los Angeles, California, USA – Staples Center
5 June 2006 – Fresno, California, USA – Save Mart Center
6 June 2006 – Fresno, California, USA – Save Mart Center
8 June 2006 – Phoenix, Arizona, USA – Glendale Arena
10 June 2006 – Phoenix, Arizona, USA – Glendale Arena
14 June 2006 – Chicago, Illinois, USA – United Center
15 June 2006 – Chicago, Illinois, USA – United Center
18 June 2006 – Chicago, Illinois, USA – United Center
19 June 2006 – Chicago, Illinois, USA – United Center
21 June 2006 – Montreal, Quebec, Canada – Bell Centre
22 June 2006 – Montreal, Quebec, Canada – Bell Centre
25 June 2006 – Hartford, Connecticut, USA – Civic Centre
26 June 2006 – Hartford, Connecticut, USA – Civic Centre
28 June 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
29 June 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
2 July 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
3 July 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
6 July 2006 – Boston, Massachusetts, USA – TD Banknorth Garden
9 July 2006 – Boston, Massachusetts, USA – TD Banknorth Garden
10 July 2006 – Boston, Massachusetts, USA – TD Banknorth Garden
12 July 2006 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA – Wachovia Center
13 July 2006 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA – Wachovia Center
16 July 2006 – Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA – Boardwalk Hall
18 July 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
19 July 2006 – New York City, New York, USA – Madison Square Garden
22 July 2006 – Miami, Florida, USA – American Airlines Arena
23 July 2006 – Miami, Florida, USA – American Airlines Arena
Europe
30 July 2006 – Cardiff, Wales – Millennium Stadium
1 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
3 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
6 August 2006 – Rome, Italy – Stadio Olimpico
9 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
10 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
12 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
13 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
15 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
16 August 2006 – London, England – Wembley Arena
20 August 2006 – Düsseldorf, Germany – LTU Arena
22 August 2006 – Hanover, Germany – AWD-Arena
24 August 2006 – Horsens, Denmark – Forum Horsens Arena
27 August 2006 – Paris, France – Palais Omnisports de Bercy
28 August 2006 – Paris, France – Palais Omnisports de Bercy
30 August 2006 – Paris, France – Palais Omnisports de Bercy
31 August 2006 – Paris, France – Palais Omnisports de Bercy
3 September 2006 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Amsterdam ArenA
4 September 2006 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Amsterdam ArenA
6 September 2006 – Prague, Czech Republic – Sazka Arena
7 September 2006 – Prague, Czech Republic – Sazka Arena
12 September 2006 – Moscow, Russia – Luzhniki Stadium
Japan
16 September 2006 – Osaka, Japan – Kyocera Dome
17 September 2006 – Osaka, Japan – Kyocera Dome
20 September 2006 – Tokyo, Japan – Tokyo Dome
21 September 2006 – Tokyo, Japan – Tokyo Dome
Songs on this tour
Follow a song from the stage back to its own page in The Tracks.
LISTEN NEXT
Keep listening — the record behind the show, and its sequel.
