The Drowned World Tour was the fifth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna in support of her seventh and eight studio albums Music and Ray of Light . It was also her first world tour in eight years, following The Girlie Show in 1993. It went on to become one of the most successful and highest-grossing concert tours of 2001. She grossed more than U$75 million with summer sold-out shows and eventually played in front of 730,000 people throughout North America and Europe.

Background

After the release of Ray of Light, she stated in an live interview with Larry King on 19 January 1999 that "I am going to do a movie in April; The Next Best Thing, and then I am going to rehearse to go on tour. And then I'll probably play up until the millennium, New Year's Eve." The tour was delayed until 2001, as she had, in her own words, "been distracted by having children and filming movies"; she began a serious relationship with Guy Ritchie in 1999. She then became pregnant in 2000 with her son Rocco Ritchie, released another studio album that year, and married Ritchie in December.

The Drowned World Tour was originally scheduled to begin with two shows in the Kölnarena in Cologne, Germany but both concerts had to be canceled due to technical difficulties. As a result, 35,000 tickets were refunded. Her August 3 show at the Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey was also canceled, this time due to illness. Therefore, total tour dates numbered 47 instead of 50.

Tour dates were limited to cities in Europe and North America. This decision caused some controversy among fans in other parts of the world. The same setup was repeated with Madonna's 2004 Re-Invention Tour. In particular, this was the first (and only) Madonna tour to skip over Canada completely. For many weeks prior to the launch of the tour dates, Arthur Fogel from Live Nation himself attempted to book dates in Toronto at the Air Canada Centre between the Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Detroit dates, though no free bookings were available. In the end no dates were scheduled in Toronto, to the disappointment of many Canadian fans.

Ticket sales were swift in London on April 25th, as Madonna sold out her dates at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in record time - six shows in six hours. Madonna made history with the fastest-selling show ever at Earl's Court, as 97,000 tickets were sold. The first show sold out in just 15 minutes, and the online ticket site took 1 million hits in the first 10 minutes while 30 million attempts were made to phone Madonna hotlines. All dates of Madonna's Drowned World Tour sold out within minutes of going on sale.

Madonna took guitar lessons from Monte Pittman so she could play guitar live during the show.

About the show

The show was divided into 5 themes: Neo-Punk, Geisha/Anime, Country/Western, Latin/Gypsy and Urban/Pimp.
Neo-Punk:
The show begins with a dramatic performance of "Drowned World/Substitute For Love"; Madonna enters wearing a kilt over bondage pants. Afterwards a chaotic cyberpunk-themed performance of "Impressive Instant" starts, with dancers in gasmasks and headlights. She then shows off her newly-relearned guitar skills with "Candy Perfume Girl", leading into a humorous performance of "Beautiful Stranger" featuring a lost stage technician. The Punk section finished with "Ray of Light".
Geisha:
The segment starts with a video interlude of "Paradise (Not for Me)", where nearly naked dancers hang upside down; Madonna appears wearing a giant kimono to sing "Frozen". A short, Asian-like intro of Open Your Heart then leads to "Nobody's Perfect", followed by "Mer Girl" which turns into the fast-action, ninja/samurai martial arts battle performance of "Sky Fits Heaven", transforming back into the slow-tempo "Mer Girl". Next is the violent, sexually explicit Japanese animation dance remix interlude of "What It Feels Like for a Girl" feature footage from the Japanese Anime Film Perfect Blue.
Country 'n Western:
Madonna appears as a cowgirl for an acoustic guitar performance of "I Deserve It", and line-dances during "Don't Tell Me"; for Human Nature, she rides a mechanical bull. She then sings the macabre "The Funny Song". She finishes off with Secret, and sings "Gone", which was replaced with "You'll See" on some select U.S. venues. Madonna had planed to perform "Amazing" from the studio album "Music" but pulled the song from the show as her record label wanted to release it as a the fourth single from the album Music but Madonna wished to release Impressive Instant instead, so when Madonna refused to record a video for "Amazing", the record label was going to release the live performance as the official video so Madonna had the song pulled from the show which resulted in no fourth single at all, "Amazing" was replaced with "The Funny Song (Oh Dear Daddy)"
Latin:
Dancers start the Evita tango interlude of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina". Madonna then appears in a half-dress and performs "Lo Que Siente La Mujer", the Spanish version of "What It Feels Like for a Girl". She finishes the segment with an acoustic version of "La Isla Bonita".
Ghetto Fabulous:
Madonna appears on stage in a halter top that reads "Mother" on the front, and "F*cker" on the back and a fur coat, singing a mash-up of Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You" and "Holiday". She and her dancers/singers finish the show with a ghetto-themed "Music" as her music video images flashed onscreen behind her; the phrase "The End" signified the show was over.

Several changes were made to the final shows in Los Angeles after 9/11: Madonna wore an American flag kilt during the show's opening segment as a display of patriotism, the closing of "Mer Girl" (part II) was altered to remove the staged shooting of a character (Madonna instead put the gun down, hugged him and they left the stage together), and the macabre cannibalism-themed "Funny Song" was removed. Additionally, as a surprise for Madonna at the final concert date, her husband at the time, Guy Ritchie, appeared as the lost technician at the end of "Beautiful Stranger," the Samurai during "Sky Fits Heaven" wore Los Angeles Lakers jerseys, all of the dancers joined in for the final dance section of "Holiday," which usually only featured Madonna and her two backing singers.

Setlist

• "Drowned World/Substitute For Love" (contains elements of "Don't Tell Me", "Music", "Ray of Light", "Impressive Instant" and "Human Nature")

• "Impressive Instant"

• "Candy Perfume Girl"

• "Beautiful Stranger" (contains elements of "Soul Bossa Nova (Dim's Space-A-Nova)")

• "Ray of Light" (contains excerpts from "Drowned World/Substitute for Love")

• "Paradise (Not for Me)" (Video Interlude)

• "Frozen" (contains elements of "Open Your Heart")

• "Nobody's Perfect"

• Medley:

• #"Mer Girl"

• #"Sky Fits Heaven"

• #"Mer Girl" (Reprise)

• "What It Feels Like for a Girl" (Remix) (Video Interlude)

• "I Deserve It"

• "Don't Tell Me"

• "Human Nature"

• "The Funny Song"¹

• "Secret"

• "Gone" ²

• "You'll See" ³

• "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (Instrumental Interlude)

• "Lo Que Siente La Mujer"

• "La Isla Bonita"

• "Holiday" (contains elements from "Music Sounds Better with You")

• "Music"

¹ Performed after "Human Nature" during all shows except during the final dates, due to 9/11 attacks
² Performed after "Secret" during all shows performed In Europe and selected shows in North America, replaced with "You'll See" during selected shows in North America.
³ Performed after "Secret" during selected shows in North America instead of "Gone"

Source:

Tour Dates

Box Office Score Data

Additional Notes

Cancellations:

• June 5, 2001 - Kölnarena, Cologne, Germany

• June 6, 2001 - Kölnarena, Cologne, Germany

• August 3, 2001 - Continental Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey

Postponed dates:

• September 11, 2001 - Staples Center, Los Angeles (rescheduled September 15 due to September 11, 2001 attacks)

Personnel

Conceived by Madonna

Creative Director: Jamie King

Video Director: Dago Gonzalez

Musical Direction: Stuart Price
Costume Design: Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dean and Dan Caten of D-Squared, Dolce & Gabbana, Donatella Versace and Catherine Malandrino
Choreographer: Alex Magno

Band

Keyboards: Marcus Brown and Stuart Price

Drums: Steve Sidelnyk

Guitar: Monte Pittman

Bass-guitar: Stuart Price

Percussion: Ron Powell

Backing Vocals: Niki Haris and Donna De Lory
Head Dancer: Christian Vincent

Dancers: Ruthy Inchaustegui, Nito Larioza, Tamara Levinson, Anthony Jay Rodriguez, Jamal Story, Kemba Shannon, Eko Supriyanto, Jull Weber and Addie Yungmee.
Technology Director & Additional Keyboards: Mike McKnight

Broadcast and Recordings

The concert was broadcast live on HBO from The Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan on August 26, 2001.

"Gone" was performed for the television broadcast and DVD release.

The Drowned World Tour 2001 DVD was released in all regions on November 13, 2001. Three audio tracks were made available: a DTS track, a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. A photo gallery was included as a bonus feature. Like the original airing of the show, the DVD received very good reviews.

The photographs used on the DVD packaging were taken by Madonna's friend Rosie O'Donnell.

Madonna's second greatest hits album, GHV2, was released at the same time as the DVD to promote the video release.