“I didn’t think I’d make it,” Madonna tells fans at the sold-out O2 Arena on the first night of her Celebration World Tour. “I forgot five days of my life… or my death.” Four months after being struck down with a life-threatening bacterial infection, the Queen of Pop returns to the stage in vigorous form, strumming a version of “I Will Survive” on her acoustic guitar and punching her way through four decades of hits, from the shimmering synths of her 1983 UK breakthrough, “Holiday”, to the cocky grind of 2015’s “B**** I’m Madonna”.
She credits her children with bringing her through the illness and both her daughters appear on stage alongside her. Lourdes, 27, who recently admitted she struggles with her mother’s controlling parenting, laughs as the pair pretend to judge a voguing competition. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Mercy James perches confidently at the grand piano, splashing her classically disciplined keyboard skills over her mum’s 1992 ballad “Bad Girl”.
