Madonna performed the final show of her Celebration Tour to 1.6 million fans at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach on Saturday night—a record for a stand-alone show, according to tour organizer Live Nation.
The “Queen of Pop” transforms Rio’s Copacabana beach into a massive dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans. The tour, which celebrated four decades of Madonna’s hits, came to a close in Brazil on Saturday night with the free concert.
With her 1998 hit song “Nothing Really Matters,” she opened the show. The buzzing closely packed audience, jammed up against the barriers, let out huge cheers. Others hosted house parties at hotels and apartments with brilliant lighting and views of the ocean. The bay was full of sailboats and motorboats anchored off the beach, and helicopters and drones buzzed overhead.
“Here we are in the most beautiful place in the world,” Madonna, 65, told the crowd. Pointing out the ocean view, the mountains and the Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking the city, she added: “This place is magic.”
Madonna performed her classic hits, including “Like A Virgin” and “Hung Up.” For the introduction to “Like A Prayer,” her head was completely covered in a black cape, a rosary gripped in her hands.
The star paid an emotional tribute to “all the bright lights” lost to AIDS as she sang “Live to Tell,” with black and white photos of people who died from the illness flashing behind her.
Later, she was joined on stage by Brazilian artists Anitta and Pabllo Vittar.
Rio spent the last few days preparing itself for the performance.
An estimated 1.6 million people attended the show, G1 reported, citing Rio City Hall’s tourism agency. That is more than 10 times Madonna’s record attendance of 130,000 at Paris’ Parc des Sceaux in 1987. Madonna’s official website hyped the show as the biggest ever in her four-decade career.
