{"id":716096,"date":"2026-06-05T03:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716096\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T03:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T03:36:12","slug":"madonna-shuts-down-times-square-with-wild-surprise-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/716096\/","title":{"rendered":"Madonna shuts down Times Square with wild surprise performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madonna shut down Times Square, New York with a surprise performance this morning that was streamed live worldwide on YouTube.<\/p>\n

The singer is on the publicity trail for her upcoming studio album Confessions on a Dance Floor II, which will be released in four weeks. Fans only got a day\u2019s notice that Madonna had a live performance planned for Times Square, but flocked in their thousands to watch the show.<\/p>\n

Eventually, a Times Square video screen opened to show Madonna, 67, flanked by backup dancers and DJ \/ producer Stuart Price as they ran through a six-song set of songs both from the new album and its 2005 predecessor, Confessions on a Dance Floor.<\/p>\n

At one point in the set, Madonna \u2013 who flashed fans on Instagram<\/a> earlier this week as she wished them a happy Pride month \u2013 straddled a speaker as she lay on a rotating stage. <\/p>\n

Other moments from the show saw her grinding her crotch against female dancers and, in one slightly nerve-racking moment, hanging one leg over the clear safety barricade that was her only protection from falling on to the street many metres below:<\/p>\n

\"Madonna<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I screamed \u201cmadonna no don\u2019t!!!!\u201d when she was hanging over the barricade!\u201d one fan tweeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart dropped,\u201d commented another fan, while another said they were \u201cscared to death\u201d – all still clearly remember the infamous moment at the 2016 Brit Awards when Madonna was yanked backwards down a flight of stairs by her cape mid-performance. <\/p>\n

The live concert coincided with the release<\/a> of the latest song from the new album, Love Sensation.<\/p>\n

Madonna performed that song as well as the two other tracks so far released from Confessions II, before taking it back to 2005 with three songs in a row from the first Confessions album: Get Together, I Love New York and the global number one smash Hung Up. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an unusual release strategy so far for Madonna, six years on from the release of her lowest-selling album Madame X.<\/p>\n

Three songs in, no music video has yet been released for the project \u2013 but Madonna will debut a 10-minute \u2018short film\u2019 set to several songs from the album at New York\u2019s Tribeca Film Festival this weekend. <\/p>\n

Madonna live at Times Square setlist<\/p>\n

1. I Feel So Free<\/p>\n

2. Bring Your Love<\/p>\n

3. Love Sensation<\/p>\n

4. Get Together<\/p>\n

5. I Love New York<\/p>\n

6. Hung Up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madonna shut down Times Square, New York with a surprise performance this morning that was streamed live worldwide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":["post-716096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}