Madonna is coming to St. Paul again, and this time she's promising the hits

Her third stop at Xcel Energy Center comes a few week into her Celebration Tour, marking four decades in music.

January 17, 2023 at 6:25PM
Madonna performs at the Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2015. (Robert Gauthier, TNS/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Madonna is coming back to Xcel Energy Center in 2023, and unlike her prior two appearances at the St. Paul arena she's promising to delve heavily into her hits.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer's so-called Celebration Tour — promoted as a nod to her "four decades of greatest hits" — will land at the St. Paul arena on July 30.

Tickets to the Sunday night concert go on sale to the public via Ticketmaster on Jan. 27, with presale options including early access for Citi Card members beginning Jan. 23 and 24. As usual, tour promoter Live Nation (which owns Ticketmaster) is not letting the public know ticket prices ahead of the on-sale date for the publicly owned arena.

Madonna announced the tour with a cheeky, tawdry, star-studded promotional video spoofing her iconic 1991 documentary "Truth or Dare." The video ends with comedian Amy Schumer "daring" her into this newly announced hits tour, which kicks off two weeks before St. Paul in Vancouver and continues well into the fall in Europe.

The Midwesterner-turned-global-pop-star, now 64, skipped Minnesota on her last outing, the Madame X Tour in 2019-2020. She included Xcel Center on her Rebel Heart and MDNA tours in 2015 and 2012, respectively, but in both cases she favored newer songs over her best-known classics and/or performed the older hits as medleys or with altered arrangements.

Ranked as the top-selling female artist of all time, with more than 300 million albums sold, Madge has racked up 12 No. 1 hit singles since her 1983 self-titled debut album — from 1984's "Like a Virgin" up through 2000's "Music." Others chart-toppers in between included "Like a Prayer," "Papa Don't Preach," "Vogue," "Open My Heart" and "Justify My Love."

about the writer

Chris Riemenschneider

Critic / Reporter

Chris Riemenschneider has been covering the Twin Cities music scene since 2001, long enough for Prince to shout him out during "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)." The St. Paul native authored the book "First Avenue: Minnesota's Mainroom" and previously worked as a music critic at the Austin American-Statesman in Texas.

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