Madonna Transforms Times Square Into Pride Month Party With Surprise Grindr Pop-Up Show
Categoria: Musica
The concert saw the Queen of Pop debut a brand-new Confessions II track.
Por Billboard | 05/06/2026
After teaming up with Grindr to take over the gayborhood grid in April, Madonna and the LGBTQ+ app joined forces on Thursday (June 4) to transform Times Square with a surprise Pride Month pop-up performance at a new venue, The Square. The venue is unusual in the sense that you don’t realize it’s a concert space until suddenly it is. One moment you’re looking at an LED screen in Times Square, the next moment its previously invisible walls are diving inward to reveal a performance space; it’s as if one of the Times Square skyscrapers suddenly opened up to reveal the coolest secret party going on behind the walls of the world’s most photographed intersection. And you don’t have to squint: 18,000 square feet of LED screens are there to help boost what’s going on inside the in-building space (at least until the walls close back up). At 6:27 p.m. ET, the more-or-less invisible doors of a Times Square LED screen opened to reveal the Queen of Pop’s surprise performance, which opened with the undeniable Confessions II jam “I Feel So Free” backed by Stuart Price on the turntables. (Price is the visionary producer behind her 2005 classic Confessions on a Dance Floor , who has returned to the studio for Confessions II .) After touching forefingers like God and Adam, Madonna and Price invited New York into their confessional jam session, which encompassed three tracks from Confessions II and three tracks from Confessions on a Dance Floor. “All right New York City, are you ready for this?” asked Madonna, a human who showed up to New York City in the late ’70s with $35, a dream and a lot of moxie and then conquered the world. “C’mon, gays. Happy Pride!” The Grindr-sponsored event opened with “I Feel So Free,” “Bring Your Love” (minus duet partner Sabrina Carpenter) and new track “Love Sensation.” Even in the live setting amid one of the world’s busiest intersections, “Love Sensation” felt like an astoundingly strong tease of Confession II — not a pop single, but a future fan favorite. After teasing Confessions II with a coterie of choreographed dancers, Madonna offered up a pinch-me medley of tracks from Confessions on a Dance Floor, starting with the low-key fave “Get Together,” moving into the saucy “I Love New York” and concluding with “Hung Up” (and briefly straddling the plastic barrier separating her from the crowd with her leg, naturally). Between the Confessions to Confessions II switchover, Madonna flipped the in-venue lights to the Pride flag and turned Times Square into a massive screening room for a montage of Pride’s radical, riotous roots. Of the audience, a select lucky group of fans caught the best vantage point of the 15-minute show from the TKTS red steps in Times Square, courtesy of Grindr; meanwhile, despite the on-street barriers, a slow but stea