• Brazil
• Entertainment

Rio de Janeiro, May 4 (EFE).-

American pop icon Madonna turned Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach into the world’s biggest dancefloor on Saturday with a historic show attended by an estimated 1.5 million people.

The queen of pop performed one hit from her four-decade career after another for an audience of mostly women and the LGBT+ community who sang and danced for two-and-a-half hours.

The 65-year-old superstar did not disappoint those who waited up to 12 hours to see her and approached the public several times along the three catwalks that led out from the gigantic 812 m2 stage set up on the sands of Brazil’s most iconic beach.

She greeted the crowd there as well as the hundreds of people who attended the concert from dozens of boats anchored in the water.

The audience was already fired up by the time their idol appeared on stage at 10.36 pm local time (01:36 GMT Sunday), as American DJ Diplo was in charge of warming up the crowd with a selection that included several classics of the funk genre born in Rio’s favelas.

Madonna changed her outfit several times during the show and even wore a suit with the yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag, with which she also painted her nails.

She also won over the audience by bringing a group of child percussionists from a samba school to accompany her on “La Isla Bonita,” a song for which she wore the Brazilian soccer team shirt and during which she performed along with the popular singer and drag queen Pabllo Vittar.

Earlier, during “Vogue,” she had appeared on stage next to the popular Anitta, the only Brazilian with whom she has recorded a song.

There was also no shortage of applause for the numerous tributes she paid, mainly on the giant screens, to idols such as Prince and Michael Jackson, to Brazilian personalities who died of AIDS, such as the singer Cazuza, and to famous black leaders.

Saturday’s concert wrapped up the singer’s Celebration Tour commemorating her 40 years of career, in which she reviewed her entire catalogue, including hits such as ‘Like a Virgin,” “Holiday,” and “Like a Prayer.”

The concert was historic for Madonna, having never before performed in front of such a large crowd, but also for Rio, which recorded a mobilization of nearly 56 million euros for a single musical event and hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Although the authorities had not yet announced the official audience numbers by the end of the concert, it is likely that the American surpassed that achieved by the Rolling Stones in February 2006, when they also attracted 1.5 million people to Copacabana beach.

The same beach has been the scene of two other even bigger concerts, Rod Stewart’s in 1994 with 3.5 million people, and Brazilian Jorge Ben’s in 1993 with 3 million, which appear in the Guinness Book of Records. EFE cm/tw