Gloria Gaynor reacts to Madonna’s ‘I Will Survive’ Celebration Tour cover
Madonna performed Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive at Celebrations Tour. (Twitter/@gloriagaynor/Getty)
US disco icon Gloria Gaynor has taken to social media to share her reaction to Madonna’s acoustic cover of her 1978 hit “I Will Survive” on the Celebration Tour.
The Queen of Pop, Madonna, kicked off her extravagant Celebration Tour on Saturday (14 October) to riotous praise as she paid homage to her acclaimed four-decade music career.
The 65-year-old “Vogue” singer was forced to delay the tour after being rushed to the ICU in June for a serious “bacterial infection”, making her concert comeback even more powerful.
The greatest hits tour – supported by Drag Race icon Bob the Drag Queen – has already featured several memorable moments from the musical legend, including donning the Progress Pride flag, commemorating her friends who died from AIDS, and opening up about her health scare earlier this year.
No song better encapsulates the highs and lows of Madonna’s enduring fame than Gaynor’s disco anthem “I Will Survive”, which the singer performed during her London O2 Arena dates.
In a clip from the performance shared by Gaynor, 80, Madonna sang a stripped back version with a clear nod to her time in hospital.
After singing the lyrics “Did you think I’d lay down and die?”, the superstar shouts out to the audience “did you?” to which they roar back “no”, before the singer barrels into the empowering chorus.
“Madonna congratulations on the launch of The Celebration Tour at The O2,” Gaynor wrote in the caption. “So happy that you are in good health and ready to have a holiday with fans around the world! By the way, you have excellent taste in music!”
During the tour’s opening night, Madonna spoke about her “terrifying” experience after waking up in hospital. “I forgot five years of my life, or my death — I don’t really know where I was,” she told the sold-out crowd.
“But the angels were protecting me, and my children were there. And my children always save me every time. If you want to know my secret and you want to know how I pulled through and survived, I thought, ‘I have to be there for my children. I have to survive for them’.”
Madonna has five children: Lourdes, 27; Rocco, 23; David, 18; Mercy, 17; and twins Stella and Estere, 11.
On Saturday night, Estere took to the stage to dance to “Vogue” as she strutted down the runway in a black and yellow Versace one-piece. Lourdes, who was also present, then gave Estere a 10/10 by holding up a ballroom-style scorecard on stage in a sweet family moment.
Elsewhere, Mercy played the grand piano behind Madonna’s “Bad Girl”.
You can find out more about Madonna’s greatest hits Celebration Tour, with dates planned for the UK, Europe, North America and Mexico across 2023 and 2024, here.
