Like a Virgin: My account of this concert has to be read with several things in mind. This was to be my first Madonna show. I'm not exactly a hip concertgoer – I saw Bob Dylan, once – about 25 years after he was considered trendy. So I entered the world of Madonna, the world of beautiful people and people who can actually put together "outfits" consisting of clothes that are color-coordinated, no less, with my eyes still fresh.

Plus, it must be said, I have never been a big Madonna fan. I wondered what it would be like being the only straight guy in attendance. OK, that statement is silly and way too broad. But come on.

Material Girl: Here I will resist the temptation to make obvious cracks about the Madonna merchandise that was apparently moving briskly. Believe it or not, I somehow resisted the temptation to buy a $40 t-shirt adorned with a Madonna iron-on. I hope my decision doesn't take any caviar from Baby Rocco's table.

Dress You Up: As I scanned the crowd in the MCI Center, I noticed that many people were indeed looking rather stylish. Just on the way up to my seat I saw plenty of women wearing sexy outfits with cool hats and leopard print tops...unfortunately, most of them seemed to be about Madonna's age. Nothing against that generation, but I already knew the star herself was starting to show it. I wasn't ready to be confronted with the fact her fan base is aging, too. Emulating your idol is OK, but even Madonna doesn't try to get away with some of these outfits anymore, know what I mean?

Lucky Star: I came to see Madonna because I wanted to see a true superstar. Little did I know it would be like observing an actual star-I mean in the sense that she was light years away from our seats. We were WAY up in the MCI Center and even behind the stage a little bit. It was like we weren't really watching Madonna, but the light given off by Madonna. I think I was technically seeing not what she was doing, but what she had done five minutes ago. So take another grain of salt along with my review: a lot of what I saw was very…small. I did try to resist the urge to watch the giant video screens. I came to see Madonna, even if it was Mini-Madonna!

After the epic trek to the top of the building, I sat down, taking care not to bump my head on the ceiling lights. The women beside us said they spent $750 for their tickets. If I wasn't conserving my breath in the thin air at that high altitude, I might have burst out laughing. Right away I had something to make me feel better about the seats-they didn't cost 750 dollars.

Erotica: I could make some pompous academic theories on what the choreography and the music and the videos meant, but when it comes down to it, usually a pretty good assumption is that what she is doing is all about sex. Except the part where she brought out a stagehand, bent over directly in front of him and started shaking. I don't know what that was all about.

Causing a Commotion: I suppose her birthday shout-out to 1-year-old Rocco wasn't about sex, but sex did create him, I guess. Rocco's mom did add a little bit of violence to the proceedings. Once she pretended to fire a gun at someone's head (nobody seemed particularly disturbed by this), and one of the coolest parts of the concert was her little scene of martial arts action. She kicked and chopped her way through a group of bad guys that rushed the stage. That's about all there was to that segment, but it still had more plot and character development than all of Rush Hour 2. She also threw out a few f-bombs and wore a shirt with a naughty word on it-is that her idea of staying "relevant"? Hey, I said the same word about 5 times when I saw where my seat was, but that doesn't make me hip. (No, the fact that I am still bitching about it in this story makes me hip. I hope)

Justify My Love: As a straight male, (is it wrong or just insecure to keep saying that?) It would have added to my enjoyment of the show if I found Madonna attractive…but frankly, I don't. The idea of Madonna has always been sexier than Madonna herself, and even her ideas don't always do that much for me. Now that she is 43 and a mother and all the rest, it all seems too forced and manufactured. When a clip from Austin Powers preceded her rendition of "Beautiful Stranger" and Madonna asked the audience "Do I make you horny?" I think I was the only one who shouted back, "No!"

Borderline: What I find sexy and what Madonna finds sexy are different things. For example, she finds a woman on the verge of having her head chopped off by a samurai sword sexy. I personally don't. Now, show me a construction worker threatening to smash Madonna's skull with a sledgehammer-THAT would be sexy.

I'm kidding, of course. I thought Madonna, too, was kidding when between costume changes she sent guys in skintight outfits to hang upside down from gymnastics rings. Some found that erotic. I found it silly. Worse, I kept expecting John Tesh to start describing the action.

This type of show just really isn't my thing. The dance numbers and the elaborate choreography seemed to please a lot of the people, but I found it all too similar to the sort of stuff Debbie Allen got laughed out of the Oscars for presenting. Maybe it was over my head, but trust me, given our seat locations, the only thing over my head was the roof.

Into the Groove: The crowd was eagerly hanging on most everything Madonna did. It was almost like "Ooh, Madonna can play guitar!" "Ooh, Madonna can do kung fu!" "Ooh, Madonna can swear!" And no matter whether it was good guitar playing, exciting kung fu or genuine spontaneous profanity (I'm pretty sure that last one is a "No"), most all in attendance would have eaten it up.

Surprisingly, to me at least, there wasn't a real party vibe to the evening. Many of the songs were slow to mid-tempo, even songs like "La Isla Bonita" were reworked into something less festive, and there wasn't a whole lot of audience interaction. The crowd enjoyed itself the whole night, but the joyous reaction at the end to "Holiday," a truly old-school Blonde One hit and a feel-good party number, seemed to be a release from a crowd with a pent-up desire to party but no real chance to cut loose until then.

Music...makes the people...come together: After the high point of "Holiday," it was encore time. The song, "Music," is indeed a popular and acclaimed single. Maybe it's because all I ever liked about it was that the cartoon Madonna in the video looks cool, but I thought this song was a bit of an anticlimax as a finisher. It just lacked the energy that would have sent everyone out on a higher note.

Take a Bow: Really, though, was it "music" that brought people together on this evening? Or was it spectacle-the promise of a big show and the chance just to bask in the Madonna-ness of a pop icon who actually deserves to be called a pop icon?

Uh, well, if I didn't think the answer was "Yes," I wouldn't even have written the question. On that level I was somewhat underwhelmed by the concert. There was nothing that really wowed me. I did think the songs, most of which came from her last few albums, came off pretty well live. However, this show was about not just music, but also dancing, stunts, and visuals. On that level I wasn't wowed.

Then again, what do I know? I'm not in the Cult of Madonna, and those that are probably had a fabulous evening. My perspective also may have been skewed by the fact that I watched the concert from a different zip code than the actual stage. I can't really put a dollar value on the evening. The obvious joke in that last sentence seems inappropriate now that Madonna is a mother of two, and maybe that is part of the problem. It was a reasonably entertaining event, though, and it would be silly to say I did or didn't get my money's worth. I know this, though: I'm sure glad I didn't have to get $750 worth.