Madonna performed for an enthusiastic crowd at New York City’s famed Roseland Ballroom on April 30.

Halfway through her 32-minute set on Wednesday night at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan, Madonna offered a message of sympathy.

“All you people I saw sleeping in the street last night,” she said, “this song is for you.”

It was “Hung Up,” about the agony of waiting. And as she finished the song, she added, just in case the message wasn’t clear: “Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate to wait.”

New York may be a city of the impatient, but for Madonna’s fans, Wednesday’s show proved that seeing her for free in a 2,200-capacity hall — minuscule by her usual touring standards — was something worth waiting for. And waiting for a very long time.

The line outside Roseland, on West 52nd Street, formed 60 hours before show time. By late Tuesday it had stretched around the block as the faithful stood and sat and slept and caffeinated themselves for the chance to score one of the 750 wrist bands that would guarantee free admission.

[…]

There is something almost quaint about an overnight line for concert tickets in an era of Internet pre-sales and ordering by text message. But Madonna’s show, to promote her new album, “Hard Candy,” was also part of a technologically sophisticated, 21st-century product rollout that involved multiple media tie-ins. It was broadcast live on the Internet by MSN and on cell phones worldwide by Verizon and Vodafone. In addition to the 750 spots given to fans on the line — that’s on a line, not online — about 1,000 were given to radio contest winners, and 200 to members of Madonna’s fan club, which now has a social-networking component.

And at 49, Madonna remains on the entrepreneurial vanguard of the music business. “Hard Candy” is her last album for her longtime label, Warner Brothers; in October she announced a new deal with the touring giant Live Nation that will encompass recordings, tours, merchandising and various other projects, and is valued at $120 million.

Not that all of the Music Biz 2.0 stuff mattered much to the people who crammed into Roseland on Wednesday, even those who breathe media and marketing. One of them was Tanesha Fields, a pretty 26-year-old who works in advertising and said her nights are filled with business parties. “I don’t have to go to another media event for a year,” she said. “This tops them all.”

Source: For Madonna Fans, the Wait Is Worth It

Find many more photos:

• Popcrunch - Madonna Concert Photos Roseland Ballroom New York City
• All About Madonna - Madonna at Roseland Ballroom

Here is video from the concert, still available on YouTube as of this writing.

“4 Minutes” ft. Justin Timberlake

“Candy Shop”

“Give It 2 Me”