Sabrina Carpenter‘s Coachella weekend two headlining set on Friday night became one of the festival’s most memorable moments in recent history, when Madonna crashed the stage for a show-stopping surprise appearance.
The Queen of Pop emerged during Carpenter’s performance of “Juno” — at the song’s iconic pose moment — as the track cut into Madonna’s “Vogue” medley, with the two pop stars performing the 1990 classic together to a frenzy from the crowd.
The pair then appeared to perform an unreleased track together, widely believed to be from Confessions II, Madonna’s long-awaited sequel to her 2005 dance landmark Confessions on a Dance Floor, due July 3 via Warner Records.
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Before closing out with “Like a Prayer,” Madonna addressed the crowd directly, tying the moment to a personal Coachella milestone.
“20 years ago today I performed at Coachella — I was at the dance tent,” she said from the stage. “It was the first time I performed Confessions from the dancefloor. Same boots, same corsets… it’s like a full circle moment.”
She then noted the astrological significance of the evening: “I also want to point out it’s the new moon of Taurus. Seven planets lined up in Aries… avoid confrontations. In all circumstances — for the rest of the month — let’s try to get along, let’s try to be together, let’s try to avoid disagreements.” Carpenter, for her part, leaned into the moment: “She’s pointing to me because I’m a Taurus.”
Madonna’s 2006 Coachella performance served as a warm-up for the launch of her Confessions Tour, which went on to gross over $194 million from 60 shows and became the highest-grossing tour by a female artist at that time.
Her return to the same stage two decades later, performing the same era’s music ahead of its sequel, gave Friday night’s appearance a rare sense of full-circle weight that the crowd felt viscerally.
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Confessions II — due July 3 on Warner Records — is produced by Stuart Price, who helmed the original Confessions on a Dance Floor, and will be released as a non-stop mix echoing the format of the 2005 album. It marks Madonna’s first full-length album in seven years and her first for Warner Records since Hard Candy in 2008.
Madonna released “I Feel So Free,” her first single off her upcoming album, “Confessions II,” on Friday, just hours before the Coachella Weekend kicked off.
The appearance made for a considerably more musically star-studded set than Carpenter’s weekend one showing, where guest appearances were limited to actors Susan Sarandon, Will Ferrell and Sam Elliott.
The weekend, Actress Geena Davis also joined for a spoken word monologue — mirroring Sarandon’s cameo from the prior weekend — while Terry Crews appeared mid-set to poke fun at his iconic role in White Chicks and lightly sing “A Thousand Miles.”
Carpenter’s Coachella headline run concludes her blockbuster run behind her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and produced the top five Hot 100 hit “Espresso.” Madonna, meanwhile, heads toward the July release of Confessions II — one of the most anticipated pop albums of the year.
