On Throne, Onstage, Online And On Cellphone

HALFWAY through her 32-minute set on Wednesday night at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan — a promotional show for her new album, “Hard Candy,” that was attended by 2,200 lucky, screamy fans — Madonna offered a message of sympathy. “All you people I saw sleeping in the street last night,” she announced, holding a jet-black electric guitar, “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 admirers, the chance to see her do a free, stripped-down version of a stadium show, with a team of backup dancers and a guest appearance by Justin Timberlake — and in a room minuscule by her usual touring standards — was something worth waiting for. And waiting for a very long time.

Madonna played six songs, four from “Hard Candy,” which was released on Tuesday. But the line outside Roseland, on West 52nd Street, formed 60 hours before showtime. 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 wristbands that guaranteed free admission.

Erica Gabriel, a 28-year-old makeup artist, waited through the night in line with friends. Once wristbanded sometime after 6 a.m., she returned home to prepare her elaborate, swooping hairstyle and what she called her “stewardess-Madonna-tricky-tranny look.”

“Gays don’t camp out,” said one of Ms. Gabriel’s friends, as the group laughed, “but we’ll camp out for this.”

There is something almost quaint about an overnight line for concert spots in an era of Internet presales and text-message ordering. But Madonna’s show 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 cellphones worldwide by Verizon and Vodafone. In addition to the spots given to fans on the line — that’s on a line, not online — about 1,000 went to radio and Internet contest winners, and 200 to members of Madonna’s social-networking fan club.

And at 49, Madonna is 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 deal with the touring giant Live Nation that would encompass recordings, tours, merchandising and other revenue sources; it is valued at a reported $120 million.

Billboard said on Wednesday that the first-day sales of “Hard Candy” exceeded 100,000 copies in the United States, giving it a good chance of being next week’s No. 1.

Not that 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 were filled with business parties.

“I don’t have to go to another media event for a year,” she said. “This tops them all.”

The room roared with “Omigods” and lighted up with digital-camera flashes when Madonna emerged at 10:09 p.m. from behind a revolving stage barrier, dressed in shiny black and wearing lace-up boots. Backed by a band whose members worked in the far corners of the stage, she opened with “Candy Shop,” a new song with a bubbly synth hook that was a ringer for a 1980s club hit.

Next, holding an acoustic guitar and with computer graphics whizzing over the screens behind her, she played another new one, the wistful “Miles Away.” But big roars returned when Mr. Timberlake emerged in a sharp white jacket and black scarf for the third number, “4 Minutes,” and joined Madonna in some dirty dancing that had slight bondage overtones — with Madonna dominant, of course.

The show was swift clockwork. At 10:23, right after “4 Minutes,” Madonna picked out the riff to the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on the electric guitar and led a grungy version of “Hung Up.” At 10:32 there was a slight costume change — she put on a black zip-up top with “HARD” in silver letters on the front and “CANDY” on the back — and, with a team of b-boy backup dancers, sang another high-energy, retro-electro new song, “Give It 2 Me.”

Then came “Music” from 2000, much dancing and a quick makeup and hair fix in the wings. By 10:42, Madonna and her dancers had swung back through the revolving wall, and the lights went up.

Some had waited for more than two days for a half-hour show. But no one seemed to be complaining.

“I had the time of my life tonight,” said Jeanrené St. Pierre, a fan-club contest winner from Montreal who wore a “BOYTOY” necklace. “Of course it was worth it.”

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