Madonna kicks off world tour

Veteran Queen of Pop gets Sticky and Sweet in Cardiff

Madonna kicked off her world tour in grand style last night (August 23) by taking to the stage of Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on a throne.

The star, who turned 50 just a few days ago, wore a sparkly black one-piece outfit designed by Givenchy and was surrounded by dancers in top hats and tails for the start of the Sticky and Sweet 51 date tour.

Madonna's husband, film director Guy Ritchie, and children Lourdes, Rocco and David, were amongst those in the 40,000-strong audience - far from capacity for the massive venue.

During the show, Madonna was joined by Kanye West, Britney Spears and Pharrell Williams who had all recorded special video spots.

Working through tracks from new album 'Hard Candy', she also plucked from her rich back catalogue.

'Vogue', 'Die Another Day', 'La Isla Bonita' and 'Get Into The Groove' were all dusted down for the set. The show was divided into four parts - Pimp, Old School, Gypsy and Rave. The roof of the stadium was shut during the gig which involved 250 crew, £1m of jewellery, 16 dancers and eight costume changes.

Madonna's last full tour was in 2006 and became the highest-grossing by a female artist at the time, with ticket sales of $195m (£105m).

Madonna takes the tour to mainland Europe, playing six shows starting on August 26 in Nice's Stade Charles Ehrmann before returning to the UK for a show at Wembley Stadium on September 11.