Madonna took to the Place de la République in Paris very late Wednesday night for an impromptu mini-set to honor the 130 victims of the terror attacks that rocked the city last month.
Shortly after the singer’s Bercy Arena concert concluded, Madonna enlisted the help of guitarist Monte Pittman and her 10-year-old son David to sing a cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and a couple of other tunes on the streets of Paris as onlookers filmed the 2 a.m. performance.
She announced her “impromptu” street gig to her 1 million Twitter fans, telling them to “meet me there”:
“Everybody knows why we’re here,” Madonna told those gathered around, according to the Guardian. “We just want to sing a few songs about peace, just to spread love and joy, and to pay our honor and respect to the people who died almost four weeks ago. And to spread light… we all need it.”
The singer also performed the song “Ghosttown” off of her latest album, Rebel Heart, and her classic 1989 song “Like a Prayer.”
Earlier in the night, Madonna draped herself in the tri-color flag while performing La Marseillaise.
“We will not bend down to fear!” the singer reportedly told the crowd at Bercy Arena. I think of what happened almost four weeks ago now. The heart of Paris and the heart of France beats in the heart of each city. I came here when I was 20 and it was here, in Paris, that I decided to make music. Thank you Paris for planting that seed in my heart!”
Madonna was among the few artists who did not cancel their touring schedules in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris. At a show in Stockholm the night following the attack, the 57-year-old singer said that “only love” could change the world.
“Yes, there are people who have no respect for human life and there are people that do atrocious, degrading and unforgivable things to other human beings,” the singer said at the time, “but we will never ever, ever change this world that we live in if we do not change ourselves, if we do not change the way that we treat one another on a daily basis.”
“Only love will change the world,” she added. “But it’s very hard to love unconditionally and it’s very hard to love that which we do not understand, or that which is different than we are. But we have to or this will go on and on forever.”
Madonna’s world tour runs through the end of March. The singer’s thirteenth studio album, Rebel Heart, became her first album not to debut at No. 1 on the charts since 1998’s Ray of Light.
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