Madonna

Want to be front and center at the Madonna concert? MTV and VH1 have teamed to present the MTV & VH1 "Front And Center With Madonna Contest." Beginning today, May 19th and continuing throughout June, you can get a chance to see Madonna live and up-close on her "Re-Invention" world tour, with exclusive tickets to see the show from the on-stage pit area.

10 tickets will be available on MTV.com and VH1.com for each U.S. tour date. And don't miss Madonna as she calls in to TRL today at 5pm ET/PT to formally announce the contest.

To enter for the first half of the tour dates, go to [url=http://www.mtv.com/onair/trl/madonna_front_center/]MTV.com[/url] beginning today, May 19th through June 10th. The contest will open for the second half of the dates on VH1.com beginning June 14th through June 28th. Check VH1.com for more info on the 14th. See below for a list of the dates w/MTV and VH1.

Madonna is proving just how devoted she is to Kabbalah by refusing to perform on Friday nights.

The mystical religion, based in Judaism, holds Friday nights as a holy time and, as a committed follower, Madonna, insists she won't play any of the dates on her forthcoming world tour on that day.

Her publicist Liz Rosenberg confirms: "She is observing Shabbat on Friday evenings."

So, not such a Material-istic girl after all...

Pop diva Madonna came under fire from Christians in Ireland on Friday after it was confirmed she would play her first ever Irish concert on a Sunday.

Madonna is due to play Slane Castle, 30 miles north of Dublin, on Sunday, August 29, the castle's owner Lord Henry Mount Charles confirmed.

He denied that Madonna, who has developed an interest in Jewish mysticism recently, had refused to play on Saturday because it is the Jewish Sabbath.

"It is the only date and day feasible," he said.

But Joe Deegan, Slane's parish priest, said the decision was insensitive in a country where 90 percent of the population is Roman Catholic.

"The Lord's Day for a lot of people around this part of the world is Sunday and it seems a bit inconsiderate and insensitive that our religious beliefs are not taken into account," he told RTE state radio on Friday.

Deegan said he was also concerned about the content of Madonna's notoriously raunchy stage show.

"It's very sexually provocative," he said, adding, however, that he would probably go to concert, whenever it was staged, because he enjoyed Madonna's music.

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Madonna's Maverick Records label sued Warner Music Group and Time Warner Inc. for breach of contract on Thursday, accusing the record company and its former parent of mismanagement and improper accounting that cost the singer and her partners millions of dollars.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between Madonna and Warner over Maverick, a joint venture the singer and record company launched in 1992.

In the suit, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Maverick accuses Warner Music and the other defendants of "engaging in acts of self-dealing and profit-taking, falsely accounting for receipts and expenses of the partnership ... and secretly attempting to seize partnership opportunities for their own benefit."

Maverick claims Warner violated the venture agreement by failing to pay for "guaranteed" services like radio promotion, marketing and sales meant to support Maverick artists.

The suit also contends Warner obscured label profits by using "artificial and improper accounting methodology to create the false impression of losses."

In a statement, Warner Music Group called Maverick's claims "baseless, unsubstantiated and without merit."

Madonna's Tadpole Records Inc. and companies owned by her label partners, Guy Oseary and Ronnie Dashev, are also named as plaintiffs.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the three partners have the right to end the joint partnership agreement and do business with other companies. Madonna and her partners also seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, which attorney Bert Fields estimated total more than $200 million.

"They feel that they have not been accounted to properly," Fields said. "They want fair accounting and they want damages for their losses."

The suit came a day after Warner filed a sealed lawsuit in Delaware, asking the court to affirm that Maverick's claims are baseless, according to the court documents filed Thursday in Los Angeles.