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You can call her Miss Madonnalicious or simply
Clare. She runs from London, England, one of the best internet
resources about Madonna, winner of the People's Choice Award
as Best Unofficial Music Website at the Digital
Music Awards 2004. A Madonna fan since 1984, Clare Parmenter
shares her memories of a Re-Invented Summer. |
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MT: Hi Clare, welcome on MadonnaTribe.
Many people during the pre tour period had the chance to choose
between reading previews and teaser info provided by Madonna
news sites or stay spoiler free.
As the webmistress of Madonnalicious.com
you didn't have that option. Do you regret it somehow?
CP: In a way I regret not being able to keep
the show a surprise for myself, but I kept myself away from
audio and video clips of the tour until I saw the show for
the first time in London, so although I knew
the look of the show from all the fan and press pictures,
the actual re-invention of the songs and the dance routines
were still a surprise for me.
Any videos I edited and put online before I saw the show,
I did with the sound turned down, and I only checked the joins
between clips!
MT: With Madonnalicious you were very helpful
to fans with information and updates, and at the same time
being a reference for those willing to share their memories
and reviews. We know it was really a full-time job as MadonnaTribe
provided a similar service. What's the best and the worst
side
of such an experience?
CP: It was so busy and hard to keep up with
all the submissions to madonnalicious!
However without the fans input I wouldn't have been able to
provide such a great record of the tour.
Overall I think I had about 2000 fan pictures and over 500
fan reports that I put online.
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About
a month or show into the tour I managed to get a routine for
putting tour reports and pictures online.
I would come home from work, check my email and go through all
the reports and pictures that had been sent to me and then upload
them to the site. It was much better when Madonna started to
do longer speeches as that would provide me with a great headline
for the previous show, and once the tour moved to Europe the
fact that the shows were happening in the same time zone as
me made things a lot easier in publishing things more quickly.
MT: What do you think about the re-invention
tour and do you see a difference with the previous show, the
Drowned World tour?
CP: This tour was fantastic, I really felt
she was connecting with the fans and showing her appreciation
for them a lot more. I loved the Drowned World
tour but she felt a lot more distant in that show compared to
this tour.
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MT: This was the second time Madonna performed at
Earls Court. Did you feel any difference
in the fans, the audience, and everything "around"
the show?
CP: There was a lot less cowboy hats this
time around! LOL
There didn't seem to be such a big hype this time around,
which I guess was because she had only toured three years
ago compared to the eight year gap between The Girlie
Show and the Drowned World tour.
It also seemed a little disjointed by Madonna performing two
shows at Earls Court and then moving onto
Wembley Arena for her final four shows in
London compared with a six-night residency at Earls Court
for the DWT.
MT: What's your favourite moment of the re-Invention
tour?
CP: I could never pick one particular favourite
but I have a series of 'moments'.
These include the key change when the burning wedding dress
appears in The Beast Within, the fabulous
dancing in Nobody Knows Me, Madonna flicking
the V sign at the end of the catwalk in American Life,
Madonna licking Monte's hand during Burning Up,
Cloud's breakdancing in Hollywood, the shooting
stars background video in Deeper and Deeper,
during Nothing Fails when all the fans would
sing 'You're the one' and point at Madonna, the picture of
her Mother during Mother And Father, John
Lennon's face appearing in the Imagine video
and the fans' reaction to it, the leap out of the stage for
Into The Groove, the dedication to the fans
before Crazy For You, the music and dance
between Music and Holiday,
the confetti...
Guess thats just about everything!
MT: The Re-Invention tour
was also an amazing chance for fans from all over the world
to meet each other.
Many people who only had online relationshiops finally met
in person and this was quite an experience for a lot of them.
Do you have any special memory about it?
CP: Yes I finally got to meet in person some
people I had been speaking to online since her last tour,
and it was great to put faces to names!
I was sad that I missed some people though but hopefully when
Madonna tours again I will meet them then!
Also I found that by wearing a tshirt saying 'Madonnalicious
Does It Better' - shameless self promotion I'm afraid ;) that
people would come up to me and say Hi, so I also made some
new friends that way.
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MT: As many other fans you've had the chance to see
the show from the pit. How would you describe that experience
that really makes people become part of the show.
CP: I was very lucky to see the show twice from the
pits and from both the stage right and stage left pit.
For a start you are literally in the stage and with me being
such a shortie my chin was on the same level as the stage floor!
It was an amazing experience being so close to the action on
stage, you also got to see things that the rest of the audience
couldn't see, like the fantastic satistified smile Madonna
made as the light's went down after she had performed Frozen,
and when she mouthed the word 'WOW' to Stuart Price
at the crowd's reaction to the show and how she mouthed to her
dancers that her throat hurt just before she was about to sing
The Lament.
I also had the pleasure to have Madonna hold my hand as she
sang a line from Deeper and Deeper, she held
my hand so gently and looked right into my eyes.
On a funnier note I was always scared that during Express
Yourself when the dancers were drilling with their
rifles and swinging them around that I was going to get one
right in the face as they were so close to the pits.
Watch out for the Re-Invention tour documentary though as cameras
were in the pits so fans should be able to experience a dance
pit eye view of the show! |
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MT: We've been told you had the chance to
take a look backstage of the re-Invention tour in London.
What's your impressions about seing the show being prepared
till the last minute and got any scoops for us?
CP: Although it was very busy, everyone knew
exactly what they had to be doing and there was a 'calm' to
the chaos!
No great scoops to share but the sweetest thing I saw was
when Madonna rose out of the stage and started to sing Nothing
Fails, Guy came from backstage and
stood behind her out of view from the audience just quietly
watching his missus do her stuff and all her fans reacting
to her.
MT: On the first Wembley
show in London you brought home a special piece of memorabilia.
The t-shirt Madonna herself threw at the
audience. Could you describe for us what happened in that
blink of an eye moment?
CP: She carefully squashed the tshirt into
a ball and seemed to aim it at me, the tshirt seemed to travel
high into the air and then everything went into slow motion,
the tshirt seemed to stop in mid air above me and then dropped
straight into my arms.. and then everything went mad!
Before I knew it hands from all around me had grabbed onto
the tshirt but I didn't want to let you, luckily my friends
Brian and Daniel helped
me out saying to people that I had caught it fair and square
and people relunctantly let go.
With that I put on the tshirt for safe keeping and danced
like mad for the rest of the show! However once people found
out that I ran madonnalicious they were actually quite pleased
and said that I deserved it for all my work on the site.
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MT: Are you happy with the shows you attended or there's
one in particular in the tour schedule, including the American
ones, that you might have wanted to see?
CP:I was so lucky to see eight shows in total,
all the London shows and the last two shows in Paris.
I got to see it twice from the pits, and I even experienced
the fosse debut in the last show in Paris which was to say at
least an interesting experience!
If I could have seen anymore I think it would have to have been
the opening night in Los Angeles and the closing
night in Lisbon but honestly with the experiences
I had on this tour I am so grateful for the shows I did see,
the people I met and the memories I have!
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