While working on my story in 2020, fond memories of Madonna’s Confessions On A Dance Floor era popped into my head completely out of nowhere. That album was released on November 9, 2005. I was living in Portland, Oregon, and it was a year after I began writing the first chapter, Madonna and Chris.
It had never dawned on me before, but Madonna must have begun working on that album when I presented the first rough draft to one of her fan sites in the UK in 2004. Because the first chapter started in the early 1980s and talked about how her music and the dance floor had saved my life, I could have very easily titled my story Confessions On A Dance Floor.
The Confessions Tour kicked off in Inglewood, California, on May 21, 2006, and I saw the show in Fresno, California, on June 5 and 6, 2006.
On December 29, 2020, a month after my sister passed away and during the COVID lockdown in California, I entered the following words into YouTube’s search engine: “Madonna Confessions Fresno.” What happened next was very strange, to say the very least. A video titled CT FRESNO appeared at the top of the page. The thumbnail for that video showed Madonna looking directly at Steven and me, whom I had invited to attend the show, and for whom I had purchased tickets. Stranger still, the video was 1:52:34 long.
What blew my mind the most was the author’s decision to use that image as the thumbnail. It was so strange! (Click on the following image to watch the video.)
Once I got over the fact that we appeared in the thumbnail, I went through the entire video to capture screenshots of other instances where we appeared with Madonna.
Our encounter of the first kind took place at the 7:16-minute mark during the song Future Lovers – I Feel Love. Madonna passed right by us.
Our encounter of the second kind took place at the 7:16-minute mark, and I remember this moment like it was yesterday. Madonna looked directly at me as she sang the lyrics “If it’s bitter at the start, it’s sweeter in the end!” during her performance of Get Together.
Our encounter of a third kind took place at the 39:24-minute mark during the song Isaac, which didn’t have much impact on me back in 2006 but had a completely different meaning by 2020. (Was I Isaac?)
Our encounter of the fourth kind occurred at the 1:09:18-minute mark during the song Let It Will Be, which the author used as the video’s thumbnail.
Our most special encounter of the night happened at the end of the show, at the 1:51:32-minute mark (again, my numbers), during the song “Hung Up,” which blew us both away.
The cameraman had positioned himself next to us, projecting our images onto the big screens. As we left the arena that night, people came up to us, stating they recognized us from our moment with Madonna.
I’m hung up
I’m hung up on you
Waiting for your call, Madonna.
Night and day
