The night I touched Madonna

The time Madonna performed at the Roxy in 1998

 

I remember first hearing the rumor that Madonna was going to be at the Roxy from 103.5KTU, the local dance radio station in NYC. I knew that if I called Roxy to ask if she was going to be there on Valentine’s day that they would obviously say no, so I figured I should ask in a more roundabout way. I called them and said I was thinking about coming to their club on the 14^th and would I have to purchase tickets in advance (which is something you never had to do to go to Roxy). When they said yes, I would have to come to the club the week prior to purchase tickets, I KNEW Madonna was going to be there.

 

At the time, I was living on Long Island, post college graduation, so my friend and I took the hour long train ride into the city to go to the club to buy tickets. We patiently waited in line outside for the club to open and then, once getting inside, patiently waited again in a second line to buy the tickets. 

I guess I foolishly thought that like other concert events, I would be able to buy the tickets using a credit card, but I was wrong. It wasn’t until I was ten people away from the ticket window that I saw the sign “CASH ONLY.” Now, you have to understand, this was 1998. In 1998 they didn’t yet have ATMs in clubs and bars, so if you didn’t have cash in your wallet when you walked in the door, you weren’t able to get any cash inside the club.

 

I remember the sheer panic that hit me. Between me and my friend, neither of us had enough money to buy ONE ticket much less two. In desperation and without thinking, I turned to the man behind us and asked how much money he had. He asked me why and I told him that we didn’t have enough cash to buy two tickets, but that I had my checkbook in my bag in coat check and if he would spot me the cash, after I bought the tickets, I would immediately go and write him a check for the money. He took out his wallet which was filled with more money than I had ever seen in a wallet, pulled out the cash (I believe it was 80 bucks for the two tickets) and said I could just mail him the check.

 

I purchased the tickets and then promptly waited for him to buy his so we could exchange addresses. At the time, it was the nicest thing a stranger in NYC had ever done for me. Of course, I promptly mailed him the check the very next day.

 

The following week, my friend and I, yet again, took the treck into the city. We were about ten people from the front of the line to get into Roxy. Naturally I was freaked out I wasn’t going to be close enough. When we got into the club, my friend and I went immediately up to the security gates around the stage and stood, stage left, mid-way along the catwalk, and waited…FOR FIVE HOURS. The rest of the club was happening around us, people drinking, dancing, having fun, but I was not there for that. I was there for Madonna. and if I was going to see Madonna in a small club, there was no way in hell I was going to be all the way in the back. I would be as close as I could.

 

And was I ever close!

 

Madonna came onstage shortly after 2am. Apparently she wouldn’t go on until the security guards knelt down. It was rumored she didn’t want them standing up and disrupting the show.

 

When the lights went down and the music to Sky Fits Heaven begun, people were still in denial that she was actually there (and remember, by that day, we had only heard Frozen, no other songs from Ray of Light had been released, so her setlist was brand new, never-been-heard music). She had draped her head with a black veil and I remember thinking as this figure stood there all in black, how small and tiny the person was. That it couldn’t be Madonna. Madonna wasn’t tiny. She was larger than life. She was a Queen! But the moment she took the veil off, EVERYONE knew it was her. And suddenly everybody in the club wanted to be exactly where my friend and I were standing. The push from the crowd behind us was immense – almost frightening. My friend was tiny like Madonna and me and the guy we had been chatting with had to create a wall around her, pushing us off the gate with all our strength, to prevent us from being crushed into the security fences.

 

Madonna started making her way along the catwalk, reaching down to the fans. I just remember thinking “I have to touch Madonna” which seems like such a silly thing to want when I see it in writing, but in the presence of an icon like Madonna, there is no logic. When she came over to stage left where I was standing and reached her hand down, I put my hand up and she grabbed hold. For what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only for a mere moment, her crystal clear blue eyes locked into mine and I swore I could hear her voice coming out of her mouth. The face that I had watched in countless music videos and interviews and concert footage and seen in so many photographs was actually there three feet away, directly in front of me.

 

She followed Sky Fits Heaven with Shanti and then closed the set with the 11-minute version of Ray of Light. I remember her saying how “fucking great it feels” to be back in a club on stage performing. And during Ray of Light she had a funny moment (“oops, I forgot about my guitar solo”) and got down on her knees and strummed air guitar. Listening to Ray of Light for the first time, with it’s whirring and soaring sound and pulsing beat was euphoric and fantastic. I didn’t know what she was doing. It was a sound unlike anything I had heard from her. And it was fantastic.

 

And just like that, she was gone. Twenty minutes of sheer unbridled pleasure.

 

As the remix to Frozen played on the Roxy speakers post-performance I would continue to be struck with the delight of having just touched Madonna. I would just start jumping up and down shouting “I touched Madonna! I touched Madonna!”

 

I coincidentally live directly around the corner from where the hallowed halls of the Roxy once stood (it is now a gallery space). Every time I pass by the building, I always smile and think that’s where I had one of the most unforgettable evenings of my life and made contact with the Queen.

Follow me on Twitter: @stefanmreczko