The year is 2004, and celebrity privacy has died in its Hollywood home, sources told TMZ.
Tabloid culture, where the exploitation of a celebrity's life goes for $2.50 a pop at your local supermarket, went dot-com in the early 2000s.
With the internet, pop star gossip was as accessible as it had ever been.
Search engines like Google and Yahoo! made it easy to know exactly what the most polarizing figures in the world were up to. And in 2010, Yahoo! reported that the most-searched public figure in the world in the 2000s wasn't a politician. It wasn't an actor or actress, either.
By the turn of the century, Spears was already one of the biggest stars in the world, and the '00s turned her into the most obvious victim of the pre-social media gossip renaissance.
People are also reading…
The singer's '90s records "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again," which came out when she was still a teen, went nuclear. To this day, they're two of the 50 best-selling albums of all time, with title track hits that devoured audience attention and barely scratched the surface of her hit-making talent.
Spears was dubbed the "princess of pop," the next in line after Madonna's chart-topping, buzz-generating run in the '80s.
Britney Spears performs at The Mark of the Quad-Cities in 2004.
FILEFront-page magazine stories about Spears were ruthless. Nothing was off limits. Outlets sensationalized stories about her relationship with *NSYNC star Justin Timberlake, her virginity, her marriage to performer Kevin Federline, her children, her appearance and her sexuality.
In 2008, a Rolling Stone cover story called Spears' story a tragedy and the most "public downfall of any star" in music history.
Spears first played at The Mark of the Quad-Cities in 2000. On March 18, 2004, she came back with a show that added a chapter to the tumultuous Britney Spears story.
'Bubblegum glam and strip club sleaze'
Ahead of the concert, the Quad-City Times ran a timeline of Spears' story, to prime fans for what to know. There were the early days, when the singer starred alongside Timberlake on the "Mickey Mouse Club." Then, there was the shopping mall tour, the Super Bowl Halftime Show, the 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander, and â€" most recently in 2004 â€" the provocative music video for hit song "Toxic."
The concert itself, which 9,000 fans attended, seemed secondary to the commotion. But Spears' set, which lasted 90 minutes and was narrated by an "Onyx Hotel" concierge in drag attire, was as eclectic as her history.
"Straddling the line between bubblegum glam and strip club sleaze, Spears laid down a high-energy theatrical spectacle," Sean Leary and Brandy Welvaert wrote in the Moline Dispatch review of the show.
The singer first took the stage in a skin-tight latex outfit and purple cape. She changed multiple times, balancing intricate dance choreography with "simulated sex acts" on stage. A bed was pulled on stage for "Breathe on Me," according to Sean Moeller's review in the Times.
The singer, though, poked fun at her reputation, joking with fans about a few of the most recent tabloid headlines. Songs like "Touch of My Hand" and "Shadow" made the setlist.
Britney Spears performs at The Mark of the Quad-Cities in 2004.
FILEMoeller was praiseworthy of opening act Kelis, known for hip-wiggling hit "Milkshake,†who was profiled in the Times the week before the show. He was critical, though, of Spears' lip-syncing.
"You forgive her for the decoy microphone and pre-recorded vocals when you hear her heavy breathing between songs," Moeller wrote.
He added that Spears had multiple clumsy moments, slipping down a staircase early in the show before catching herself on the railing.
Things went irreversibly awry during "(I Got That) Boom Boom," the 15th song on the setlist. Spears took a misstep and, as a later news release indicated, tore a muscle in her leg.
She toughed it through the rest of the song, but eventually left the stage early. The house lights came on, but fans cheered for more. Spears told them she couldn't do it.
"You could tell she wasn't dancing as well as she should have," an attendee from Aledo told the Dispatch. "You knew something was wrong."
Fans didn't know just how wrong things were.
#FreeBritney
In her 2023 memoir "The Woman In Me," Spears said that the entire "Onyx Hotel" tour felt "depressing." She remembered the incident at The Mark as a turning point.
"In Moline, Illinois, I hurt my knee really badly toward the end of the show," she wrote, adding that the injury wasn't as painful as when she twisted her knee filming the music video for "Sometimes" years earlier.
This cover image released by Gallery Books shows "The Woman in Me" by Britney Spears.
Gallery Books via APBut it still had an emotional impact.
"With this injury, I only had to reschedule two dates, but in my mind, I'd already started to check out," she wrote. "I was craving some lightness and joy in my life."
Spears didn't release another album until 2007. By then, the singer had lost her aunt to cancer, lost custody of her two children and been assaulted by paparazzi. She publicly shaved her head during a custody battle with her ex-husband.
"The Woman In Me," which earned Spears one of the biggest book deals in history, opened with another call to her kids: "For my boys, who are the loves of my life."
Despite everything, Spears remained musically prolific. She delivered chart-topping songs like 2008's "Womanizer," 2009's "S&M" with Rihanna and the 2012 Will.i.am collaboration "Scream And Shout."
Britney Spears performs in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 13, 2017.
TPG/Zuma Press/TNSIn 2008, Spears was placed under a permanent conservatorship run by her father and her attorney. This meant they would have total say over Spears' financial and personal decisions on a day-to-day basis. The court cited Spears' mental health struggles in the years before as its reasoning.
Documentaries and investigative articles brought to light Spears' objections to the situation. Her struggle exploded into the mainstream in the summer of 2021, when the singer's marathon legal case to end the conservatorship neared a climax.
Hundreds of thousands of fans signed petitions and posted on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram with a rally cry: #FreeBritney.
It had been five years since Spears’ last album, but the microscope on her every action zoomed in like it was 2004 all over again. Hollywood rumor mills and buzzy social media outlets picked apart each of her cryptic social media posts. Many speculated. Some encroached.
But at the end of 2021, the conservatorship was officially terminated, and Spears fans with hot pink flags and T-shirts flooded the Los Angeles streets in celebration. Glitter fell from the sky.
Twins Edward, right, and John Grimes of Dublin, Ireland, hold a "Free Britney" flag outside a hearing concerning the pop singer's conservatorship at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, in Los Angeles.
AP Photo/Chris Pizzello"I think I'm gonna cry the rest of the day," Spears tweeted after the ruling. "Best day ever."
This story is part of a series called "Timeless Tickets," where we're aiming to find the most notable concert in the Quad-Cities, every year from 1960 to today. Do you have a story or photo to share from an iconic local show? Send it to entertainment reporter Gannon Hanevold at ghanevold@qctimes.com.
To read more "Timeless Tickets" stories, click here.
Britney Spears has settled her legal dispute with her father Jamie Spears over her conservatorship and "her wish for freedom is now truly complete".
Bang ShowbizIn March 1990, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince packed Wharton Field House. Months later, "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" became an instant hit on NBC.
In 1991, a group of teenagers sent a letter to Europe asking their favorite band to play in Davenport. Things got crazy when the band actually said yes.
In May 1992, Tracy Chapman earned a standing ovation before playing her show at Augustana.
In the same month that they released "In Utero," Nirvana played in Davenport. But six months later, Kurt Cobain took his life.
In 1994, Janet Jackson gave the Quad-Cities its "hottest" show yet, just a year after The Mark opened.
Local promoter Darryl Williams couldn't believe it when he booked Notorious B.I.G. for a gig in Davenport in 1995.
Alert Top Story Editor's Pick
On the verge of a comeback, Bob Dylan played at the Adler Theatre in 1996. The same year, his son's band The Wallflowers opened at RIBCO.
The Elton John show at The Mark in 1997 broke records for the arena.
One fan had a full back tattoo of her face and 300 more traded in guns for a ticket â€" the Quad-Cities went wild for Reba McEntire in the '90s.
When *NSYNC sold out The Mark, Quad-Cities teens partied like it was 1999.
Be the first to knowGet local news delivered to your inbox!
No comments:
Post a Comment