Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 43

7:30 pm 8pm CHICAGO OAKDALE THEATRE WALLINGFORD 'LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS' WESTMINSTER SCHOOL SIMSBURY AIL TOGETHER NOW: MONKEYSTAILS: APES NO TAILS. GOT IT? THE HARTFORD COURANT FRIDAY, IULY 27, 2001 DSECTION it- 4 5 V. ilk 1 vv, -v. Salon Continues Struggle To Live Magnificent Madonna Artist Sticks Mainly To Modern In Exhilarating Tour Opener By ROGER CATLIN COURANT ROCK CRITIC -2N Webzine Proposes Another Fee, May Lose Stock Market Listing By MARY K. FEENEY COURANT STAFF WRITER EW YORK The climax of Madonna's brilliant new concert tour, which opened a five-night run at Madison Square Garden Wednesday, comes as a kaleidoscope of video images from her 4 Once again, it's the best of times and the worst of times for Salon magazine, the pioneering Internet media site.

On Thursday, Salon Media Group Inc. had a delisting hearing before the Nasdaq Stock Market Its stock, once worth nearly $15 a share, had been trading for less than $1 since February. Wednesday, it closed at 14 cents a share. This week, Salon.com announced a proposal to begin charging to participate in its popular online community site, Table Talk. But also in the same week, Salon announced that the number of "unique" visitors to its network soared to a monthly high of 4 million, the largest in the site's five-year history.

Michael O'Donnell, chief executive officer and president said the numbers reflect "the strength of our content our relationship with our readers and the vitality of our brand as a whole." Faced with a bleak revenue picture. Salon in April introduced a subscription plan for "premium" content for $30 a year, readers receive access to additional news and columns. Salon had already been charging to participate in the Well, an online discussion site created in 1985. Now, it is proposing monthly fees to chat on Table dozens of past personas flash on screen as she tears through "Music." Look quickly; it's the only glimpse youH see of T'the Material Girl, or her characters from "Like a Virgin" or "Like a Prayer," or the nrT temptress. And it's j.

Just about the only acknowledge-; 1" ''I ment of the past for the star, whose "Drowned World Tour 2001" instead emphasizes the darker, electronically colored work on her past two albums, last year's "Music" and 1998's "Ray of Besides, she's got a handlul of more personas to I share: rockin' punk girl with bondage wear, plaid skirt, a sneer and a guitar, a geisha from another planet; the down-home cowgirl; the glamorous for-i mer Argentine president; and funky street babe. And should you think the music is turning too electronic, the other major theme of the evening is her guitar an electric one on which she bashes chords on "Candy Perfume Girl" but more often acoustic models with which she sings many of her i ballads. (In her only printed words In the $30 souve-I nir book, she thanks her husband, British film di- rector Guy Ritchie, for "for handing me a guitar ASSOCIATED PRESS MADONNA SINGS while climbing over dancers Wednesday at Madison Square Garden In New York during the first U.S. stop of her Drowned World Tour. and daring me to learn how to play It's an interesting turn for her.

at 42, allowing her dozen dancers to hold the fort as she stands still with her Instrument. But she's still dancing quite a bit, too, in the visually exciting show, which was direct- GO TODS GOTOD6 SCREEN SCENE: 'THE KING IS ALIVE 'THE PRINCESS AND THE WARRIOR 'SGNGCATCHER SEE REVIEWS, D4 AKD D5 3.