Mariah Carey maps out "intimate evening" tour
After dropping hints through her Web site last month that the upcoming North American leg of her Charmbracelet Tour 2003 would undergo a surprising change, Mariah Carey has announced exactly that. The sultry singer unveiled dates on Friday for her revamped Charmbracelet Tour 2003 - An Intimate Evening, a 20-city trek across the U.S. and Canada that trades in the ambition of gigantic arenas for the intimacy of much smaller theaters.
Carey's coast-to-coast tour will be her first in theater-sized venues. In April, she announced dates for the original Charmbracelet Tour 2003, targeting arenas that typically house between 10,000 and 20,000 fans. "It's much more intimate so you'll feel like you had an experience," Carey said during rehearsals for her live show on Friday. "You experience a night with me."
Carey's dates and venues in Asia, where her tour kicks off on June 21 in Seoul, South Korea, will remain as scheduled. Her North American tour begins July 26 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. According to a Carey spokesperson, the singer will be filling in for fellow diva Celine Dion, who will be taking a night off from her five-shows-a-week, three-year contract with the hotel venue.
Altering plans isn't necessarily a new idea for Carey. In May, she announced the re-release of her recent Charmbracelet album, which was originally released in December 2002 as the first album of her multimillion-dollar deal with Island Def Jam. It will now be repackaged for a July 29 street date with four new songs.
Currently, Carey is near the top of the charts thanks to her collaboration with Busta Rhymes on his hit single "I Know What You Want", but her tour, she said, will not feature a litany of special guests. Carey promised a more theatrical performance than she's done in the past saying the show "doesn't take itself so seriously".
Through her Web site, Carey is asking fans to vote on songs they most want to hear her sing when she comes to their town. "I wanted to gauge what the fans really, really want to hear and what are they kinda over," Carey explained. "Are they going to be sick of 'Hero? Do they want to hear it still? It's #2 [so far]." Visitors to her site can log in and select up to 20 of their favorites amongst her 15 #1 hits and other songs. (VH1)
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