Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Zagreb / ŠRC Šalata / Croatia
Concert date: August 29, 2017
Attendance: 5,500
Ticket price: 250.00 HRK (floor) / 280.00 HRK (stands) / 290.00 HRK (fan pit)
Duran Duran are now regarded as legends of new wave, the New Romantic movement and eighties mainstream music. Big-name heralds of the eighties pop generation. With over 100 million records sold in the eighties, these art and pop rock stylists didn’t cement their credibility just by writing superb original songs. Their innovations also radically shaped the development of music production, which in turn, especially commercially, went on to deepen and spread the perception and use of glamour in the world of show business even further.
Eighties nostalgia is back. Back once again close to our Slovenian stomping grounds. In the Croatian capital, Zagreb, where Duran Duran first played in 2001. This time they dropped by the ŠRC Šalata sports and recreation center and sold the place out completely. Long before the show, crowds were wading in from every direction, and the buzz kept swelling minute by minute on a wave of excitement, just like the tension, set off by that adrenaline rush of waiting for the concert to start. Duran Duran are the band of a generation that spent its teenage years in the eighties. Those are now ladies and gentlemen close to the big five-oh. But I’ll be damned if all those ladies didn’t turn back into screaming girls for a good two hours in Zagreb, reviving memories of the wall posters they tore out of issues of Bravo magazine, the ones they could gaze at lovesick for hours on end, dreaming of their princes on white horses. And all those gentlemen in the crowd today? On the other side of things, they turned back into proper roosters, the ones who, back in the days of Duran Duran’s eighties explosion, first found out what hair gel is, plus hairspray and all the other props for holding and shaping a hairdo. Because everybody wanted to be their own Simon Le Bon or John Taylor back then,…. Ahhh memories, sweet memories….
The band released a new studio album called »Paper Gods« almost two years ago, and by the time they got to Zagreb they’d already been promoting it hard on stages all over the world. In North America alone they toured three separate times in the space of two years. The Zagreb show is one of the last on this tour, followed only by gigs in Treviso, Italy and Dublin, Ireland, plus two shows in Singapore, far off in Asia.
»Paper Gods« is a strong album, not as »traditionally driven« as the band’s other post-millennium efforts »All You Need is Now« (2011) and »Astronaut« (2004). It leans once again toward a bit more pop sensibility and, with it, an emphasized but by now thoroughly familiar Duran Duran dance-rhythm kineticism. Luckily, it’s not another commercial shipwreck of the kind Duran Duran have racked up with some of their albums, quite a few over their career. Still, most people gathered at this show, of course, purely for the unforgettable lineup of eighties hits from the band’s first three studio albums.
Finally! A venue that holds about 5,500 people when sold out (stands plus standing area) and lets you enjoy the show freely, without the (claustrophobic) squeezing and gasping for air. Five years ago at Križanke, when over 4,000 people were crammed in for the Duran Duran show back then, that overcrowding took the edge off the event. The concert production, which is very demanding with Duran Duran, also came across far stronger this time than it did at Križanke years ago, even though that Ljubljana show was very nice and very good too. This time the conditions were optimal, so the concert as a whole was excellent. The band hit the stage in a lineup that was practically identical to the one five years ago in Ljubljana, except that for this tour they brought along not one but two backing vocalists. Alongside the standard quartet of John Taylor (bass), Roger Taylor (drums), Nick Rhodes (keyboards) and Simon Le Bon (vocals), there were additional members on stage: longtime touring veterans Dominic Brown on guitar and Simon Willescroft on sax and percussion, while the backing vocalist spots were filled by Anna Ross and Jessie Wagner.
From the sound to the highly vibrant moods backed up by the atmospheric reach of the projections running in the background, to the many color washes of the intense stage lighting, everything was in its place. A hypnotic, ravenous energy took hold of the venue. The band, in seriously good spirits that night, delivered a superb show performance-wise too, ramping it up minute by minute, with the spectacle peaking in the encore with a combo of two »Rio« classics, Save A Prayer and the closing Rio. Before the show, the skeptics kept asking themselves just one question: what kind of vocal shape is Le Bon in? The man chased away every doubt the moment he walked on stage. Le Bon delivered an excellent vocal performance and kept building on it, and he didn’t run out of breath even in the final acts of the show. He also showed a real measure of sensitivity in numbers like Save a Prayer, which was combined with the ballad prelude Universe Alone. The musicians handled the vocal harmonies backing up Le Bon in grand style, but of course it was the two backing vocalists who were the main support for the charismatic frontman. And truly sexy singers, too!
The band is dynamic and bouncy on stage. All that energy and the high-octane »beat«, backed by the fantastic bass lines of the maestro John Taylor, automatically invites you to dance, and the crowd of course followed the band’s performance by belting out the verses at the top of their lungs. The front section in particular, the fan pit, often brought back the eighties, when the band’s popularity rivaled even the famous Beatlemania. Piercing screams from the girls swept through the crowd again and again during the show, some of them bordering on delirium and hysteria.
After the opening new track Paper Gods, the band quickly switched in the first part of the set to the recognizable classics, and the whole of Šalata went up in the air for the first time during Wild Boys, followed by Hungry Like the Wolf and then Bond’s A View to a Kill. The setlist didn’t skimp on the excellent art-pop treat Come Undone, one of the strongest songs to come out of the nineties, yet one that can hold its own against any moment of the band’s notorious eighties career. The middle part of the concert was devoted to promoting the new album, so the guys went back to it. Then came one of the nicest surprises of the setlist: the overlooked and excellent »Rio« track Hold Back The Rain. A truly brilliant song, a powerful one, where Dominic’s guitar also dug deep into guitar phrases audibly for the first time. Dominic is a master on guitar and fills the hard-to-fill shoes of his predecessor Andy Taylor superbly. If we hadn’t been convinced before, we certainly were in the closing stretch of the regular set with Girls On Film, where he shone with refined soloing. That’s the birth of the sound and style that defined eighties pop aesthetics, by the way. The synths of the subtle Nick Rhodes shimmered and delivered all the elemental sonics of the eighties.
Every second of the performance is studied down to the last detail. Everything was in its place. Same goes for Simon Le Bon’s banter with the crowd. He’ll turn a round sixty next year, and he’s lost the little belly he was sporting at Križanke, while keeping a distinctly youthful look and the energy he radiates. He also carries himself on stage the way he always has (or ever did). His usual way. Flirtatious, cheeky, but incredibly contagious and in style, of course. So the slender singer holds on to that attractive charm once again, the kind that made the ladies in the audience go weak at the knees, hold their breath and feel their hearts race.
No question. A great show from a band in great shape. You can tell that most of the shows played in almost two years are a guarantee of the exceptional form Duran Duran are in on stage right now. Right after the new hit single Pressure Off the band showered Šalata in confetti, and at the end of the show, as they charged into the famous Rio and the distorted guitar cut loudly through the soundscape, the cannons firing confetti literally flooded the venue. Interestingly, the band skipped the classic album »Seven And The Ragged Tiger« entirely in the setlist, even though many fans consider it their favorite Duran Duran album. During (Reach Up for the) Sunrise they worked in the chorus melody of the hit New Moon On Monday, but then went back to finish the cited »Astronaut« track. Just enough to really tease the crowd. The moon was shining in the sky, but it was Tuesday, not Monday, oh well. At least The Reflex should have been in the setlist. That’s also the only minor gripe about the show, this snub of the album »Seven And The Ragged Tiger«. Otherwise top-notch in every respect. Duran Duran remain the epitome of a refined union of rock with pop aesthetics in an original musical artistry. An excellent concert experience, then. The crowd of the sold-out venue in Zagreb was completely enchanted and spellbound!
Setlist
1. Paper Gods
2. Wild Boys
3. Hungry Like the Wolf
4. A View to a Kill
5. Come Undone
6. Last Night in the City
7. What Are the Chances?
8. Notorious
9. Pressure Off
10. Hold Back the Rain
11. Ordinary World
12. I Don’t Want Your Love
13. (Reach Up for the) Sunrise (includes part of New Moon on Monday)
14. White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It) (cover of Grandmaster Melle Mel)
15. Girls on Film (Segue Edit)
—encore—
16. Universe Alone/Save a Prayer
17. Rio
Photo Gallery
