Location: Jesolo (Venice) / Arenile Terrazza Mare / Italy
Date: Friday, 18.07.2008
Duran Duran. Ah, where is that from again? Does anyone among you not know them? All of it thanks to the mad scientist Dr. Durand from the film “Barbarella”, starring Jane Fonda. This band is forbidden from ever admitting that a solid 30 years have passed since it formed, or that its looks have, by any chance, aged. On stage, just like in public, it’s duty-bound to keep up the image of eternally beautiful, healthy, young boys that girls can’t help drooling over. Even at the price of a surgeon’s scalpel.
The lineup of four original members minus guitarist Andy Taylor, and after hearing “Red Carpet Massacre” it’s immediately clear why he turned down working with the band, by the way, I’d have done the same, visited the vicinity of our parts this summer to bring us the new album. Given the excellent “Astronaut” (2005), you quietly imagined another mature pop rock album with guitars given equal weight next to the other ingredients, but with the hip-hopping of the dance-oriented “Red Carpet Massacre”, that unfortunately didn’t happen.
Duran Duran have thus become a quartet made up of Simon Le Bon (vocals), Nick Rhodes (keyboards), John Taylor (bass guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums). Of course the lads have their own touring guitarist on stage, all the older songs, or rather the evergreen classics from the eighties, are backed by an alt saxophone, and a backing vocalist is an absolute must on stage. As befits the Duran Duran manner, splendid clothes, as well as the presence of gorgeous female gazelles on stage, are still among their basic and most recognizable trademarks. A band with a polished stage look, stature and voice.
There’s nothing better than spicing up your weekend with a visit to a band whose biggest hits your teenage ears chewed over. That’s when a band like that becomes the band that stays with you your whole life. So once again it was the neighboring area just across the border that made sure some of the most demanding music lovers wouldn’t feel too badly about Slovenia’s summer concert scene, which is by now typically deserted at this time of year, when most people are cooling their digestive tracts in well-earned shade with ice cream and similar inventions chilled to freezing point.
Because the weather was seriously nasty, Duran Duran dragged their feet about starting the show. More than 6000 people were crammed onto the sandy beach. Especially women between 30 and 40, who euphorically filled the front rows below the stage. The wind was blowing hard, and judging by the roadies busy covering the gear with sheets of polyvinyl, the outlook wasn’t promising. In spite of that, we did wait the guys out, and a little after ten in the evening, half an hour late, the stage went completely dark. A repeating “loop” kicked off the concert, and when the guys took their positions with The Valley and the presentation of the new record “Red Carpet Massacre” (2007), the girls all around started going wild. Let me say right away that the songs from the new record took on a real rock flavor live, thanks to the “normal” integration of the touring guitarist, which hooked up far more compatibly with the band’s classic material, which was by no means neglected in the setlist as the concert went on.
After the opening three songs, the men shed their unnecessary layers of clothing and Le Bon asked the crowd whether anyone was hungry. No need to guess what came next. A serving of perfectly chopped-up classic Hungry Like The Wolf, which catapulted the crowd straight into space. The blast back to the eighties didn’t let up with Planet Earth, which the guys teasingly announced in the intro with a repeating guitar phrase. A curious musical ear, though, had no trouble cracking the interesting “puzzle” before the opening motif even kicked in. The version of Planet Earth was stretched out and extremely fiery. Toward the end, to everyone’s general surprise, the men even “flipped” it into the basic The White Stripes motif of Seven Nation Army, followed by Papa Was A Rolling Stone (The Temptations), throwing themselves a nice private party on stage.
This time, the excitement in the rest of the concert came courtesy of the mischievous weather. Clouds piled up right over our heads, and before Falling Down Le Bon provoked the natural processes in the sky, especially by addressing the audience with chosen topics on the theme of rain. The guy quite literally summoned the rain, though he did console the crowd that the upside of rainfall is that all the mosquitoes on beaches like the one in Jesolo crawl into their holes and stop hunting for sweet red blood cells, but people really weren’t in a joking mood about it. The rain poured down during Falling Down and intensified through Come Undone, the first real highlight, where the dark-skinned panther of a backing vocalist stood out, passionately complementing the duet with Simon. The unforgettable melody united band and crowd once more, and the revelry cooled off a bit with Skindivers. Despite the increasingly dangerously grinning rain, it wasn’t hard to forget about it when we all had to belt out the sequence in unison: “Na-na, na-na!” The Reflex, of course. The percussion was sadly sampled, apparently Duran Duran weren’t up for a bigger financial outlay this time to bring an extra percussionist on tour.
A short break followed. The roadies began dangerously shifting stage gear into safer corners of the stage, extra-protected the cables on stage, and Roger Taylor didn’t get a moment’s rest either, working out behind his cymbals with a towel. Just as he had summoned the rain, Simon finally realized in the end that it’s not good to bargain with it, especially if you put the continuation of the concert itself in question, which was hanging by a thread and could have been called off at any moment. So he obligingly called on the people below the stage to say the proper prayer to stop the rain. One of the most beautiful Duran Duran songs, the ballad Save A Prayer, is a track that must not be missing from the repertoire. For this one Simon picked up an acoustic guitar, which he cradled more than he strummed. The chorus brought back those true Duran Duran vocal harmonies, built on the John Taylor/Simon Le Bon combination, which give real Duran nostalgics some serious goosebumps. The intensity didn’t let up until the end of the concert either. Evergreens like the James Bond theme A View To A Kill, which Simon introduced as “A Song About An Englishman!”, then Notorius, Girls On Film with a detailed introduction of all the band members, the one-of-a-kind ballad Ordinary World and the red-hot rocking finale Wild Boyz offered heaven on Earth, especially for the Italian ladies, who had no idea how to rein in their feelings and passion as they flung themselves about below the stage.
At one point during the concert a woman’s bra even flew onto the stage at Le Bon’s feet, and the girls reacted especially loudly to Simon’s flirting, hip wiggling, middle-finger licking, winking, blowing kisses and similar juicy silliness. It seemed like Le Bon had every woman below the stage wrapped around his finger. What an easily led crowd. And show me the man who would even resist a crowd like that? No option. Duran Duran remain a likable and hugely popular band. All four members are holding up great, which goes especially for the oldest of them, Simon Le Bon, who hit the big five-oh this year, though he doesn’t look fifty at all. A bouncy, high-spirited stage performer who leads the crowd with the pinky of his left hand and communicates with it. The stage presence of the other members also delivered tremendous dynamics and liveliness to the concert itself, which had real live charge and punch. Sound-wise, too, Duran Duran pulled it off well this time, even though the wind had threatened pretty badly several times before the show.
After a good hour and a half the men came back to play an encore. Le Bon decided to get right up close to the audience after putting on an Italian shirt, that is, a shirt in the “azzurri” color, with the proper crest and lettering. Many bands like to pull these stunts at their gigs these days. Duran Duran simply handed the singing of the chorus in Rio over to the crowd, which had been hair-splittingly calibrated and tuned in cooperation with the band, and in the end they treated themselves to a bit of debauchery and spontaneity by deliberately botching the “Do-Do-Do-je”.
Given all the weather mishaps, the band was forced to cut a string of songs from the repertoire: Last Chance / All She Wants / Leatherette / I Don’t Want / Skin Trade, yet the concert still ended up running an hour and three quarters in total. Based on what they showed, Duran Duran remain the very definition of untouchable. Sonically, chemically, magically. They remain a big band, a hugely in-demand band, and they remain a young band. It’s incredible how that fire flares up, magically and in an instant, powered by a solid energy bond between the band and the crowd. It’s established immediately, at the crowd’s first contact with the classic pop hits that forged Duran Duran into one of the handful of biggest acts of the eighties. It was as if eroticism and elegance were holding hands at this concert. An unforgettable concert of big pop rock charm, which would have left an even stronger mark in normal weather.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. The Valley
2. Red Carpet Massacre
3. Nite Runner
4. Hungry Like The Wolf
5. Planet Earth
6. Falling Down
7. Come Undone
8. Skindivers
9. The Reflex
10. Save A Prayer
11. A View To A Kill
12. Notorius
13. Girls On Film
14. Ordinary World
15. (Reach Out For The) Sunrise
16. Wild Boyz
—encore—
17. Rio
