Duran Duran

I always meant to post this, but didn't get around to it; last month my wife and I went and saw Duran Duran in concert (we've also seen Air Supply, which kind of made me chuckle when my wife told me she had tickets for that, but it ended up being a good show. We didn't see very many people younger than us at either show, though. Or at Depeche Mode earlier this year.) In the wake of that concert, I discovered that the version of "The Reflex" I had on my phone was the single version, remixed/produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic (who was one of the opening bands). I had noticed this before, but always forgotten it and forgotten to update my files until after the concert. The album version is so much better, but I had that languishing... on my album, not even ripped to a mp3 where I could take it with me easily. I highly recommend that you check the two versions out side by side and let me know what you think. I think the album version is tons better than the single version, but the single version is closer to the one that gets played live most of the time.

Other than that; how was the show? Excellent! I had actually bought Duran Duran tickets for my wife (before we were even engaged) thirty years ago, but then she had to be out of town for a wedding she was in. Since I already had the ticket and nobody to take, I ended up taking her little sister, which was kinda funny. She was only about 16-17 or so, if I recall.

Little did we know, of course, back in 1983 when Seven and the Ragged Tiger came out with "The Reflex" and "Union of the Snake" and "New Moon on Monday" and whatever other singles came out to support that album, that Duran Duran were on the verge of a breakup, and the next time they went back to the studio, they'd be down two out of five members, and produce the album Notorious that is really only good for the song "Notorious" itself. I guess "Skin Trade" is OK. This state of diminished success continued until the time of the first concert I went to, which supported the recently released (at the time) so-called "Wedding Album" with hits like "Come Undone" and "Ordinary World." Some other tracks were successful at the time, although they're mostly forgotten now, like "UMF" and "Too Much Information."

For years, I wore that "Wedding Album" concert t-shirt. Finally, thirty years after the concert that my wife couldn't go to me with, we went and saw Duran Duran together. By now, they have more back catalog, but they also recognize and accept that their fans want to hear their 80s and early 90s stuff far more than anything else. The show was really good.

Sadly, the concert t-shirts weren't great, and for some bizarre reason, they had low stock, so we couldn't even get the ones that we wanted. That would probably be my only complaint. Well, that and the fact that they never play "New Moon on Monday" anymore. That was always my favorite classic line-up song, and it's kind of a forgotten one nowadays.

I've always been a big Duran Duran fan. I admit that Depeche Mode kind of hits my identity in terms of what kind of music I like more than Duran Duran does, but DD is up there in my esteem as a pop culture icon.

Plus, Roger's back. Andy probably won't come back again, and that's actually probably for the best, sadly, but the boys seem pretty classy; they don't talk bad about Andy and the drama he caused, and had a nice tribute to him when they were inducted in the Hall of Fame and he couldn't make it because of his cancer.

Poor Stephen Duffy's gotta be kickin' himself that he bailed on the band way early, and had much less to show for it. But "Kiss Me" is a great song too.