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| Duran Duran |
Simon says
"I guess there's some of us in all of you," boasted Simon LeBon on Friday, January 30, by way of introduction to the sold-out Laurie Auditorium crowd.
He wasn't kidding. When Duran Duran hit the Laurie stage, the chorus of hysterical shrieks that greeted them could have convinced you that it was still 1984, and "The Reflex" still rested at the top of the charts. Dominated by female loyalists (but with a surprising number of unabashedly gushing dudes), the crowd looked like what it was: a collection of people in their early 30s, who spent their adolescences pinning pictures of LeBon to their bedroom walls.
Along the way, the middle-aged Fab Five confirmed several things: that they were the original metrosexuals; that their catalog of absurdly meaningless hits (tell me again, what was "Union of the Snake" about?) now holds up as campy fun; and that John Taylor is the prettiest graduate of the Bernard Edwards funk-bass academy.
The band has aged more gracefully than it had any right to, and it rolled through MTV monuments like "Save A Prayer," "Hungry Like the Wolf," "Planet Earth," "Is There Something I Should Know," and "Notorious," with the precision of a seasoned hit machine.
Not exactly self-deprecating, Duran Duran has nonetheless developed a hint of a sense of humor over the years - albeit a clumsy one. LeBon teased the locals by rapping during "Girls On Film": "Ozzy Osbourne pissed on the Alamo." When he introduced each of the band members during the same song, they each played a wanky solo. Keyboardist Nick Rhodes' solo turn - in a joke that fell flat - consisted of clicking camera sounds.
The funniest moment of the show was actually unintentional. In the middle of "Notorious," the group's funkiest hit, the quintet broke into a vamp from Sister Sledge's "We Are Family." LeBon proudly chanted: "I've got all my sisters with me." He was right. All four of them were onstage. •
