7 posts tagged “duran duran”

Totally the best November ever, so far!

To my far right was Donald bloody Trump, to my left in the box balcony was Mary-Kate Olsen. Yes, hardly Brad and Angelina, and yes, Moby behind me would go to the opening of an envelope but it was possible, in passing moments, to be that 15 year old. There was a Playbill for the show, in which the band have lengthy individual, amusing bios and their stand-is are listed (Simon's is Lindsay Lohan). And then of course were the hunky, if slightly ... um, softer looking people from my posters up on the stage. Give them credit: They totally messed with the expected format, playing the whole new album ("Last Man Standing" is amazing), taking a 15 minute break, doing a 15 minute keyboard-only, side-by-side performance at the front of the stage, a quick break and then about 30 minutes of hits, including weirdies like "I Take the Dice." (I vote now for the "B-sides" Tour.) I stood sandwiched between a Spin magazine reviewer dressed like a Ms magazine writer, circa 1976 and an affectless In Touch writer who kept darting glances up at Mary-Kate, but I did not care. I was, as I usually am at Duran shows, a nutcase.

Not the kind of nutcase who throws bras on the stage but a really bad dancer who acts out the songs. I am Elaine. Yes, that's me. And proud of it.


After the show I headed over to the after-event. I'm not a huge fan of these, because after you've been to 37, you've been to them all. They're packed and loud and it's hard to get even near anybody who matters, and if you're not someone who matters they will determinedly not see you even if you stand there for a half hour, so really -- who cares? I go for the view and a drink and maybe a nosh and try to do the job, but it's not something I stay and end up with a lampshade on my head at. I leave that to Mary-Kate.

But at this one, I had an accommodating PR woman who made sure to pull Nick over my way. So we could talk for the second article. So there I am and there he is. We have met before, once at another after-event and had a lovely conversation. He's definitely the brains of the outfit. So we talked and he's sincere and I'm absorbing about eight things at once while this is happening: a) we're talking b) he's really quite short c) yes, Lori is right he is combing over d) he has delicate white makeup and careful eyeliner e) It's Nick Fucking Rhodes aaaaah! f) etc. Also, after a moment or two John becomes available and so we are cut loose and then John Taylor, who I've met and never had more than a moment's conversation with is there and All Mine. The best cheekbones in the business are there and we start talking about the show. I can slip into some of the same questions because I'm now concentrating on about ten things at once here, including a) boy, he's tall b) why does he lean forward when he talks to you and contract his face in a pinched way like that? That was what gave me this disconcerting image of what John Taylor will be like when he's a crotchety old man. It was that kind of a stance. Then c) I became aware of how we were being observed by about 8 other women who had no idea why he was giving me the time of day, including d) a very large shiny woman who sat behind me at the show and was insisting on being heard now.

Midsentence, we were done, and off to the next lot. And that's when I cottoned: I was going to talk to each of them. Individually. My adolescent's head had now exploded. And I began to remember I had a camera with me, so just how goony was I going to let myself be?

So then I was talking to Simon. Always my favorite. Had to be: Fellow Scorpio, fellow struggler with weight. He was standing next to his model wife Yasmine, who was in a fur coat and had her back to me (as it should be). And if I was focusing on 8 things with Nick and 10 things with John the Crotchety talker, I've got about 23 going on with Simon but the main thing is this: We have nothing to talk about. I mean, yeah, fine, talk about the show. Talk about the show in London getting cancelled and the video for "Falling Down" getting banned over there. And there was one Major Moment when he put his hand on my shoulder (I can hear Lynda squeeing, "He's touching you!") and saying, "We'll have to stand closer to talk" (of course there's a BUT) "because I have to protect my voice." But as with the others ... once you're done with the basics, you're done.

And that's the thing about getting older that nobody tells you. Should you get older, old enough not to wet yourself in front of these people you used to wallpaper your room with, who you wrote fan fiction about, and to the stage where that 15 year old can sit in the back of your head and tap her feet quietly -- should you get to that age and meet them, there's nothing to say. Well, there is: You can blither about their band and be like every other gooberhead fan (of which I am, naturally), and you can stretch out the business-related questions a bit more, but after that -- it's not as though they're going to ask how work's going, or is mom all right, or about those cupcakes you were making. These people are not your friends. They're not going to be. And not that you really thought they would be, but -- the meeting of them serves only to show the lines and the creases and the in-betweens. They aren't who you think they are. They're just people.

So the No. 23 thing I was thinking as I disengaged from Simon and told him thanks and didn't get a picture was this: This is not someone I would have gone out with. This is not someone who, were he just a regular normal guy I met, that I would have ever, ever had a relationship with. He's like air, it's like talking to someone who really isn't even there. And he's going to be 50 next year and up close ... ah well. I know this sounds completely ridiculous: Who do you think you are? And yet that's not the point.

There is a certain level of every fantasy that says were the circumstances correct, you could go through with that fantasy. Even if you had to do it on another dimension. Making some element of it happen in real life makes you realize that there is no dimension on which the full fantasy could possibly happen. At all. And that's ... okay. Really. It's just one of those things I hadn't considered before.

So, I didn't get a picture with Simon. We moved on to Roger. And as I did before at the other event, I had a lovely conversation with him; he's probably the most personable and least ... air-like. Also the one who occupies the least amount of space in that fantastical dimension, which gives him more space to exist in the here and now. So I felt perfectly fine about pulling out the camera and getting a photo. At which the PR woman told him, "She's spoken to every one tonight, and you're the only one she asked to get a photo with!"

So here we are, the aging fan and the aging rock star drummer (with the air-like Simon behind him). We have both Gotten Older, and somehow did it together.



Make of that what you will.

"So, you're not going to go home and say this was the worst Duran Duran concert you've ever been to, right?"
Well, John. What to say. When you:

• start 15 minutes late and come out on stage to collectively inform the fans that they're now going to hear selected tracks from your new album and then leave the stage for 20 minutes while bad Timbaland/Justin Timberlake produced distorted something or other takes up the aural space while the stage stands empty, it ain't an auspicious start. You don't make fans pay for a listening party, and the "VIPs" in that front row (not me! really!) forked over $350 for that privilege. If you're not going to use the pre-show waiting time to play those tracks, if you're going to open the stage and tease us like that, you'd better stick around and do handstands or something. For the record, most bands like to play their new tracks out live first. (We got two of those later.)
• again, since that was windy: You needed a 15 minute delay to set up pre-recorded tracks?
• also to qualify: This is after a wait outside in line for approximately 2.5 hours on my part because everything was general admission, and another hour wait after the doors opened. So yes, I frickin' begrudge fifteen minutes.
• also have a singer who forgets the lyrics to one of your best-known songs ("Planet Earth!" a whole verse!), from your first album and then completely bolloxes up what could be an exciting all-Duran version of Power Station's "Some Like it Hot" (I think the only words he got right were the choruses; the rest was just Simon staring blankly at John and, in a great show of restraint, John not clubbing him with the bass)
• furthermore more or less sleepwalk your way through most of the rest of the set, with some fairly good exceptions, but with most arrangements directly cribbed from your "Astronaut" tour last year
• omit "Careless Memories"

I'm gonna have to say just this, John: If the shoe fits. If the shoe fits, baby.

(All of that whinging said, the fact is that bad Duran Duran is like bad ice cream. It's still ice cream. And I'll take bad over nothing. Bad is kind of amusing. This particular ice cream, though, tasted like an orange foot.)

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In unrelated news, for reasons that have nothing to do with Duran Duran -- alas -- MSNBC wants me back again today. So if you've really got nothing better to do, I'll be on just before 2pm and right around 3pm. ET, again. If only they'd ask me how the concert went!