Review of Duran Duran: Live From London (Deluxe Edition)

Introduction

Duran Duran kind of burst onto the music scene in 1981 during the New Romantic phase that swept the nation. Alongside Ultravox, Visage, Japan and Spandau Ballet (to name a few), the five lads from Birmingham brought a new flair to the charts with a mix of the more traditional band instrumentation with a new found fondness for the synthesiser. Duran Duran (named after a scientist in the Jane Fonda flick Barbarella) consisted of Simon Le Bon (vocals), Nick Rhodes (synths), Roger Taylor (drums), John Taylor (bass) and Andy Taylor (guitar).

The Duran Duran manifesto was to merge elements of glam rock, punk and disco together, not sure if they ever did, but they produced some of the best songs of that decade. Duran were also in their element within the emerging promo video industry, starting with the infamous Girls On Film video that effectively kick-started their early stuttering career. From then on it was all systems go, the appearance of the classic promo for Ultravox`s Vienna providing the excuse for invention and bigger budgets in this field. Most videos were filmed in studios with all the cost for time and manpower that was entailed in an industry that was heavily unionised. Duran`s management team came up with a plan to produce videos in Sri Lanka and Antigua. Despite the glossy feel to these videos, they were often cheaper to make then those of their peers. The look of these videos defined the image of the band and they were unfairly labelled as the glamour boys of pop and sneered at by many.

Duran were thrown up into a friendly rivalry between themselves and London boys Spandau Ballet, despite it being clear that the Birmingham boys had the songs to match their style. This rivalry peaked during a special edition of Mike Read`s Pop Quiz, which was required viewing during my youth, and Duran Duran won it much to my delight (that`ll teach those stuck up London chancers…). This was almost the end of the group though, as the hectic lifestyle and disagreements over musical direction took their toll. Two factions were starting to appear within the band; the rockers and the art school synth players.

Andy and John Taylor were itching to rock out and formed supergroup The Power Station with Robert Palmer on vocals and Chic`s Tony Thompson on drums, scoring hits with Some Like It Hot and Get It On (the latter a T-Rex cover). Nick Rhodes, Roger Taylor and Le Bon formed Arcadia and produced the atmospheric synth album So Red The Rose and its hit single Election Day. The drastic difference in musical output was to have an impact, but not before they produced possibly the finest Bond theme ever with A View To A Kill. The band performed as the original line-up for the last time during their Live Aid set.

Despite massive hits in 1993 with both Ordinary World and Come Undone, the post-Fab Five lineup never reached the kind of success enjoyed by the pre-85 group. In 2001 it was announced that the original lineup was getting back together again, something most fans (and the band themselves actually) thought would never happen. Although writing new material during 2002 and 2003, the band struggled to find a record company willing to sign them. The band had the answer, they would go on the road in an attempt to prove that there was still interest in them out there.

And so it came to pass that Duran Duran returned to the UK in 2004 to play seventeen dates, including five nights at Wembley Arena. The tour was a huge success and new material played on this tour later surfaced on their album Astronaut, a critical and commercial success. Whether they can build upon the momentum created over the last couple of years remains to be seen, but I wouldn`t put it past them…

Video

Good solid concert footage with some nice editing. A lot of big bands now add some kind of screen presentation to their performance and Duran are no exception. You never quite get the screens on your screen, and sometimes you don`t see them at all during some songs, but they were impressive. Most impressive is an anime video of the band by Fumio Obata shown during Careless Memories, although the visuals of Liz Hurley`s legs (A View To A Kill) or Perri Lister half naked (The Chauffeur) aren`t far behind.

Audio

Comes with a variety of soundtracks. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sounds empty, as you would expect beside the big boys. There are two 5.1 soundtracks, a normal one and something called SRS Circle Surround 5.1. Personally I preferred the DTS soundtrack as its just big and loud as you would expect. Felt like being there again, even if I was in Newcastle rather than London…

Features

10 track live CD - shame its only 10 tracks but I guess that`s a bit selfish really. Good quality sound of some of the most popular Duran songs that most people would want to hear on a live album.

Documentary - approx. 30 minute featurette mixing on-location footage with b&w talking heads of each of the band members talking about how they got together, their time at the top, how it all fell apart and then how they got back together again.

Photo Gallery - slideshow of photo`s taken during the concert set to Save A Prayer. Personally I think it would have been better with the instrumental Tiger Tiger seeing as how this track was dropped from the DVD concert footage, but still…

Song Commentaries - accessed via a menu showing the Duran boys all sporting suits and guitars à la Franz Ferdinand. Each band member provides commentary over two tracks as follows:

John Taylor - A View To A Kill, Notorious
Roger Taylor - Hungry Like The Wolf, (Reach Up For The) Sunrise
Simon Le Bon - The Chauffeur, Ordinary World
Nick Rhodes - Come Undone, Whatever Happens Tomorrow
Andy Taylor - Is There Something I Should Know, New Religion

3D version of I Don`t Want Your Love - same footage as on the concert but treated for 3D viewing with the requisite 3D glasses included. Novelty piece, but it works.

Commemorative booklet - small booklet with photo`s from the concert plus credits, etc.

Conclusion

I was there. Alright, it was Newcastle Arena rather than Wembley Arena, but I watched the triumphant return of a band that epitomised the `decade that taste forgot`™. It was a glorious couple of hours that took me back to the heady days of my teens. The band didn`t look as if they`d aged, although most clearly needed to find a decent hairdresser, and the songs sounded as good now as they did back then. Duran Duran are an incredibly tight unit on stage and sound quite remarkable. Le Bon is as silly as he`s ever been, and Nick Rhodes looks as cool as ever behind his bank of synths. The Taylor`s are a different proposition though. Roger Taylor`s drumming is a little more restrained than it was, but he provides some gloriously powerful beats to sit alongside John Taylor`s throbbing bass lines. As for Andy Taylor, well his guitar just sizzles; his playing is that hot. I keep forgetting that behind the Rhodes hooks and melodies, Duran are effectively a guitar-driven band, and some of the intricate guitar parts really come to the fore on this recording.

The one thing I took from that tour, and it`s reinforced by seeing it again on DVD, is just how much these five musicians enjoy playing together now. It`s almost as if they`ve managed to recapture what made them special in the first place before they got sucked into a world of pose that chewed them up and then took the mickey. This was a band who were so intimately associated with the 80`s that many people just wished they`d disappear when the next decade was reached. They didn`t, although they came close, and now they`re back and sounding as good as ever.

This is a well produced package for fans of the band and now the definitive live concert film of the group in action. The only previous record we had was Arena, which wasn`t so much a concert as bits of one, with various dwarves and anamatronics added by Russell Mulcahy. The setlist provided here contains just about everything that a casual fan would like to hear plus some cool tunes like The Chauffeur that are hugely underrated. With the two singles that came from Astronaut also included, you now have the best of Duran at their peak and still to come.

Enjoy…