The Wild Boys of the 1980s are back--and ready to run wild at a venue near you.
It's been 20 years since Duran Duran's meteoric rise caused teenage girls everywhere to paper their walls with posters of the pop phenoms and fixate on MTV for hours on end.
Now, a longer-in-the-tooth Duran Duran is back on the scene--and touring. On July 15, 2003, the band reunited its original five members for a performance at a Sunset Strip club, playing their first set together in more than 15 years as a precursor to a just-announced North American tour. Vocalist Simon Le Bon and keyboardist Nick Rhodes reunited with the unrelated trio of Taylors--guitarist Andy, drummer Roger and bassist John--to play for such audience members as Gwen Stefani, Gavin Rossdale and Christina Applegate.
The band's upcoming reunion/25th anniversary tour kicks off November 8 in Atlantic City and will play small theaters and clubs. The question is, will the concertgoers of Generation Y be as susceptible to, say, "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Girls on Film" as the teens of two decades ago? Heck, does Generation Y even know who Duran Duran is?
At least we know the answer to the latter--the band got a rousing ovation at the August 29 2003 Video Music Awards, when It girls Kelly Osbourne and Avril Lavigne presented Duran Duran with a surprise Lifetime Achievement Award. Osbourne was shrill while Lavigne seemed, well, disinterested.
For their part, the boys of Duran Duran seemed shocked and flattered by the honor, but ready to be back in the limelight. "This is a bit of a surprise," Le Bon said. "I gotta say thank you to all you people out here. We've had an amazing time over the last couple of months. We've been writing songs. We've been recording. And last night we played our first show in New York, and it really kicks ass."
Taking its name from a character in the Jane Fonda cult sci-fi flick Barbarella, the band was originally formed in 1978 in Birmingham, England. The group's first album, Duran Duran, came out in 1981, followed by Rio in 1982.
In 1983, Duran Duran picked up a pair of Grammys--one for Best Short Form Music Video for "Girls on Film/Hungry Like the Wolf," and one for Best Long Form Music Video for Duran Duran.
"Video to us is like stereo was to Pink Floyd," Nick Rhodes said in a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone. "It was new, it was just happening. And we saw that we could do a lot with it."
The band racked up enough hits to fill a jukebox, including "Planet Earth," "Is There Something I Should Know," "Union of the Snake," "The Reflex," "Save a Prayer," "Wild Boys" and the James Bond theme "A View to a Kill." But plagued by infighting and defections over the past decade, the band became a shadow of itself--Le Bon and Rhodes were the only original members on the band's last studio album, 2000's critically panned Pop Trash.
The true test of the reunited Duran Duran's longevity will be to see if the teenagers of 20 years ago have remained loyal to their pop idols of yore. Tickets to Duran Duran's 16 U.S. shows go on sale on October 18. The tour will make its way from east to west, wrapping up in San Diego. Additional dates may be added.
The band also plans a summer 2004 amphitheater tour in support of an in-the-works studio album, due in the spring. A video anthology, Greatest, is set for a November 4 release.