I saw Duran Duran’s live concert on Friday. I have been excited and nervous about this for several months now. When I announced to my boss and my coworker that I was one of the lucky people with tickets to the sold out show, they said, “That’s embarrassing.” I LOL’ed. “No. We mean it. Don’t tell anybody!”
That’s the problem with a band called “The Pretties Boys in Rock” during the 80s when they were super popular. The magazines called them The Fab Five. And I remember arguing with my girlfriends who was the best looking. My favorite has always been Nick Rhodes. What can I say? I have a thing for guys with mascaras. Except Clockwork Orange… The other girls would always come back with John Taylor. Oh yes. That man (boy?) was gorgeous, with a square jaw that was perfectly chiseled. It makes you shiver just thinking about it. Curiously it was never Simon. Just seemed to be too obvious an answer to claim that your fav is the lead singer. Duh. Ho-hum. So we continued to fight between the Bass guitarist and the keyboardist.
I was apprehensive also because, well, I am a realist. How often when you are reunited with your childhood love do you find that present reality matches up to the memories you have been keeping in a vault?
When I got to Chicago Theatre, it became clear to me that I was not the only one there to relive my youth. I have never seen so many middle-aged women dressed “correctly” for a rock concert in one place. The ladies knew why they were there and they came prepared. There were so many women dressed in their rock regalia, complete with black stockings, chokers, pink (or purple or whatever) hair, and tattoos. Lots of tattoos. Almost everyone was wearing boots. I even saw a pink boa.
What would their teenage daughters have said?…
It was kickass and uplifting. Fuck those young girls who think WE should behave OUR age. But it was also depressing at the same time. I know I know. I have issues. But it made me sad to reflect on why I was there. To relive my youth. To grasp at something that was not there any more.
Fortunately I very quickly consumed four cran-vodkas and I was my ol’ spunky self again. (You’ve got to know I am being a bit sarcastic about the whole being spunky part…)
If you just google, you will see that Duran Duran has fully embraced the 21st century and social media, and that means they are all over Twitter. Not only was live Twitter stream with the hashtag DuranLive projected on the screen before the show started, in the middle of the show, there was an official Twitter session!
Nick, can I wear your red scarf for 5 seconds?
#duranlive
Someone tweeted the girl in front of me is crazy. Am gonna assume that’s not me since im no longer a girl
#duranlive
In the end, it was awesome. It was awesome not because they reminded me of the gorgeous boys that they once were. I am not saying they are not handsome any more. They still are. If you’re born with great bone structures, unless you totally fucked yourself up with drug and alcohol, time will be kinder to you than to the rest of us. John Taylor for one is still rocking that square jaw. *shiver* And of course, I swear to god, even from the back of the theatre, I could see Nick with his mascaraed eyes and his red scarf being all fabulous and sexy. They put on a great show with great energies, and boy, can Simon sing. In fact, I came home and watched some of their old performances from the 1980s, and I think Simon sings even better now. There is experience in his voice and performance. Like matured wine. Yum. And John can still rock that bass. And Nick… Well. Nick lives forever. (You’ve got to allow me to retain some shameless teenage fangirl crushing…)
Of course, knowing most of the lyrics and being able to sing along made this an even more awesome night. I was glad I went and lived through some time-space discontinuum phenon: It’s surreal to see your band crush perform live on stage, even if there was a 25-plus-year time gap.
For one night the crowd shared a communal experience. We sang. We danced. We screamed. We partied with our teenage selves.
(And in my usual, annoying way, I have to add this:) Then we went back to our normal lives. Most likely in the suburbs. Hopefully this stays with us a bit longer…
Pictures of poor quality below and video compilation of even poorer quality after the jump.
