Honestly, I don’t completely read most articles on Duran Duran these days (even though I’m a lifelong fan) because I already know most of the information being shared, it’s someone being slanderous toward the band or a fan complaining about the injustice of their Duranie fan life. I skim the articles. Yes, I’m a skimmer unless it really grabs my attention and today this article on Duran Duran by Ariane Sherine grabbed me. I read the entire thing!
I’ve read many thoughts over the years since the song “Ordinary World” was released at the end of 1992 about how it has saved people from their dismal existence and given them hope for a better life to come but Ariane’s story was a little different. In fact, she was downright bullied by her peers and sought refuge in a band that was beyond her generation’s interest. As fate would have it, she fell into friendship with Duran Duran over time and judging by her article, they gave her inspiration and encouragement to pursue her dreams.
Her story was engaging because it wasn’t filled with the sensational details, merely a story of some nice guys she met who mentored her, offered friendship and also happen to be musicians in one of the world’s biggest bands of the 80’s. It offered a human perspective on the tribulations of being a teenager and the softer side of musicians as mere humans. While her big break to appear on their Pop Trash album never happened, and she felt slighted (which is a common entertainment industry happening – promises of things which never come to fruition, or powers that be axe an idea or song) she found her footing in writing instead and succeeded.
Parts of it felt a little familiar to me as my dream has always been to become a major photographer but as life often does, it throws you curveballs and things don’t go the way you dreamt they would. Having children and no longer being married dictated the need for a regular, constant paycheck in my world so photography went on the back burner, a passion to be enjoyed and pursued when time allowed.
While Ariane never got her album credit, I do have mine. I was fortunate to have one of my live photos of John Taylor included in the CD artwork for his 2002 solo CD Metafour, my image is the 4th from the left in the photo to the left of this text. As I write this, I don’t have all of my resources in front of me to grab the image with the photo credit but it’s there (and if I have time to update later, I will add it).
And conversely, I can also relate to feeling a little slighted. In 2011, I attended a Duran Duran concert in Los Angeles that was being taped for future use and was also broadcast live to millions of viewers around the globe on YouTube. By the time the concert ended, my phone was buzzing like a bomb about to explode as messages came in from friends around the world that had seen me in the front row during the broadcast of the David Lynch directed extravaganza that became Duran Duran UNSTAGED. In November of 2013, Duran Duran UNSTAGED was screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The band presented it to an ecstatic audience. Wait, I was part of an art exhibition and didn’t receive my red carpet invitation? Well, it isn’t like I performed on stage with them like special guests Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Mark Ronson, Kelis and Beth Ditto of Gossip did but I am seen a handful of times throughout the art film along with a plethora of people I know! The movie has gone on to be screened in many European cities, across the United States and I believe there is even a screening coming up in Russia soon! Also, beginning on October 14, 2014 you can watch Duran Duran’s UNSTAGED from your own home as it will be available On Demand nationwide in the U.S. and Canada so I’m (OK, we!) are coming to a TV near you in the next couple of weeks! While I’ve traveled the globe with them in their movie over the last year and will be popping up on TV screens everywhere in the coming weeks, I, and many others didn’t get any credit in the film but it sure was fun being there!
Duran Duran are also finishing up their latest studio album, due out in 2015 so be sure to check in on Duran Duran at their Facebook page to find out when it will be available on iTunes and when the band will hit the road to tour in support of it!
The award honors well-known individuals who have written courageous and honest memoirs about their journey from addiction to recovery. The annual charity event is a celebration of the benefits of clean and sober living and the importance of humor in the recovery process. All proceeds benefit Writers In Treatment’s Jewelle Sturm Memorial Scholarship Fund.
The Duran Duran bassist released his memoir, “In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death & Duran Duran” last year and took readers on a journey through his upbringing in Birmingham, England as an only child, his worldwide success with Duran Duran and his spiral into drugs & alcohol as he dealt with the pressures of life in the fast lane and his subsequent stint in rehab and recovery process.
The award will be presented by Academy Award nominee, Iron Man star and fellow recoveree, Robert Downey, Jr. who actively practices the martial art of Wing Chun Kung Fu in his recovery process along with great wit and humor when discussing the subject with media.
Award-winning actor and activist Ed Begley, Jr. will host along with Ione Skye and a performance by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait.
Past honorees include astronaut Buzz Aldrin and Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. New Directions for Women is co-sponsoring the event.
John Taylor is due back in the studio with Duran Duran band mates in March 2013 to begin work on the bands next album with super producer Mark Ronson.
Robert Downey, Jr. is back as Tony Stark in Iron Man 3 blasting into a theater near you on May 3, 2013. He will also reunite with the cast of the Avengers, including Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo to present at the Oscars on February 24th.
Fresh off their performance in London’s Hyde Park at the opening of the 2012 Summer Olympics, Duran Duran returned to the Pacific Amphitheatre over the weekend to close out the Orange County Fair’s summer concert series. The sold out show brought legions of fans in to see the band perform on the final leg of their All You Need Is Now tour.
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The hot August night only got hotter as the band launched into a tight set of their greatest hits including early tracks such as Girls on Film, Planet Earth and the only occasionally dusted off fan favorite, Careless Memories, which sent the crowd of hard-core Duranies into a frenzy. Duran Duran continued the journey through their 30 year career thrilling the audience with 90’s gems like Ordinary World, Come Undone and the Grandmaster Flash cover, White Lines.
The set was also heavily peppered with tracks from their latest album, All You Need Is Now including the title track, audience favorite, Girl Panic! and the Man Who Stole a Leopard.
The band continues across the United States throughout the month of August with the remaining dates listed below:
August 15, 2012 Tulsa, OK, Duran Duran at The Joint inside Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tulsa, OK
August 17, 2012, Memphis, TN, Duran Duran at the Memphis Botanical Gardens in Memphis, TN
August 18, 2012, Biloxi, MS, Duran Duran in Biloxi, MS at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
August 19, 2012, Atlanta, GA, Duran Duran at Chastain Park in Atlanta, GA
August 21, 2012, Durham, North Carolina, Duran Duran at DPAC in Durham, North Carolina
August 22, 2012, Portsmouth, VA, Duran Duran at Telos Wireless Pavilion in Portsmouth, VA
August 24, 2012, Mashantucket, CT, Duran Duran at MGM Grand at Foxwoods
August 25, 2012, Atlantic City, NJ, Duran Duran at Revel Ovation Hall in Atlantic City
August 26, 2012, Pittsburgh, PA, Duran Duran at Stage AE in Pittsburgh, PA
August 28, 2012, Kettering, OH, Duran Duran at the Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, OH
August 29, 2012, Highland Park, IL, Duran Duran at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, IL
August 31, 2012, Orillia, ONTARIO, Canada, Duran Duran at Casino Rama Entertainment Centre
September 01, 2012, Orillia, ONTARIO, Canada, Duran Duran at Casino Rama Entertainment Centre
Check Ticketmaster to see if there are any tickets left for your city. They put on a great live show you don’t want to miss!
Duran Duran have also just released their latest concert movie, A Diamond in the Mind out now on Blu-ray/DVD chronicling the first part of their All You Need Is Now Tour. The Blu-ray/DVD is available via Amazon.com and the live audio CD is out now on iTunes.
The band will take some well deserved time off after the tour wraps up at the end of the summer before heading back into the studio with producer Mark Ronson sometime next year.
In the meantime, fans can catch bassist John Taylor out on the road later this year promoting his auto-biography, In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran which is scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom in late September followed by an October release in the United States. You can pre-order the book now online, watch the Duran Duran Facebook page or follow John on Twitter to see which cities he will be visiting to sign copies of his book.
It is a GREAT time to be a Duranie. That is, a fan of Duran Duran.
First there was the release of the artwork for their upcoming DVD / CD, A Diamond in the Mind. Then there was the first date of the South American leg of the All You Need Is Now tour, a date in which the band was joined on stage by popular Brazilian singer Fernanda Takai for a duet of “Ordinary World.” Now the news from this morning.
It has been announced that Duran Duran was selected to perform at the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London on July 27th. As the United Kingdom consists of four different nations, it was decided that the opening ceremonies should consist of live performances from an act representing each part. Duran Duran were chosen for England, with Snow Patrol representing Northern Ireland, Stereophonics selected for Wales and Paolo Nutini on behalf of Scotland. Each act will perform a “greatest hits” set in front of 60,000 fans in Hyde Park, and countless others watching throughout the world.
For those who may want a bit more than one of their many hit songs from the past three decades, the tentative release date for A Diamond in the Mind is set for July 10th, 17 days before the Hyde Park show. Filmed at MEN Arena in Manchester, England on December 16th, the DVD / CD set showcases the band’s critically acclaimed 2011 release, All You Need Is Now, along with their older hits.
If you are lucky you will be able to catch the band live. Their upcoming dates can be found on their official site.
Here we are at the end of the first week of 2012 and I wanted to do a post on my favorite photos of 2011 from the various rock & roll events I attended last year. While the list was small in comparison to years past, I still had the opportunity to see some great live bands.
I feel like I’ve conquered the technology mountain to get to this little post I want to share with the world. Laptop software issues continue to plague me as do the internet connectivity issues (do we hear a New Year’s resolution here?? Solve the tech issues in 2012!) and when I finally made it over these hurdles, I learned that WordPress blogs typically don’t support embedding slide shows from Picnik. Say what? I battled computer issues, stayed up until wee hours working on my slide show and my blog won’t host it?
Thankfully the information superhighway quickly led me to information that allowed me to solve this issue. I discovered Vodpod which allows you to embed your Picnik slide show into your WordPress blog. Shazam! It isn’t perfect, it’s much smaller in scale than the original so I feel some detail is lacking but I’m happy I was able to embed it and share with readers.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Let’s get down to the subject at hand – 2011 in photos. Wow, narrowing down a plethora of images shot over the past year turned out to be a daunting task. I intended to pull just one image from each event but soon found that impossible as image after image drew me in. So I grabbed my favorites and went from there.
For me, 2011 included live shows from the likes of My Chemical Romance, Bruno Mars, Brian Setzer, Duran Duran, Honor Society (a band my daughter really enjoys who rose to fame as the opening band on the Jonas Brothers tour in 2009), INXS , a book signing by Guns n’ Roses Duff McKagan and the long postponed U2 at Angels Stadium show finally came to fruition!
My Chemical Romance were incredible as their live show is always an intense throbbing mass of music loving people. This was our first time seeing Bruno Mars and it definitely won’t be our last. His live show was amazing, just non-stop energy from start to finish. The audience was also amazing – a complete mash-up of every type, size and age of concert goer imaginable. Brian Setzer always puts on a great live show too!
Duran Duran are my favorite band so my opinion of them will always be biased and I always enjoy seeing them live! Their Unstaged performance directed by David Lynch at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles in early 2011 really kicked it up a notch though when they added a list of special guests for their show that included Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Beth Ditto of the Gossip and super producer Mark Ronson.
INXS breezed through the USA for a short summer tour before singer J.D. Fortune departed the band for a second time. INXS look to be back on track for 2012 though with their new Irish singer, Ciaran Gribbin. Youtube footage shows his performances to be of a more mellow variety with awkward dance moves but I’ll wait to fully assess the new line up until I see it for myself. He’s got big shoes to fill and it takes time to grow into a role of that magnitude.
Then there was U2! I think there are few people who would dispute the awesome spectacle that is a live U2 show. This show seemed especially sweet to me as I had originally purchased my tickets in November 2009 and the show ended up being postponed due to Bono’s emergency back surgery and subsequent recovery. Finally, in June of 2011, they rolled back into town and blew us all away. U2 with Lenny Kravitz were worth the wait!
It’s always hard to narrow down the list of favorite shows, to choose just one for the top spot. Even though my list was much shorter than normal for 2011 (darn bad economy!) it didn’t make things any easier. I know I can cross My Chemical Romance off the contenders list because their record release show at the House of Blues in Hollywood in November of 2010 was their best to date that I have seen.
After thinking long and hard about it, I narrowed down my top choices to U2 and Bruno Mars. U2 live is so much more than just a rock & roll concert but ultimately I’d have to award the top slot to singer Bruno Mars. It was refreshing to see an artist I hadn’t seen before and to be thoroughly excited and energized by the set.
What were some of your favorite shows you saw in 2011? Who are you looking forward to seeing live in 2012? Are we all jazzed for the return of Van Halen in 2012? 80’s icon Adam Ant is due to tour the USA for the first time in 15 years! Preliminary tour buzz shows his fans are coming out of the woodwork like crazy. INXS are set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their iconic Kick album. 2011 breakout band, Foster the People are scheduled to hit the road hard during 2012 moving up to larger venues as they trek across America. And it’s almost time for the big Coachella announcement! Who will they get for 2012?
When Duran Duran gets it right, they really get it right. The band kicked off their world tour at Stubb’s BBQ in Austin, TX last night to a crowd that left singing the band’s praises as part of the SXSW Music Festival.
The 80’s megastars have just begun to saturate the music market with their 13th album, All You Need Is Now, which is available now as a 9 track EP via iTuneswith the deluxe CD package coming to a store near you on March 22nd. You can also pre-order the deluxe version from Amazon now, with delivery expected the day of release.
Produced by Mark Ronson, their latest album takes the listener on a synthesizer infused journey down memory lane with Nick Rhodes to the height of 80’s pop music while the grooves of drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Taylor keep us dancing in modern times. Singer Simon Le Bon, who has often been criticized in the media for his quirky voice, sounds smooth & melodic, demonstrating his vocal skills and a voice that has stood the test of time.
As a producer Ronson carefully guarded the bands existing, unique sound while moving them forward into new territory at the same time. He doesn’t try to make a band sound like his own records.
Duran Duran will hit Los Angeles next week for a round of appearances on American TV shows the Ellen DeGeneres Show, Late Night with Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The band will also play a one-off concert in Los Angeles to kick off the 2nd season of the American Express Unstaged Concert Series which will be directed by critically acclaimed director David Lynch and broadcast live online courtesy of YouTube and Vevo.
All You Need Is Now
Duran Duran have proved their staying power with tickets to a handful of North American warm-up concerts selling out in mere minutes as the band criss-crosses the USA in preparation for their slot at the upcoming always sold out Coachella Music & Arts Festival in Indio, CA April 15-17, 2011. The massive music festival which annually draws approximately 90, 000 visitors to the California desert will also offer a live webcast of music acts throughout the weekend.
They will then head home to the UK & Europe for concerts in May and June, and a tour of Australia in December with more worldwide dates to be announced as they become available via Duran Duran’s website. You can also check in with Duran Duran’s Roger Taylor, John Taylor and Simon Le Bon on Facebook and Twitter as they check in from their daily lives, from rehearsals and on the road.
Duran Duran are currently doing promotional appearances around the globe to promote their latest album, All You Need Is Now, which is currently available in a 9 song EP on iTunes with a physical CD Deluxe Edition due out in the USA on March 22nd. The band will embark on a world tour in March including a stop at SXSW on March 16 to headline the Time Out showcase at Stubb’s and give a Featured Interview at the Austin Convention Center on March 17.
The band has also scheduled a stop in Los Angeles to visit the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 22nd. Limited tickets are available now for the TV show taping via the Tonight Show’s site.
Go to Thrillist’s contest page to sign up now! The winner will receive a VIP Trip to Austin during the SXSW Festival , March 14th-19th, featuring:
$500 Urban Outfitters Shopping Spree
(2) Roundtrip Tickets to Austin on Southwest Airlines
(2) Music Festival Badges
(5) Nights Deluxe Hotel Accommodations
VIP Access to Thrillist Austin’s Party @ Antone’s
Guaranteed Access to UO’s “Live in Austin 2011” Performances
Duran Duran are set to return to the stage with a number of tour dates set for May this year. The British band have revealed 11 dates where they will be performing across the UK. It’s the bands first tour of their homeland in a few years and looks to be a sellout. Fan club pre-sales begin later this week via the bands site.
The band featuring Simon le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and drummer Roger Taylor will begin their worldwide tour with a handful of special performances in the USA including the The VH1 Pepsi Super Bowl Fan Jam on February 3rd, in Grand Prairie, TX and the famous Southern California Coachella festival on April 17, 2011.
Duran Durans new album is called All You Need Is Now (produced by Mark Ronson) and is available now on iTunes. An extended edition physical CD is expected in March 2011. The 80’s hitmakers still have a massive fan base and have remained popular through the decades with great albums like the Wedding Album in the mid 90’s with the massive hit Ordinary World and more recently with the Astronaut album. Their new album All You Need Is Now looks destined to be another of their smash successes craftily blending sounds that could easily have come from their early hit album Rio while incorporating a modern twist to the music.
British band Duran Duran is offering up there latest single, All You Need Is Now for FREE via iTunes today! Hurry and download your copy now because it may be a limited time offer. The band will release their 13th studio album, All You Need Is Now via iTunes on December 21st, with a longer CD version available to fans early next year.
The Mark Ronson produced album has been generating a lot of buzz with talk that the super producer has taken the band back to the sounds of their Rio album.
Their last release, Red Carpet Massacre, seemed to be just that, a Timbaland massacre as he turned it into something he would put out rather than enhancing the sound of Duran Duran. To be fair though, the album did translate better as a live show.
Duran Duran has already begun some European promotion of the album with American promo slated to begin this week. They will be launching a full scale tour in 2011 to support All You Need Is Now. The 1st single has a catchy chorus and early previews of the album indicate it will be a strong album for Duran Duran definitely taking us back to the days of Rio and My Own Way.
The band is also running a contest via their Twitter. They recently tweeted these instructions “Tweet what you love about All You Need Is Now using #aynin. 5 tweeters will win the album FREE on Dec 21. Must follow this account to win.”
Last weekend the iHeart Radio Music Festival once again took over the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Two nights & a day of live music.It was an amazing weekend filled with such a variety of music that there had to be something there for everyone! Young artists like Sam Smith and Demi Lovato took the stage inbetween veteran acts like Coldplay, the Killers and Duran Duran. Jason Derulo glistened under the spotlight after losing his shirt and revealing his six pack abs. Lil Wayne even had the grannies in the audience hopping around. Newer acts like James Bay, Shawn Mendes, George Ezra and Walk the Moon made it worth a day outside in the Las Vegas heat. There was a country crooner each night for those who like that sort of music (or might enjoy a bathroom or beverage break).
jade
Life on the Scene
Life on the Scene 