Wrap Up From The iHeart Radio Music Festival

By Cindy Robinson

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).

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iHeart Radio Festival 2015 Adds Jennifer Lopez

 

 

 

 

 

This week after legendary rockers The Who cancelled their North American tour dates due to Roger Daltery falling ill, including their appearance at the 2015 iHeart Radio Festival in Las Vegas September 18th and 19th, 2015 organizers added Jennifer Lopez to the stellar lineup which already includes Sam Smith, Duran Duran, Coldplay, Nick Jonas, The Weeknd, Demi Lovato, hometown boys The Killers, Janet Jackson a nd many more. The Daytime Village includes appearances from Nick Jonas and Demi Lovato along with rising star Shawn Mendes, Walk The Moon, Tove Lo, George Ezra and Echo Smith.

Stop by Ticketmaster to see what tickets might be left for the Friday & Saturday concerts at the MGM Grand or the Daytime Village at the iHeart Radio Festival on Saturday afternoon. There are also chances to win everywhere! Do a quick online search or tune into any iHeart radio station across the United States to win your chance to attend this one of a kind music festival in Las Vegas!

Images courtesy of iHeart Media

Life Is Beautiful Coming to Las Vegas

The larger than life festival is heading to downtown Las Vegas in just a few weeks, running from September 25th-27th. Have you grabbed your tickets?

The music lineup is vast & varied including: Stevie Wonder, Imagine Dragons, Kendrick Lamar, Duran Duran, Hozier, Snoop Dogg, Weezer, Major Lazer, Death Cab for Cutie, Chance the Rapper, Brandon Flowers, Kygo, Atmosphere, Twenty One Pilots, Knife Party, Porter Robinson, Thievery Corporation, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Metric, AWOLNATION, Walk The Moon, Carnage, Run The Jewels, Rebelution, Madeon, Future Islands, Robin Schulz, SOJA, GRiZ, Royal Blood, Glass Animals, Lindsey Stirling, Clean Bandit, Best Coast, BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah, Audien, The Green, TCHAMI, Ab-Soul, Against Me!, SZA, Dan Deacon, Meg Myers, Claude VonStroke, New Politics, Two Gallants, Halsey, Shamir, Cashmere Cat, Ryn Weaver, What So Not, Big Data, The Magician, JAUZ, Saint Motel and many more.

Check out the Life Is Beautiful festival site for each day’s lineup. You can buy three-day festival passes or grab single day tickets if you can’t stay for the entire weekend. The full scoop on the types & prices for tickets can be found here.

The festival also has a massive line up of culinary delights with a variety of food trucks, food vendors and celebrity chefs offering their mouth-watering treats throughout the weekend.

There will be art for your viewing pleasure in between musical sets and guest speakers promoting a force for good including Bill Nye (the Science Guy!).

Which day(s) are you attending? Who are you most stoked to see? Leave us some comments below on who you are excited to see perform live! Come back and share some photos and reviews of the best aspects of the weekend.

Duran Duran’s Influence in the Ordinary World

Duran Duran 2014, image courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/duranduran

by Cindy Robinson

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.

Image courtesy of Duran Duran store http://www.duranduranstore.com/

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!

Duran Duran’s John Taylor to receive Experience, Strength and Hope Award

Duran Duran‘s John Taylor is set to receive the 4th annual Writers In Treatment Experience, Strength and Hope Award Friday, February 15, 2013 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, CA.

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.

Robert Downey Jr. attends the Avengers world premiere, Hollywood, CA
© 2012 Cindy Robinson

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.

 

John Taylor In the Pleasure Groove

Bass Player Live! 2012 hosted Duran Duran‘s John Taylor in an interview with journalist Tom Sykes followed by a reading, Q and A session and book signing in support of his just released autobiography, In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran at SIR Studios over the weekend in Hollywood, CA.

From Dutton, “With Duran Duran, John Taylor has created some of the greatest music of our time. From the disco dazzle of debut single ‘Planet Earth’ right up to their latest number one album, All You Need is Now, Duran Duran has always had the power to sweep the world onto its feet.

It’s been a ride – and for John in particular, the ride has been wild, thrilling… and dangerous. Now, for the first time, he tells his incredible story. A tale of dreams fulfilled, lessons learned and demons conquered.

A shy only child, Nigel John Taylor wasn’t an obvious candidate for pop stardom and frenzied girl panic. But when he ditched his first name and picked up a bass guitar, everything changed. John Formed Duran Duran with his friend Nick Rhodes in the summer of 1978, and they were soon joined by Roger Taylor, then Andy Taylor and finally Simon Le Bon. Together they were an immediate, massive global success story, their pictures on millions of walls, every single a worldwide hit.

In his frank, compelling autobiography, John recounts the highs –hanging out with icons like Bowie, Warhol and even James Bond; dating Vogue models and driving fast cars – all the while playing hard with the band he loved. But there were tough battles ahead – troubles that brought him to the brink of self-destruction – before turning his life around.

Told with humor, honesty and hard-won wisdom, and packed with exclusive pictures, In the Pleasure Groove is a fascinating, irresistible portrait of a man who danced into the fire… and came through the other side”

Below is a selection of images from the event.

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The book is available now via Amazon in hard cover, paperback and Kindle versions. Barnes & Noble also offers an e-book for Nook and of course Apple offers it for every “i” device known to Duran kind – iTunes, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch. Don’t forget the independent book sellers in your city either! I grabbed my copy from the historic Hollywood book seller, Book Soup. Why not pick a few copies for friends and start crossing items off the Christmas list?

John Taylor continues his promotional tour for the book this week in Los Angeles with additional stops listed below. Don’t miss your chance to have this tale of rock & roll signed by the author himself!

10/24- Los Angeles, CA @ Book Soup at Cinespace (Book Signing, Interview and Audience Q&A, with book co-author Tom Sykes)
10/25- San Francisco, CA @ San Francisco Art Institute (Book Signing, Interview and Audience Q&A)
10/26- Austin, TX @ The Scottish Rite Theater (Book Signing, Interview and Audience Q&A)
10/29- Toronto, ON, CAN @ Indigo Bookstore (Book Signing, Interview and Audience Q&A)
10/30- Chicago, IL @ City Winery Chicago (Book Signing, Interview and Audience Q&A)

Duran Duran Heats Up the Crowd at Pacific Amphitheatre

by Cindy Robinson

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.

Another Honor for Duran Duran – Headlining the Olympics

by Jade Robledo

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.

2011 in Photos – A Look Back at Bruno Mars, Duran Duran, INXS and U2

by Cindy Robinson

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?

2011 in Photos, posted with vodpod

World Photography Day 2011

Simon Le Bon

Today is World Photography Day. The date of August 19th was chosen as the day to celebrate the birth of the fabulous art form that allows us to document our lives, our triumphs, our difficult times, our work and our world as it is the historic day in 1839 when Louis Daguerre developed the first permanent photographic image known as the Daguerreotype. It was a process which allowed him to print a positive image, which were then usually placed in glass fronted boxes for display. He developed the process in early 1839 but it wasn’t formalized by the French government until August 19, 1839.

Also in 1839, William Fox Talbot developed the calotype process, which created both a negative image, allowing prints to be made of the positive image. Talbot’s process took photogrphy a step further than Daguerre’s since it allowed for both a negative and a positive. His process wasn’t formalized until 1841 but since both were developed in 1839, it is the year recognized as the invention of photography.

What does a photograph mean to you? Why do you take them and what feeling does it evoke from you when you witness the result? Do you take photos of your kids first day at school, graduations and weddings? Are you inspired by sunsets and dramatic landscapes? How many photographers out there still dabble with film cameras? How has the digital age changed the art form?

Bonelli Park

Please leave some comments and post a favorite photo that is meaningful to you or share some links to great photography! Today I’ve chosen one of my shots of singer Simon Le Bon from the band Duran Duran from a performance in Los Angeles earlier in 2011.

I’ve also been inspired lately by Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas, California which offers stunning landscape views and here’s an image from a recent outing to the area.