Every once in a while, this job has perks — like getting someone on a VIP list to, say, meet her absolute favorite band in the world, composed of musicians and music she has obsessed over and which now holds the key to her much-treasured youth. (And, getting to publish an article about it.)
But you didn’t have to be a member of the press to rub shoulders with (or at least tap the shoulders of) members of the reunited, true-blue Double D — the 1980s British dream band of many a Philly girl, and boy — at the kickoff of the group’s truncated, small-venue North American tour last weekend.
It wasn’t like two decades ago, when the then-20-something boys had to escape through underground tunnels and the like to avoid the hysteria of truly hysterical fans like me and my pals — who could become quite dangerous when denied our Duran.
But on Saturday, the Borgata in Atlantic City lived up to its ad hype and indeed became my happy place — and that of hundreds of other starstruck fans, mostly 30-somethings who loved the band back in the day and stuck with them for more than two decades, even through musician changes and new musical courses.
There’s nothing like an original, though, and a few hundred salivating fanatics, digital cameras and picture-taking cell phones poised, gathered ’round the blackjack tables that afternoon to await the arrival of the Fab Five — Simon le Bon, Nick Rhodes and John, Andy and Roger Taylor (not blood brothers, but no matter) — for a few hands against some very lucky radio-contest winners. The rest of us were thisclose, and those of us who could speak (I was not among that select few, journalism training be damned) got to offer such advice as, "Push, push!" and "Double-down!" to the guys, who took it in stride as they largely proceeded to lose the casino’s money.
The oblivious Borgata babes and bouncers didn’t know what hit them.
The guys then roamed about the casino if not freely, certainly less reservedly than their celebrity should have permitted. Fans reported sightings near elevators, restaurants, the tour buses and in the lobby. This paparazza ran up a flight of stairs to snap them as they were getting off an escalator — and then had a hard time lifting and pointing the camera while she wheezed for lack of oxygen. (The lungs have seen better breathing in the ’80s, apparently.)
Longtime fans who knew what it was like two decades ago could only describe such open access as surreal.
But for me, the most dreamlike portion was the after-party at a casino nightclub, when a few hordes of us were funneled into a private area in which the band members were just hanging around, talking to whomever and having a bite to eat. And then …
… It’s a long story that seems to get longer as I tell it to more people. Conversations with the Durans that may have lasted mere minutes went on for hours, in retrospect. I must’ve gotten enough one-on-one for a biography; at least that’s the impression I seem to be giving anyone who will listen.
In fact, finally and unexpectedly faced with my favorite Duran, drummer Roger Taylor, I could only muster the guts to ask about the fans and his family — that last part being ironic, as I tried to OD on St. Joseph’s baby aspirin when he got married 19 years ago. (I left that part out of our chat.) But he was so cordial and relaxed, I quickly warmed up to a photo and an autograph — and later even told him where to find the bathroom.
We were kicked out at midnight and the "real" VIPs were admitted to the guarded area (excuse me for not being one of the queer eyes for the straight guys). But at brunch the next morning, lead singer Simon just happened to stride into the restaurant, and I just happened to be seated in front of him (no stalking this time, I swear). Buoyed by my patient-but-rather-annoyed-by-this-point fianc� (he’d surely put up with enough), I approached Monsieur le Bon after he paid his check and took a seat. Desperately seeking speech, I blurted out, "You guys were great last night, but I saw the show at Webster Hall [in New York City, Aug. 29] and you seemed to jell a lot better there." (Hey, I pose the tough questions.)
Thank goodness he agreed with me. The thought of having delivered a negative critique to this 6-foot-plus lyricist admittedly known for his ego still makes me shudder a bit. But he took it in stride: "Well, you saw how many times I f—ed up last night. I mean, I kept forgetting the words to the songs."
Glad he mentioned it first, ’cause I just might have as I flailed about for intelligent verb form.
Speaking of the show, that’s the reason for this Duran season — a reunion mini-tour that hopefully will garner a record deal with a new record label. Given their still-existent stage exuberance and obvious click with each other — and full heads of hair in their 40s, to boot — they’d have been crazy not to capitalize on such an opportunity, especially when the fans have been hungry like their proverbial wolf for it.
Now that we’re older, more open-minded and have better-refined musical tastes and, purportedly, more disposable income, we can appreciate the five guys of Duran Duran even more than we did in their original heyday — when we had nothing but time and a few bucks to blow on the latest edition of Teen Beat, with its pull-out posters of the group.
The 17-song concerts at both the Borgata and at Upper Darby’s Tower Theater on Monday just whetted the fans’ appetites for the new album in the winter and the promised arena tour in the summer. At the Tower, my ribcage wasn’t keeping me from pressing toward the stage; the Nazi ushers were. (Why did they have to do their job so well on this night?) They knew what to expect; they were around in the ’80s. And they were beating us back with a vengeance.
The band sparkled with energy and collusion, and had worked out the technical glitches it had experienced in the two nights before in Atlantic City and a show in Washington, D.C. The fans fed off their high voltage and circled around like sharks, trying to out-jockey the jerky security personnel. Duran Duran delivered plenty of old favorites — many of which were never released on radio — and a couple of new tunes whose potential became immediately apparent.
The last time this original lineup had played Philly was at Live Aid, in July 1985. (My parents just had to whisk me off to Italy that summer.) The interim 18 years held personal and professional highs and lows for each one of the Durans, but they came back to their fans kicking and screaming, inspiring much of the same in us.
Only the sense of smell can compete with sound as a memory-jogger. For those of us in the Duran Duran community of fans around the world, their sound is the happy noise of our youth, and their music triggers the smells of the era that propelled us — into professional careers, into confident adults, into normal lives, into loyal allegiances. As far as teenaged obsessions go, we could have done a lot worse.
I met some of my dearest and most enduring friends through the commonality of Duran. We used to celebrate the band members’ birthdays together as if they were our own, complete with Carvel ice-cream cakes (and, when possible, shaped like the instruments they played). Now, through our hectic adult lives, we make it a point to at least gather to celebrate our own birthdays — but our own little DD reunion is in the works, maybe in time for guitarist Andy Taylor’s February birthday.
My fianc�, God love him, endured the whole wacky Duran weekend in Atlantic City and, though he’s reluctant to admit it, enjoyed the show and the music and the partial-VIP treatment. But in the end, he still said, "I just don’t get it."
I really can’t explain it other than to say, "You just had to be there in the ’80s."
