All White On The Night
This article originally appeared in Cherry Lipstick fanzine in May 2001. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same. See if you can spot which is which as you enjoy this article.
The start of this fantastic night was, rightfully, in the pub – The Torch – beforehand. Loads of fans in the boozer from abroad. Getting a flight from Italy to London on this weekend must have been difficult. An hour or two of meeting Duranies from previous tours and also some new faces made it a promising start – though if any CL readers can tell me what the support band were like it be appreciated. It was a toss-up between the Vegastones and a lat pint of Guinness and … well, the black stuff won.
Thanks at this stage need to to to Solo the ticketing agency, for selling tickets to hard core fans for a fortnight before they went on general sale. This enabled this contributor to get a decent seat, and also greatly helped the atmosphere for the concert as most diehards were grouped together. Well done whoever made that decision!
As for the real business, a little after 9pm the lights dimmed and Nick lead the band onto the stage. (Actually he sauntered on). Second later, the main man followed in rather more dynamic mode. His white suit seemed to come straight from the Hungry Like The Wolf video, but it worked well as the other band member were all wearing dark clothes, and with the also dark backdrop, Simon really stood out.
As Duran have been playing a roughly similar set list for 18 months now, CL readers will be familiar with the songs. But the small changes for each show didn’t include Late Bar, to my disappointment.
There were plenty of other highlights: The Pop Trash songs (which were good enough to persuade a lapsed ‘80s fan to go and buy the album the next day). Too Much Information went down well due to being buried amongst a load of hits at the tail-end of the show. [Any song played between A View To A Kill and Wild Boys is pretty likely to get a good reaction].
After the lack-lustre Earls Court show last December, the band were much more on form. The show didn’t suffer from missing The Reflex, but it would have been great to have heard The Chauffeur. However, we were sent on our way with Notorious, Rio and Girls On Film. And when you chuck in Ordinary World, Save A Prayer and Planet Earth, you really do have an unbeatable set list.
I enjoyed Simon chatting to his Mum in the audience, the balloons and interactive graphics. Wembley was also quite relaxed about dancing in the aisles and allowing drinks into the arena. It all added up to my favourite London show since the Krush Brothers in ’88. I can’t wait for them to return – all hail the mighty Duran!