I'm home. It was a great 5 days and I'm so glad I got to make the trip. Here's the rundown with a review of the shows.
Tuesday - A travel day, nothing to really report. It was a smooth flight though the 5 hour trip from my connection in Philly to Vegas was too long. I was stuck in a window seat next to two brothers and they started grating on me after a while with their big brother/little brother bickering. No biggie though a quick "evil eye" glare was all it took to calm them back down.
Wednesday - got off to a slow start. Cait went in to work and I hung out with Elsie. We had a great time. I love talking to Elsie and we can talk for hours. I completely forget she is Cait's mom and we just talk like friends. She is extremely smart and always teaches me something new. The trip from Vegas to LA made me nervous, we got a late start and I had flashbacks to 1989 when Brie and I missed the first part of the Duran Duran show in Berkeley. We got there at 7:30 (show started at 8:00).
The first show; The Pacific Ampitheater - Costa Mesa Fairgrounds
We had fantastic seats little above stage level on Andy and Nick's side. I was dissapointed there was no real stage set, just their equipment and Nick and Roger on basic platforms. Surprisingly they started only 10 minutes late... quite a feat in the world of Duran Duran and we attribute that to Andy who likes everything to run smoothly and precisely. The set list was a duplicate of the Nagoya, Japan set with some resequencing.
FRIENDS OF MINE
HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF
PLANET EARTH
COME UNDONE
WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW
NEW RELIGION
VIRUS
WHITE LINES
WAITING FOR THE NIGHT BOAT
IS THERE SOMETHING I SHOULD
SAVE A PRAYER
ORDINARY WORLD
VIEW TO A KILL
REACH UP FOR THE SUNRISE
NOTORIOUS
WILD BOYS
CARELESS MEMORIES
RIO
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REFLEX
GIRLS ON FILM
The website claims they did a song called "STILL BREATHING" but they did not. The highlight of the show for me was "Careless Memories". The entire backdrop of the set was a projection screen that really didn't get used to full effect. On a couple of songs they would project live video from the show as it was happening, a few others had some premade visuals, but Careless Memories had this montage of images from their early videos and it was amazing. I'm sure I'm not the only one that felt like I was seeing 21 years of my life flashing by. Very intense. It was by no means a perfect show. Simon's voice wasn't in very good shape and it caused him to butcher "A View To A Kill" the song is difficult for him to sing when he is in good voice, with his voice in bad shape it just makes you cringe. They dropped it for the second show.
After the show we headed up to Inglewood to see Darryl. We stayed up until 3:30 am catching up. He had to leave for work at 6:30 am so it was really amazing that he stayed up for us. It was great to see him, it had been several years for me. The next morning we got up and headed back to Vegas.
The second show - The Joint - Hard Rock Hotel Casino, Vegas
Exact same set as the night before minus A View To A Kill (thank goodness). The venue was much smaller and indoors, but the sound was still muddy with Nick's synth's rarely heard to make it worse John's bass (which had been the highlight of the Costa Mesa show) was lost in the mix as well. The backdrop projections didn't work as well either, the stage light were too bright and too close to the screen. I was also tired, my legs hurt standing the whole time. Proving they were indeed still the same band they started the show nearly 45 minutes late. Still the crowd was enthusiastic and the band enjoyed themselves. The highlight was Simon who managed to sing the entire first verse of "Wild Boys" completely out of key. Andy tried singing into his ears as did John to get him back, but it didn't work. He seemed like a little kid lost with no clue how to get back in key.
I know I'm jaded. The band got so much right (they played a 2 hours set for the first time since 1988. The set list was good (playing 3 new songs was a bad idea, especially since they aren't really good songs and lack the energy of most of the set) I would have loved to seen them drop my least favourite "Reach Up For the Sunrise" with something like "The Chauffeur" or another track off of Seven and the Ragged Tiger" (they only did "The Reflex"). As someone who has seen them a lot (these were my 11th and 12th shows) I can attest to the fact that there is an energy between the original 5 that is unique. Andy and John especially bring something unique to the live show.
After the show we hung around the Hard Rock for a while, then headed over to Mandalay Bay, but we were both worn out so we headed back out to Cait's house.
Friday - We had only two goals; all-you-can-eat Sushi and getting Cait her first tattoo. We did our usual rounds, heading over to Treasure Island which is being refashioned from a family resort to the a Gen X hang out "TI" they have closed the pirate show for retooling it's gong to have girls in it now and is called something like "Song of the Sirens" or something silly like that. We went over the to Virigin Megastore inside Caesar's Forum. We just sat there and read magazines and made snide comments about the vast overpricing on their CDs and DVDs. For dinner we went over to the Aladdin and went to Todai Japanese buffet. I over ate, but still didn't feel it was worth the $27.95 price tag. From there it was off to Pair-A-Dice Tattoo, were Brie got her Lotus Bloom three years ago. Mo' is still there, but we had another person do Cait's tattoo. It's the Duran Duran logo that is a play on the James Bond logo it was used on the "A View To A Kill" artwork. It looks really great. I'll have pictures up in the photogallery soon. From there we went over to the Rio to see the parade in the sky. It was fun, cheap entertainment.
The next morning it was breakfast at Kahunaville in Treasure Island then the flight home.
Posted by John at July 20, 2003 04:04 PM