Duran Duran

Friday night, we saw Duran Duran in Wilmington NC. The show was literally in a large parking lot down by the river. It was on a nicely-sloped parking hillside, so there wasn't a bad space in the lot. And even in such an unglamorous setting, the band is still slick and fun to watch. Don't know how many people were there, but it felt like a pretty big crowd.

They played most of their old hits, of course.

Several times I found myself trying to figure out who was playing the music I was hearing. Something was playing the basic low bass stuff, somewhere, while John Taylor smiled and waved at the audience in between his signature slap-n-pop riffs. Probably the keyboard player? The drummer seemed to be playing along with drum machine/taped drum tracks. Pre-recorded vocal tracks backed-up the back-up singers. Once I started noticing the other stuff, I couldn't help but watch Simon LeBon like hawk, to see if he was lip-syncing or not - I don't think he was. His voice still sounds good.

They did a quick Bowie tribute as part of 'Planet Earth', which was nice.