Duran Duran Live in Dublin - Phoenix Park

After about 25 years or so, I saw Duran Duran yesterday. While they are not one of my all time favourite bands, I have always liked their music. It was a good show, although a bit short.

First the venue. It was surprisingly good for what is effectively a circus tent! For those of you not from Dublin, let me explain. These type of concerts are usually held at The Point, which is famous because sometime in the 90's, the first performance of Riverdance happen there as part of the Eurovision song contest, and more recently, as the venue where the first official R.E.M. live album was recorded. But I digress, you can read all about it in the Wikipedia.

The Point is undergoing a massive renovation, so they have this temporary site in the Phoenix Park. It is only a few minutes away from my house, there is plenty of parking in the park itself, and it was generally very comfortable. Despite the fact that yesterday was a cold damp night, and the concert was effectively in a Park, my shoes were not mucky at the end of the show... that says it all.

Now the negatives. The show was scheduled for 8:00 PM, Duran Duran did not come out until 9:00, and there was no support act!!! And it was a short set. Only 90 minutes, including 1 encore.

For the last few shows, including the one in London last week, they had been playing Red Carpet Massacre in full, followed by a few of the oldies. Yesterday they only played 6 out of the 12 new songs, and they only added two of their back catalogue, admittedly two good ones. But they didn't play my favourite song of the new album (She's too much). Here is the setlist:

• The Valley
• Red Carpet Massacre
• Nite Runner
• Hungry Like the Wolf
• Notorious
• Falling Down
• Skin Divers
• Tempted
• Rio
• Reflex
• Ordinary World
• Shame
• Planet Earth
• A View to a Kill
• Sunrise
• Wild Boys
  
  
• Girls on Film

The band came out at 9:00 PM all dressed in black. They looked funny uniformed, almost like a school band. They immediately started with The Valley, and played the first 3 songs of the new album. After a little pause, they launched into Hungry Like the Wolf, and that's when the crowd went nuts! They sounded really good. I was particularly impressed with John Taylor's bass work as it seemed effortless. Simon LeBon can still hit the high notes, but he missed quite a few! I think they did the right thing by mixing old and new songs. The crowd would have lost interest had they played the album in full.

Having said that , people reacted well to the new material, and was really into it for the old ones. My favourite one yesterday was Rio. All in all, it was a good show. I could have done with a few more songs. I really missed Serious, which I know they played earlier in the year.

A good show for a Wednesday evening!