Review: Duran Duran - SECC, Glasgow

EVEN though their fans are no less keen to relive their formative pop experiences, Duran Duran have always pitched themselves a cut above their nostalgia-evoking peers with their insistence on giving their latest material as much weight as the hits from their 1980s heyday.

They never stint on the show, always offering a quality pop production which gives them an edge, if not the definitive killer set they are more than capable of delivering.

Visuals and music have always gone hand-in-hand for Duran Duran, and although they’re no longer leaders in the field they continued to make the effort with this handsomely appointed show, watched over by large moulded masks on to which the faces of the four remaining original members were projected, creating their own playful Mt Rushmore.

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Each song was accompanied by a video concept – an anime cartoon for Careless Memories, a Mondrian collage for Notorious and a supermodel supergroup for Girl Panic! This latter number, a glossy but vacuous shadow of a pastiche of classic Duran, was representative of the material aired from their current album All You Need Is Now.

They remain a lovable bunch – Nick Rhodes, the David Bowie-loving chameleon of old sounding more like a plummy old scholar as he extolled the achievements of James Watt. Even the way Simon Le Bon persistently overreached his vocal abilities commands a certain affection.

But this would be small consolation without the pop armoury of a back catalogue which, despite being a product of its time, has aged remarkably gracefully – even strained Bond theme A View To A Kill sounded beefy with the benefit of hindsight, while there was no arguing with the electro pop credentials of Planet Earth, the singalong appeal of The Reflex and Hungry Like The Wolf and the celebratory lift of Rio.

RATING: ***

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