As The Lights Go Down

"Up Close" Uproar: The Boa Goes To Orlando...

March this year I decided to take on a crazy idea of some of my Duranie mates and go to the US to see Duran Duran in the "Up Close" tour. Due to various work commitments I ended up going without them, much to their dismay, with a non-Duranie friend of mine and... Daisy (After reading about some scientists who had been playing Duran music to cows to increase milk production I routed Daisy out of my closet! Daisy was a joke present I had been given for Christmas as my job is also cow related.) Daisy became my partner in crime, donned with her own feather boa and a "Sing Moo Silver" request for The Chauffeur!

Day 1 was an eye opener, not used to standing venues we began queuing from 11am, which we found wasn't exactly necessary to be near the front. But we didn't mind, it gave us the opportunity to meet all the US fans, who were all a good laugh if a little more outrageous than the UK fans. There was an array of zebra stripes, leopard prints, Stetsons (of the same prints), they all had bags of teddy bears and a variety of underwear to throw on stage too! Not to mention the signs they were happily creating whilst waiting in the queue. The boa, Daisy and I felt quite at home!!

Security were well organised (better than the Bournemouth fiasco if anyone remembers! - how could we forget... - ed.), however, they were that good we weren't allowed to take any photographs inside the venue, bummer! There was no support act (hooray!) but we did have to listen to a strange tape consisting of bizarre circus music and Julie Andrews! I wasn't too bothered with that; I was too busy attaching my pink neon wig (to match the boa of course)! This ended up being a complete waste of time as it promptly fell off as soon as Silva Halo started, and consequently my first memories of the concert was scrabbling about on the floor, oops!

Set list as follows: Silva Halo, Union of the Snake, Planet Earth, Playing with Uranium, Come Undone, Hallucinating Elvis, Hungry like the Wolf, Girls on Film, Lady Xanax, I Don't Want Your Love, White Lines, Mars meets Venus, All She Wants Is, Skin trade, View To A Kill, Wild Boys, Ordinary World, Rio.

In consistency with Bournemouth boa antics Daisy made her mighty leap during Come Undone! I think Nick and Wes appreciated the "cow" joke although they could have been laughing at the fact that I just about missed Nick's head! Throwing Daisy seemed to be a signal for all the others at the front to throw their things and all of a sudden Simon was dodging at least 10 furry missiles! Even more hilarious later on when Simon had some fun with a zebra print jock strap!

Highlight just had to be Lady Xanax, the first and probably the last time it will be performed live and absolutely amazing to hear.

Also can't forget to report the White Lines "kiss" between Simon and Nick, a much talked about topic in recent months. Those guys are too funny! Simon also kissed Alex (stage manager - the guy who's birthday it was), he obviously likes getting into his new stage act!