Duran Duran in the USA – July 2003

The original Duran Duran line up of Simon Le Bon, Andy Taylor, Roger Taylor, John Taylor and Nick Rhodes returned to the United States on July 15, 2003 offering their first live performance here in 18 years. They played a warm up gig predominantly for industry people at the Roxy in Hollywood with hordes of fans sleeping over night on the sidewalk in hopes of getting tickets.

Our first show of three was Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, CA followed by two shows in the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas on Thursday, July 17 and Saturday, July 19, 2003. I was so nervous and excited at the thought of seeing all five of them together again. After all it had been 19 years since I had seen the original band perform live. We had secured fifth row seats after much searching on E-bay and Ticketmaster and swapping of tickets with other fans. The pre-sale was awful with a lot of people who have been fans of the band for 20 years getting nosebleed seats (hope this process gets smoothed out before the world tour). Other bands like Pearl Jam, David Bowie, INXS and Aerosmith have set up great systems for their fans to get pre-sale tickets and tour packages at reasonable costs. David Bowie has even done members only shows. Hint hint, we can't 'trust the process' when it isn't working very well.

© Cindy Robinson

Shortly after eight, the lights dimmed, the crowd roared and Duran Duran stepped onto the stage in front of us. We had perfect seats, located in the center. They all looked fabulous as they stood like statues for a moment allowing us to soak in their presence as the pulsing beat of Friends of Mine started in the background. What a perfect start to the show, reuniting old friends. They sounded great and looked even better. I think there were a lot of watery eyes that night as the crowd welcomed Andy, Roger & John back to the folds of Duran Duran. Simon's voice was good, still strong, Roger pounding the drums was amazing, Andy had awesome guitar solos, Nick was adorable and clever as always on keyboards and John…