Nobody tell the building inspector but the Fillmore might be missing its roof. Duran Duran held a very public rehearsal for its big Coachella gig at the famed San Francisco venue on Saturday and from where we were standing it definitely felt like they tore the sucker off.
The band regaled the sold out crowd who had waited in line for up to seven hours with ecstatic renditions of songs from its early '80s imperial phase -- "Girls On Film," "Hungry Like The Wolf," "Wild Boys" -- and a handful of surprisingly decent tracks from its latest Mark Ronson-produced album, "All You Need Is Now."
Having properly reunited six years ago after various lineup changes, the members of Duran Duran effectively skipped over the decades of filler that came in between (with the exception of "Ordinary World"), delivering a lean, hit-heavy set that was greeted with nonstop wails, falling tears and flying panties.
Better still, the guys appeared far livelier and more engaged than they did two years ago when they took the very same stage; despite a breakneck promotional schedule that had them playing a pair of radio shows, doing a record signing and shaking lots of hands while in town for just two days.
Before launching into "Notorious," singer Simon Le Bon reminisced about Duran Duran's first gig in San Francisco at the long defunct Haight Street nightclub the I-Beam some 30 years earlier.
"I said, 'If you all move up and down at the same time you're going to have a better time of it' and everybody agreed," he recalled. "I think you should do the same thing now."
Really, who could resist?
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